THOUGHT OF THE WEEK - 29 Apr 2012  It’s become patently obvious over the past few weeks that the sinking of the Titanic continues to exercise a fascinating hold on the public’s imagination. It would be interesting to know why. I have a feeling that it has something to do with the contrast between the ship’s supposed invincibility and its demonstrable vulnerability. We can learn all sorts of lessons from this tragic story. I gather, for example, that even after the Titanic had struck the iceberg the crew found it difficult to persuade passengers to take to the lifeboats when they had paid enormous sums of money for luxurious accommodation. And with good reason too for just a few days before the ship’s builders had proudly declared that even “God Himself couldn’t sink this ship”. Consequently many of the ship’s lifeboats that were designed to hold up to 60 people left the ship three quarters empty. Pride, as they say, often goes before a fall. We do well to remember too, that moments like this have a habit of challenging our sense of priorities. I have read of one passenger for example who decided to leave some 300,000 dollars worth of bonds and stocks in his cabin preferring to take three oranges with him. It's a pity it takes a crisis. I reckon it would us all good to regularly reassess the things we take for granted and those we feel are important, if for no other reason than we will face our own ‘Titanic moment’ at some time. Few if any of us will ever be faced with the sort of challenge faced by the distraught passengers on the Titanic of course, but every one of us will have to keep the same appointment with death. I wonder why so few of us take this seriously. Jesus had one over-riding priority in life, and that was His death. He knew He was born to die too but not in the way we must all die. He was convinced that He had to die “for our sins”. Now it is arguable that He was mistaken. If so He lived a very sad life and endured a very traumatic death. But if He was right then we’d be foolish to ignore His words of warning, and His offer of life. John Harper was convinced that Jesus had got it right, and it clearly affected his priorities. Harper’s story hasn’t rated much media attention but it deserves to be told because it shows what can happen when someone takes the Christian message seriously. For some strange reason, even before the ship hit the iceberg, Harper was already warning passengers that they couldn’t dismiss God indefinitely. And interestingly, it seems that we now have evidence that some responded favourably, including one man who came to faith after the ship had gone down as he floated on some wreckage within earshot of John Harper. If true it’s a story that gives a whole new dimension to the familiar phrase “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. Pastor Rob James
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