February rolls around!
Nearly one million people in India who joyously welcomed the New Year 2025 – with dusted-up WA messages, dancing emojis, durable resolutions and deafening firecrackers -didn’t make it to the second month. You, who are reading this are one of the fortunate ones, as am I, writing these lines. Worldwide this will exclude the number consumed by the LA fire (relatively small) besides the number of enemy dead chalked up by the likes of Putin and Netanyahu (unconscionably huge) not counting those killed daily in Sudan’s (and Rwanda’s) wretched internecine battles.
Stop Press, there is this collective gasp of “Oh no” as an American Airlines Bombardier collides with a military chopper over Washington D.C. and 67 people perish – just like that.
And in our own country, we were sadly counting the number of those who lost their lives in the stampede at Tirupati in their mad rush to obtain Balaji’s divine blessings for the new year; it ended only in untold misery and woeful uncertainty for their loved ones who stayed back at home – a strange paradox. Leaves one with a question as to the point of these pilgrimages – especially undertaken at the beginning of the year along with a horde of others- given the none-too-encouraging probability of coming back whole to tell the tale.
Can we in the South of India at all talk about the “sport” called Jallikattu without arousing the Dravidian sentiment? I am surprised that PETA is yet to take notice of this murderous antediluvian event held every year in Tamil Nadu during the time of Pongal. Bull after puzzled bull is let loose inside the arena abuzz with some ranty, rough and raucous tamers seeking to subdue the voiceless creatures. Oh yes, people die in this touristy sport promoted shamelessly by the Government! Comparisons with the famished lions versus the faithful Christians of Nero’s times pop up disturbingly, but the equations here are different.
Amazingly there was no proportionate number dead amongst the 450 million who gathered for the Khumb, notwithstanding a tent fire; thank God . But at the time of writing there seems to have been a very predictable stampede – indeed a disaster waiting to happen. And the organizers and spiritual gurus were advised to quickly propagate a new theory that there is nothing particularly sacrosanct about one place of immersion (Sangam Nose) to which the devotees rushed on Mauni Amavasya day but most other places along the river were equally holy. By extension we can perhaps conclude that one might as well have stayed home and enjoyed a hot water shower in these wintry times.
Whilst there were decidedly a number who didn’t find the immersive experience in one of the filthiest riverine confluences none-too-wholesome – truth to tell- there were several others going gaga over their divine epiphanies. A local boy like me cannot resist raising a question if it is really vastly different from a dunk in the neighborhood Cooum or a fall into the black backwaters of Adyar which was recently reported to have reached levels of faecal coliform 10 times higher than the prescribed safe limit. Or indeed an infamous throw into the dirty pond – a brim with dark drainage and a lot of other muck – a time-honoured initiation rite in Bishop Heber Hall of the Madras Christian College.
Reminds me of an evocative verse in Isaac Watts’ immortal hymn:
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
What can be more poignant than that – the day dawns and the dreams die? Alas, a significant number of the human race have failed to realize its hopes for 2025, no sooner than it began.
Let me quote all the verses of this famous hymn which reverberate from the rafters of innumerable churches across the world particularly at this time of the year:
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home:
Under the shadow of thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.
Before the hills in order stood
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting thou art God,
To endless years the same.
Thy word commands our flesh to dust,
“Return, ye sons of men”;
All nations rose from earth at first,
And turn to earth again.
A thousand ages in thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their lives and cares,
Are carried downwards by thy flood,
And lost in following years.
Like flowery fields the nations stand,
Pleased with the morning light;
The flowers beneath the mower’s hand
Lie withering e’er ’tis night.
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.
Most every word in this soul stirring song fairly drips with saturate meaning and drives us to think soberly of the brevity of this earthly life and the infinity of the eternity beyond. Words worth stringing like God, hope, throne, ages nudge our minds beyond its nexus to the immediate and seek to expand our conscience, perchance to catch a glimpse of the incomprehensible vastness outside of the humdrum of everyday existence.
And if your soul still remains sullied after countless sallies to sacred spots of pilgrimage, there seeps in an unknown fear about not quite being prepared to cross – with any degree of confidence – the fjord of death.
And other words that exhibit fear like the verse Luke 22:30 come to our mind: For indeed the days are coming in which they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”
Whence this fear? Why this foreboding? Is it only in the Bible can we find a head-on questions like, “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” (1 Cor.15:55) questions that pretty much rattle the devil himself and send tremors to his proud fortress ?
It might sound somewhat exclusive and rather specific, but there is nothing arrogant about the assertion that says “thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”(1 Cor.15:57) Why Lord Jesus Christ and not any other of the million claimants to saviour-hood? For He is the only one to lay down His life as the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2)
In saying for the sins of the whole world, exclusivity is eliminated. We might seem to be going round and round but why not, if it brings us closer to the truth with every circle. Yes, inevitably I am coming to the verse most often quoted from the Bible (John 3:16) : “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Last month we talked about Hope and concluded that there is hope. But hope in what? The traditional hymn tells us
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand
Paul writing his first letter to the church at Thessalonica is at pains to emphasize that he does does not want us to be ignorant, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest we sorrow as others who have no hope. (1 Thess. 4:13)
This is as good a point at any to turn our eyes back to where we started: the brevity of life. Having entered February with hope, we need not worry ourselves to the marrow about the month of March. Let us anchor our hope to the sure foundation of Jesus Christ and live in the present. But may we be wise and avoid embarking on misadventures that are fated….well….to be misadventures.
Perhaps we can make the observation that seekers down the ages have always hit upon the truth, as we saw last month. But it is likely that generations of different beliefs have some what clouded their ability to see with a clear vision; check out Mark 8:24: “And he looked up and said, “I see men like trees, walking.”” In such instances, we certainly do need another touch from Jesus to open our eyes fully.
There is no denying that by far the biggest and the brightest optics of January 2025 centred around Donald Trump, as he became president for a second term. It is a sad reality though that a man who could acknowledge God’s providential hand in protecting him from attempts on his life, could not quote a single verse from the Bible when called upon to do so – no, not even “the Lord is my shepherd“. His 34 counts of felony and multiple misdeeds were miraculously swept under the carpet as the Republican evangelicals (in particular) crowned him as their new Messiah. They are probably not done with raising Hallelujahs as a murderous throng of J6 rioters are set free in one stroke. We have to wait and see where Trump will leave his glory (Isaiah 10:3) on the day of reckoning. But that, really, is another story and is mentioned here only on account of the fact that it was a January highlight, even without the presence of Stormy Daniels.
Back to our own choices in life: Faced with a fork, like Alice in Wonder Land as we journey along, let us make up our minds – yes, decide, and decide carefully, conscientiously and uncompromisingly- as to the destination we want to reach and take the right turn.
Shall we?
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