29th July 2013

In pirate stories, it used to be the dreaded ‘black spot’, but now it’s the very opposite that puts the fear of Blackbeard into the cricketers of this modern era. For amid all the noise of play – the thud of the bowler’s run, and the swish of the batsmen’s willow – the cold, clinical photographic evidence rarely lies. It tells the tale, and sentences the erring batsmen to spend the rest of the innings in Davy Jones Locker.

If the cameras of cricket can be so clever, fools are we if we think that our game, in all its detail, can escape the all-seeing eye of God.  He sees the snicks and nicks and knows when we are caught out plumb in sin. Well might the prophet say of God, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil”, but he does not mean that God does not see the sins in our life, but that he will not ignore them. It provokes him to action, and he will exact his justice.

So to where shall people like us turn for help, when the hot-spots of sin are beyond denying; but to that same God, who not only sees our sins, but takes responsibility for them, in the story of the Cross. For at that spot, the hot wrath of God was expressed against his own Son, in order for our sins to be both punished and pardoned. And the one who puts their trust in him, most happily forfeits the ashes, in order to gain life and real immortality.

DM 29^th July 2013