From the Manse – March 2010

Dear Friends

The other day I received an email from a friend in Romania. The email was about the
Falkirk Wheel. My friend was so amazed how clever and simple the whole mechanism is
that he wrote only three short sentences: ‘This is quite something.’ ‘It is well thought out.’
and ‘Who did invent it?’

I suppose he is not the only one who is so stunned by the construction. It is a piece of
engineering ingenuity and quite rightly it is counted among the World Heritage Sites. It
appears to be so simple, and fitting. It looks so obvious and effortless as it transfers boats from one level to
another. One just marvels at it and wonders, how did he or she not think of it? And then you try to understand
the simplicity of the wheel, and you attempt to get to grips with the principle of Archimedes that
makes it so simple. But then it takes a while to understand the whole structure completely. It is not enough
just to stand there and marvel at it; mind you I could watch it for hours. If you really want to understand it
you need to get into it, to experience it, maybe do a bit of background reading, and delve into
science too. Yet it still has its mystery.

My friend’s enthusiastic email about the Falkirk Wheel reminded me of the Cross of
Christ. I know, you say, everything reminds ministers of the cross, or Jesus or God. Which is
probably true, but this time it really did; I was not searching for an analogy there, honest. God
made plain His wonderful nature to us in the cross of Jesus Christ. It is a simple construction that
over-bridged the gap between heaven and earth in love. Its vertical beam reminds us that God
came down to us from heaven to open up his arms and embrace us, of which the horizontal beam can be a
reminder. There is the Gospel message, God loves us! So simple, yet so mysterious. If you want to know it,
it is not enough just to marvel at the cross, you must enter into God’s love to experience it, feel it together
with others in the congregation. And you need to delve into the Bible to read the background about God’s
love and it still will be a mystery to you and so it should be.

This Easter season will allow us a number of opportunities to know the love of God deeper. The joint
half hour short Lenten services are already held at our church on Saturdays. While for those who want to
explore fresh ways of expressing God’s love in the world as a church we have a Lenten fellowship with
folks from other churches on Sunday nights at Garelochhead Church Hall. On Palm Sunday the Church of
Scotland congregations will celebrate and worship together at West Kirk. The Holy Week services this year
will be held at St Michael’s and All Angels Episcopal Church and begin at 8:00pm each night. On Good
Friday the traditional Walk of Witness will be organised again, and in our Sanctuary we will have again the
Easter Experience display from Good Friday till Easter Sunday. On Easter Sunday we have the usual open
air service and egg rolling at Hermitage Park (bring along your hard boiled eggs!) followed by an Easter
Breakfast which will await us in King Street Hall, after which it will be time for our Easter Family Service.

After Easter we will begin our ten weeks Enquirers’ Course which will be held at Braeholm, for all those
who want to know more about God, His love for us, Jesus Christ, how the Holy Spirit guides us and how the
church works, are invited and welcome to this fellowship meal and discussion.
Please feel free to take any or all these opportunities to marvel at, get involved in God’s amazing
love. It is so simple, so mysterious and free for all.

With every blessing
Your Minister,
George

Contact Magazine March 2010

Contact for March 2010 is now live on stcolumbahelensburgh.org – please click the link below to view!

http://www.stcolumbahelensburgh.org/contact/

Event Calendar – What’s on, on the 14th of April?