Pastoral Letter
Dear Friends,
April is one of my most favourite months. Both my wife and my youngest son were born in April and I am eternally grateful for them both. April is a month of great hope and expectation. It marks the real onset of Spring, and Easter often falls in that month (although it has been much earlier this year). April also contains April Fools Day. It was Charles Lamb who wrote: 'Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see the world hath more fools in it than ever.'
It was on April 14th 1912 that the great liner 'Titanic' sunk. In its day, the Titanic was the world's largest ship, weighing 46,328 tons. It was 882 ft long with 3 anchors weighing more than 10 tons each. It employed a crew of 400, a hotel staff of 518 and could carry 2,433 passengers. The 159 furnaces burned 650 tons of coal a day. The ship had a complete gymnasium, heated pool, squash court and the first miniature golf course, all below deck. Its lavish appointments included opulent dining rooms with 24-hour service, orchestra on the promenade deck, palm courts and gilded Turkish baths.
Several millionaires were on the passenger list. But, on that April night the "unthinkable" happened to the "unsinkable". Near midnight, the great Titanic struck an iceberg, ripping a 300 ft hole through 5 of its 16 watertight compartments. It sank in two and a half hours, killing 1,513 people.
Why did so many die? Well, the crew disregarded the danger of the weather. Warning after warning had been sent to tell them they were speeding into an ice-field. But the messages were ignored. In fact, when a nearby ship sent an urgent warning, the Titanic was talking to Cape Race about the time chauffeurs were to meet arriving passengers at the dock, and what menus were to be ready. Preoccupied with trivia, the Titanic responded to the warning: "Shut up. I am talking to Cape Race. You are jamming my signals." In addition, there were not enough lifeboats on board, and the radio operator of the nearby California was off duty. It was a classic combination of foolish failures.
One woman being helped into a lifeboat suddenly thought of something she needed, so she asked permission to return to her stateroom before they cast off. She was granted three minutes or they would have to leave without her. She ran across the deck that was already slanted at a dangerous angle. She raced through the gambling room with all the money that had rolled to one side, ankle deep. She came to her stateroom and quickly pushed aside her diamond rings and expensive bracelets and necklaces as she reached to the shelf above her bed and grabbed three small oranges. She quickly found her way back to the lifeboat and got in.
Thirty minutes earlier she would not have chosen a crate of oranges over even the smallest diamond. But death had boarded the Titanic. One blast of its awful breath had transformed all values. Instantaneously, priceless things had become worthless. And in that moment she preferred three small oranges to a crate of diamonds.
Easter reminds us about the true meaning of life. It reminds us that all our possessions are pointless by comparison to the hope of the eternal life that God offers us. Easter is about hope; a hope that overcomes the pain of bereavement, illness, despair and fear; a hope that springs from the realisation the Christ has defeated death, pain, and fear forever. As William and Gloria Gaither so eloquently put it: 'Because he lives I can face tomorrow, because he lives all fear is gone. Because I know he holds the future, and life is worth the living, just because he lives.'
May God bless you all,