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The island of Portland is a wonderful place to escape from the pressures of modern life. Linda and I, along with other members of our family, recently returned from our annual weekend there staying on Branscombe Hill, overlooking the Bill, in the old lighthouse keeper’s cottage which includes access to the old lighthouse itself! Built in the eighteenth century this lighthouse is one of two from that period still standing – the other now being used as a Bird Observatory and Field Centre. The lighthouse currently in use for shipping stands on the Bill itself and was first lit in 1906. It is a huge structure with a revolving lens that can send out a powerful beam stretching 18 miles on a clear night. And the island of Portland is little more than a solid rock of limestone measuring four and a half miles long by five and a half miles wide. Thomas Hardy described it as being: carved by Time out of a single stone, a pretty apt description. Portland stone is very hard wearing with the added quality that it can be carved in any direction to produce sharp, crisp lines. And there is a beautiful carving of Da-Vinci’s Last Supper in the local Methodist Church (just below the pulpit) carved from locally quarried stone. Portland stone has been exported all over the world and was used in the construction of Exeter Cathedral, parts of the Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral and other churches in London following the Great Fire of London in 1666.
And just as a building needs a firm foundation so we too need a sure foundation on which to build our lives. How many of us have followed a dream at sometime or another only to have it fall apart bringing a host of unforeseen circumstances in its wake? It’s all part of life’s learning process I suppose, something that cannot be taught but has to be learned through experience! But it can be very painful not to mention wasteful as well. At times life can seem like an unstable, shifting sand, always on the move and ready to trip us up. No wonder that people today are constantly clamouring for something new and exiting, something that might just hold out the promise of being THE answer to what they are looking for. The problem is that there are so many dead ends leading no-where, built on false hopes and unrealistic expectations, that’s it’s not easy to decide which way to go. But the Resurrection isn’t like that. The resurrection of Jesus stands out in human history, like a lighthouse pointing the way to God, as THE foundational event of life built on fact and certainty – the “granite” of the invisible God! As such it offers all who receive the risen Jesus a mooring point for happiness, stability and contentment. On the cross Jesus took upon himself the futility of human striving, and the certainty of eventual death, and transformed them into something beautiful and enduring.
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The Resurrection stands as a monument to the power of God over the vagaries of human nature. In raising Jesus from the dead God has carved out the future for all who build their lives on Jesus; Jesus who, having conquered death, offers everlasting life to all who open their lives to him. Life that will never end but continue forever and ever long after even the island of Portland has dissolved into the sea!
In Jesus’ name
Derek Marsh April 2008
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