A story is told of a man named Blondin who was a famous tightrope walker. He placed a tightrope across Niagara Falls and proceeded to walk across it with a wheelbarrow in front of him. When he reached the other side, he stepped down to the applause of the crowd.

He went up to members of the crowd and asked: “Do you believe that I can walk back on that rope without falling off?” “Yes” they each replied. “Do you really believe I can make it” he asked. “Yes” they replied. “We’ve just seen you do it” “Then get into the wheelbarrow.”

Nobody got into the wheel barrel. That is the difference between believing and trusting.

We might believe that Christ can provide for all our needs but stepping into the wheelbarrow means we are really prepared to trust him to provide those needs.

Pope John Paul didn’t have a very easy life as a young man. By 1942, when he was just 21, he was the last remaining member of his family. His mother died in 1929, his brother in 1932 and his father in 1941. On top of that he was forced to work in a quarry and then in a chemical factory to avoid being deported by the Nazis.

He could have despaired – but he didn’t. Instead, he heard the call of God and he trusted it – so much so that he trained clandestinely for the priesthood – when it was dangerous to do so in Poland.

He didn’t just believe God was calling him – he trusted God to look after him too. He got into the wheelbarrow!

I encourage you all today – put your hand into the hand of God.

Decide to bring to Jesus those fears that cripple you. Trust Him to look after them and show you the way. Get into the wheel barrel.

Prayer:

Dear God, Give us courage to get into the wheel barrel. Help us to trust you. Take away our fears and give us strength to face whatever life has in store for us. AMEN

Thought and Prayer for the Day
by
Rev. Dr. Gary Gannon

Sometimes, it is the power of fewer words contained in a letter, than its overall length, that seems to personally resonate with the reader. I witnessed this phenomenon recently in an Anglican morning prayer service.

Letters, or epistles, are the earliest documents in the New Testament and its most literary form. There are twenty-one separate letters contained in this part of the Holy Scriptures. One of the longest of these is the Letter of Paul to the Romans. It is comprised of sixteen chapters. However, what recently caught my eye on that morning was a three-verse passage found in the sixth chapter of that letter. These mere fifty-five words, also seen in the Christ our Passover prayer – (page 50 in the Book of Alternative Services of The Anglican Church of Canada) – summed up for me the power and wonder of the Eastertide season.  The passage, Romans 6: 9-11, reads,

Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
So, also consider yourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Alleluia!

As I often do in trying to understand the impact a certain Biblical passage has had on me, I turn to the British theologian, N.T. Wright. He states that Paul’s aim in this particular Scripture reading is to learn, or be reminded of, a new identity we have as baptized Christians, as a result of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. Wright explains,

“We are now ‘in the Messiah’ so that what is true of him is true of us, however unlikely it sounds and however much it doesn’t yet feel true. Jesus is alive again with a life that death can no longer touch. He hasn’t come back into the same life. He has gone on through death and out the other side into a new bodily life beyond the reach of death – a concept we find difficult to grasp. Paul’s point is that, if we are “in the Messiah”, then that is where we are too.”

He goes on to explain that you and I, of course, are not yet bodily raised from death as one day we will be. That remains in the future. Yet, part of being a Christian, as is reinforced for us at Easter, allows one to see that this future has come forward into the present in the person and achievement of our Lord and Saviour, so that as his followers we already may “taste” the reality of that future while living in the present.

Why this short passage from Romans hit home for me in the recent Morning Prayer service, and upon further reflection with the help of N.T. Wright, is that through our faith in the reality of Jesus, his death and resurrection, along with our standing as baptized and believing Christians, you and I again find ourselves renewed “in the Messiah” at Easter. We are also now called to remember who we really are as faithful believers and followers of our Lord, so that we can act accordingly in the future days of our lives here on earth.
Amen.

Prayer
Almighty God, your Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life.
Give us grace to love one another and walk in the way of his commandments, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

From: Collect for the 5^th Sunday of Easter, The Book of Alternative Services, p. 340.