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Good morning.

Queuing at my barber鈥檚 the other day,

I was told it made up for the queue that they missed on Good Friday.

In the Northern Irish Protestant world I grew up in,

getting your hair cut on Good Friday was never a custom.

But there were many things I did miss this Easter when church was closed,

and one of them was the Irish devotional hymn

鈥淭here is a green hill far away, without a city wall鈥�.

听

Back in 1848,

Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander set each line of the Apostles鈥� Creed to music

for her Sunday School Class.

To some, her reflection on the cross is hopelessly sentimental.

Obviously, Calvary was not a grassy Ulster drumlin.

To others, it鈥檚 theologically sloppy.

Technically, 鈥淭here was no other good enough to pay the price of sin鈥�

does miss the critical point

that it鈥檚 not the price of sin Jesus paid but its penalty.

听

But it鈥檚 still not moving from my Desert Island Discs lockdown list

where it鈥檚 guilty only of localising and personalising

the most famous death in history.

鈥淥 dearly, dearly has he loved, and we must love him too鈥�.

That love begets love, is a bedrock Gospel principle.

As for trying his works to do,

if it鈥檚 real, responding to God has to be more than saying 鈥業 believe鈥�.

听

My long overdue return to the barber鈥檚 chair

did not prompt me to diarise a Good Friday haircut for next year.

But it did leave me remembering

that while some opportunities to serve do just fall into our laps

others we only find when we go looking for them.

听

Lord you shower us with talents and abilities,

and the time to use them 鈥� if only we can spare it.

As life picks up speed again,

show us what you want us to do for you

to make sacrificial love the template for all our living.

Amen