[caption id="attachment_100" align="alignright" width="210" caption="Bishop Nicholas Sykes -An independent voice for the Cayma Islands. For commentary, information and devotional material see www.churchofenglandcayman.com"][/caption] In S. John 12: 27 - 28 Jesus says, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say - ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour.” In fact, J ...

Even as the one to whom God gave the Name that is above every name was paying the ultimate price for our redemption, the sun himself, as it were, bending his knee to his Lord, temporarily ceased to provide radiation, and light failed for three hours at noon. So this stupendous sign and others simultaneously, including the renting of the veil of the Temple, declared to the centurion and the assembled company the innocence of this victim. They did not yet know the scope of the victory that the King had won. But already the signs were there in heaven and earth, for those who might see. ...

It is recorded in S. John 2:15: “Making a whip of cords, Jesus drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and He poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.” Someone might ask: Is this really the same Jesus that in the Sermon on the Mount in S. Matthew 5:39 taught, “Do not resist one who is evil. If any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also?” The answer, of course, is that it is indeed the same Jesus. If we find it difficult to reconcile Jesus’ actions in the Temple with His Sermon on the Mount teaching, it should be taken as an invitation to us to stand back and give a closer examination to the action in the Temple and to the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, and the context of each one. ...

The Scriptures, especially when read and expounded in church, are often the recourse we have to keep us in mind that there is a reality that goes beyond the calculations of our own plans. We all know what it is to be held up in our plans by unforeseen events of one kind or another, ranging from some minor sickness to some more significant disaster such as a hurricane. Some plans of ours too may be advanced in a way we had not envisaged by factors over which we have no personal control. A letter or email may arrive which one was not expecting that has the potential to change the course of one’s life. The Scriptures point us to a Providential God working out things according to His timing rather than ours, even working into His good purpose the minor and major hold-ups and disasters that we experience and that discountenance us from time to time. ...