Message from Michael

 

We seem to have a blockage!

You may recall recently that the Suez Canal suffered a bit of a blockage. This is an understatement. The 400 metre long, 224,000 ton “Ever Green”, one of the largest container ships in the world, ran aground on 23rd March and remained in place, diagonally stuck, like the proverbial rectangular peg in a narrow waterway. There it wallowed for six days before it was freed. The vessel was, shortly afterwards, impounded by the Egyptian government for refusing to pay a reported $916 million in demanded fees, including $300 million in “loss of reputation” and it remains held in the Great Bitter Lake. Whilst the ship clogged this major arterial shipway other vessels stayed put or were re-routed with financially costly delays and detours affecting an estimated $9.6 billion worth of global trade There was, at its peak, a traffic jam of two hundred vessels.

The blame game began immediately and will rumble on. The Suez Canal Authority stated that “the ship ran aground diagonally after losing the ability to steer amid high winds and a dust storm.” The container transportation and shipping company Evergreen Marine, which ran the ship, said that it had been told the ship "was suspected of being hit by a sudden strong wind, causing the hull to deviate from [the] waterway and accidentally hit the bottom." Admiral Osama Rabie, chairman of the SCA, said that weather conditions were "not the main reasons" for the ship's grounding, adding, "There may have been technical or human errors."

We may never know the full reasons why the ship got in such difficulty – whether it was dodgy driving, troublesome tech or simply a bad case of wind. We do know, however, that the consequences were so serious that salvation was sent as a priority to release the stricken ship.

I am thankful that when humanity got stuck in its sin, God’s first thought was to send a Saviour. He does not play the blame game, nor is He a liturgical God bent on compensation. Instead, God, in His profound wisdom and compassion, sought and entered upon the solution – and at great cost to Himself.

His own reputation would be sullied – as he sent His Son to die, branded a criminal on the cross. He took our place. Jesus deliberately stuck there, run aground by our sin, so that we could sail free. Who has EVER GIVEN as God has given? So freely, so richly, paying the debt, freeing the blockage, and making the way open again.

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36).