More than Just Chocolate…
March 10, 2012
By Rev Ed Hird
Once every year, billions of people around the world pause to remember the mystery of Easter. Most people love Easter: bunnies, chocolate, eggs, bonnets, lilies, flower crosses, and joyful singing. In the air, you can sense victory and resurrection and new life. No wonder that churches have many visitors on Easter Sunday.
For sixty-six years, the St. Simon’s NV family has been celebrating Easter. I have always enjoyed Easter, especially for the chocolate. Just like Christmas, Easter has its food connection and its spiritual connection. Most people love to eat. Easter family gatherings invariably involve lots of delicious food, especially those wonderful hot cross buns.
Good Friday is a traditional fast day where many choose not to eat in order to remember Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins. Easter Sunday is a traditional feast day where families celebrate with delicious feasts. Without Good Friday, Easter Sunday makes no sense. Without Easter Sunday, Good Friday is just a terrible tragedy. Good Friday shows that God can turn everything that is against us to our advantage. God transformed Good Friday (the most evil day in history) into Easter Sunday (the most beautiful day in history).
Many of us steer clear of Good Friday because it reminds us of death, of pain, and of our own personal mortality. Sometimes we may question: what on earth is Good about Good Friday? What’s so good about someone going through the worst suffering and most excruciating death ever imagined? Good Friday seems too morbid, too deadly, too bloody.
Modern medical science is wonderful in the way that it can prolong life that would often otherwise be over. But medicine can only postpone the inevitable facing all of us. We are mortals here on earth. In my mid-teen period, I lost sight of the power of Easter, and concluded that there was no life after death. Death was final, and that was the end of it. Nothing was waiting for me but the grave. What was it all about, I wondered? Was life really worth the effort? I began to fear the power of death and the meaninglessness and emptiness of life. I even secretly wondered if life itself was worth living.
In the midst of my teenage self-doubt, I still loved Easter, but I didn’t get it. The 
flowers, the food, the fun and even Easter worship were enjoyable, but somehow I missed the message. It is funny how you can celebrate something that you grow up with, and yet the real meaning can be missed. When the penny finally dropped, when the light came on, it was like waking up from the dead. I finally understood that Jesus solved the unsolvable death problem, and that by faith in him, the future is bright and unstoppable.
My prayer for those of you who love the Easter season is that you may realize that at the end of the day, love is stronger than death, and love has the final word.
Rev. Ed Hird, Rector
St Simon’s North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-an article for the April 2012 Deep Cove Crier
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mailed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
Curse God and Die
June 4, 2010
By Rev Ed Hird
There is a time in every life, comments Stephen Lawson, when all hell breaks loose. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Cataclysmically. All hell breaks loose. One day, life is sunny. Calm. Clear. Predictable. Your job is secure. Your children behave. Your health is good. Then out of the blue, like a violent, angry thunderstorm blowing across your landscape, tragedy strikes. You’re hit hard. All hell breaks loose.
Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does tragedy strike those who love God the most? Why do the good die young? One of the most famous sufferers on Planet Earth asked all these questions. He suffered so deeply that his wife couldn’t stand it anymore. She said to her husband Job: “Curse God and die”. In other words, get it over with. It’s no use. There is no future. You could almost see Job’s wife as the first Euthanasia advocate. Yet rather than choosing suicide, Job clung tenaciously to life. Often human tragedies like the loss of career, family, or home leads to an even greater tragedy – the denial of any meaning to life. This was the great temptation that faced Job, and that faces each of us at least once every 18 months on average.
Job went through horrendous suffering for 42 chapters, and yet he never once gave up. He was tormented by insults from his friends, harrassed by their insensitive advice and browbeaten into admitting wrongdoing that he never committed. Under attack, Job groaned, he wailed, he doubted and fell into deep depression, he lashed out like an infuriated animal….but he never cursed God. No matter how discouraged he was, he clung to his integrity. He never gave up his rock-bed conviction that he was not to blame for his terrible illness. Thousands of years later, we modern, scientifically-sophisticated people are still often blaming people when they become sick. Even in 1997, we can too easily be just like Job’s three comforters who just made their friend feel worse. “Oh, you’re sick in hospital with cancer…Obviously you are not thinking enough positive mental thoughts, or jogging enough, or eating enough granola.” One way or another, we can slip into psychosomatically blaming others for their illnesses.
Job was covered from head to toe with putrid boils that never stopped itching. His feverish body hung limp on its frame, his eyes sank back into his head, and his ribs protruded from his skin. Job’s three friends lacked the courage to feel Job’s pain, and respond rather than just react. Job didn’t need a lecture from his three friends; he needed love. He didn’t need a sermon; he needed sympathy. He didn’t need criticism; he needed comfort. When we are struck down by tragedy, we need to know that our friends really care. And we need to know that God cares, God really listens, and God will never leave us.
Why is it that so many famous writers, poets, 
philosophers, and scientists have turned time and again to the book of Job? Perhaps because it easily takes its place among the masterpieces of the world’s literature. The author of Job was a poet of rare genius who powerfully expressed our deepest feelings and thoughts. Sooner or later, we all identify with Job because suffering is part and parcel of life. We are bonded to Job through our common experience of pain. Many reject God, but no one rejects Job. Simply by suffering so greatly and hanging on for dear life through it all, Job has won our hearts.
As Stephen Lawson puts it, heaven is often silent. In such times, the only answer God gives is a deeper revelation of Himself. We learn that He is the answer we seek. Ultimately we must not trust a plan, but a Person. There is something about our questioning minds that longs for answers. If we only knew, we reason, we could handle our pain. Yet placing God’s infinite wisdom into our finite brains would be like trying to pour the Atlantic Ocean into a Dixie Cup. It just wouldn’t fit. It’s too vast and deep.
Job’s faith wavered. He mourned. He cried. He protested. He questioned. He even cursed the day of his birth. But he never cursed God. In the face of adversity, he remained firm in his only hope – God. When our world falls apart unexpectedly, we must not dwell on why but on who. Only God’s disclosure of Himself is powerful enough to heal the heart and relieve the pain.
Job in his sufferings, said Mike Mason, resembled Jesus on the cross. The only person who has ever endured more than Job was Jesus of Nazareth. We do not need to have nails driven into our hands and feet to know what a cross is. A cross is a cross. To be crushed is to be crushed, and we all have had a taste of this. Job in his suffering was looking for what could only be found in a manger, on a cross, in an empty tomb. The key to Job’s sufferings, and indeed to life itself, is the cross. Jesus did not rise above suffering; he went through it. Jesus let himself be captured by soldiers, tried by legalists and bureaucrats, condemned by a mob, scourged by mockers, and finally pinned and exhibited like a specimen insect… No amount of suffering could shake either Jesus or Job from their rock-bottom clinging to God. Though he slay me, said Job, yet will I trust in Him. We can either curse God and die, or bless God and live. May we choose Life today that we and our children may live.
Rev. Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier
Curse God and Die
August 23, 2009
By Rev Ed Hird
There is a time in every life, comments Stephen Lawson, when all hell breaks loose. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Cataclysmically. All hell breaks loose. One day, life is sunny. Calm. Clear. Predictable. Your job is secure. Your children behave. Your health is good. Then out of the blue, like a violent, angry thunderstorm blowing across your landscape, tragedy strikes. You’re hit hard. All hell breaks loose.
Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does tragedy strike those who love God the most? Why do the good die young? One of the most famous sufferers on Planet Earth asked all these questions. He suffered so deeply that his wife couldn’t stand it anymore. She said to her husband Job: “Curse God and die”. In other words, get it over with. It’s no use. There is no future. You could almost see Job’s wife as the first Euthanasia advocate.
Yet rather than choosing suicide, Job clung tenaciously to life. Often human tragedies like the loss of career, family, or home leads to an even greater tragedy – the denial of any meaning to life. This was the great temptation that faced Job, and that faces each of us at least once every 18 months on average.
Job went through horrendous suffering for 42 chapters, and yet he never once gave up. He was tormented by insults from his friends, harrassed by their insensitive advice and browbeaten into admitting wrongdoing that he never committed. Under attack, Job groaned, he wailed, he doubted and fell into deep depression, he lashed out like an infuriated animal….but he never cursed God. No matter how discouraged he was, he clung to his integrity. He never gave up his rock-bed conviction that he was not to blame for his terrible illness.
Thousands of years later, we contemporary, 
scientifically-sophisticated people are still often blaming people when they become sick. Even in the 21st century, we can too easily be just like Job’s three comforters who just made their friend feel worse. “Oh, you’re sick in hospital with cancer…Obviously you are not thinking enough positive mental thoughts, or jogging enough, or eating enough granola.” One way or another, we can slip into psychosomatically blaming others for their illnesses.
Job was covered from head to toe with putrid boils that never stopped itching. His feverish body hung limp on its frame, his eyes sank back into his head, and his ribs protruded from his skin. Job’s three friends lacked the courage to feel Job’s pain, and respond rather than just react. Job didn’t need a lecture from his three friends; he needed love. He didn’t need a sermon; he needed sympathy. He didn’t need criticism; he needed comfort. When we are struck down by tragedy, we need to know that our friends really care. And we need to know that God cares, God really listens, and God will never leave us.
Why is it that so many famous writers, poets, philosophers, and scientists have turned time and again to the book of Job? Perhaps because it easily takes its place among the masterpieces of the world’s literature.
The author of Job was a poet of rare genius who powerfully expressed our deepest feelings and thoughts. Sooner or later, we all identify with Job because suffering is part and parcel of life. We are bonded to Job 
through our common experience of pain. Many reject God, but no one rejects Job. Simply by suffering so greatly and hanging on for dear life through it all, Job has won our hearts.
As Stephen Lawson puts it, heaven is often silent. In such times, the only answer God gives is a deeper revelation of Himself. We learn that He is the answer we seek. Ultimately we must not trust a plan, but a Person. There is something about our questioning minds that longs for answers. If we only knew, we reason, we could handle our pain. Yet placing God’s infinite wisdom into our finite brains would be like trying to pour the Atlantic Ocean into a Dixie Cup. It just wouldn’t fit. It’s too vast and deep.
Job’s faith wavered. He mourned. He cried. He protested. He questioned. He even cursed the day of his birth. But he never cursed God. In the face of adversity, he remained firm in his only hope – God. When our world falls apart unexpectedly, we must not dwell on why but on who. Only God’s disclosure of Himself is powerful enough to heal the heart and relieve the pain.
Job in his sufferings, said Mike Mason, resembled Jesus on the cross. The only person who has ever endured more than Job was Jesus of Nazareth. We do not need to have nails driven into our hands and feet to know what a cross is. A cross is a cross. To be crushed is to be crushed, and we all have 
had a taste of this. Job in his suffering was looking for what could only be found in a manger, on a cross, in an empty tomb. The key to Job’s sufferings, and indeed to life itself, is the cross. Jesus did not rise above suffering; he went through it. Jesus let himself be captured by soldiers, tried by legalists and bureaucrats, condemned by a mob, scourged by mockers, and finally pinned and exhibited like a specimen insect.
No amount of suffering could shake either Jesus or Job from their rock-bottom clinging to God. Though he slay me, said Job, yet will I trust in Him This very day we can either curse God and die, or bless God and live. May we choose Life today.
Rev. Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-author of the award-winning book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier
Why Me? – When bad things happen to good people
August 16, 2009
By Rev Ed Hird+
Have you ever heard of someone described as having the patience of Job? The person referred to is often either the long suffering wife of an alcoholic or the mother of a large family of nonstop high energy boys. Job, of course, is the most world famous sufferer of inexplicable illness.
Do you know when I have most needed the patience of Job? In 1980, I lost my voice for 18 months. That was a very painful time. But in a strange way, almost equally painful are the times when our car breaks down. I feel very attached to our Chevy Minivan, and whenever it breaks down, I feel personally insulted (can anyone reading this relate??). I’m a very ‘up” person, but one of the few times that I feel depressed (usually for about an hour) is when our car becomes unfaithful.
It’s times like that, when I start to really appreciate Job. Like Job, I ask: ‘Why me??” I mean, couldn’t my car break down at a more convenient time? Have you ever noticed how much car Mechanics resemble doctors? You go to them for One problem, and invariably they find two others. I tell you, it’s enough to drive you to God.
Epic Poetry
The book of Job is a powerful and challenging 42 chapter long poem. it is a true poem, but a poem none the less. Job is a heartfelt poem about the mystery of evil and suffering. This mystery is something that all of us will struggle with, sooner or later.
Regardless of whether we go to church or not, whether we are religious or not, whether we believe in God or not, all of us either have been or will be personally faced with this mystery. There is a best selling book by Rabbi Harold Kushner entitled: ‘When Bad Things Happen To Good People’. That best seller reminds us that sooner or later a tragedy will land at our doorstep, and life will feel very unfair.
The 18 Month Syndrome
Studies show that most of us go through some type of crisis once In every 18 months. When serious illness, like cancer, strikes our family, our whole world may feel turned upside down. Why me??’ … Why them ??”, we may say.
Sometimes in those situations, God may seem
a long way away. Job’s wife had some practical advice to her very ill husband. She said: “Curse God and die., In other words, she told him to just give up. Job, however, was a fighter. No matter how tough it got, he would never throw In the towel. Job said at one point: “Though God slay me, yet will I hope In Him.’
No matter how unfair life seemed, Job never lost his faith in his Higher Power. Job was powerless over his illness, but he knew that there was a Higher Power who had the answers to all his struggles. That is why Job said In that midst of prolonged suffering: I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
Job had a faith in God that not even tragedy, sickness, and death could shake. He’d lost everything his children, his business, his fortune, his reputation, his health. He had lost everything, everything except his faith In God.
With Friends Like This …
On top of all this, Job had to suffer through the well meaning, but horribly insensitive advice of his four friends. instead of listening to Job and showing that they cared, they blasted him with endless lectures. Their basic message was: “You got what you deserve. It’s your own fault. Anyone who Is sick has done It to himself. God is obviously condemning you for some secret sin. So hurry up and ‘fess up.” The 42 chapter poem made it very clear by the end that Job was not to blame for his sickness, and that we too should not blame others when they are sick.
The unfair and mysterious suffering of Job points ultimately to the unfair and mysterious suffering of Jesus on the cross. The cross shows that God can take everything that is against us and turn It to our advantage. God took Good Friday (the most evil day in history) and turned it into Easter Sunday (the most beautiful day in history).
edhird
