Shipwrecks?

Last Tuesday a bulk tanker, the MT Phoenix, on her way to the scrap yards in India ran into a storm off the north-east coast of South Africa. She dropped anchor off Sheffield Beach, north of Durban, but during the night she dragged her anchor in the four meter swells and thirty knot winds.A deep sea tug, sent to give assistance, was not able to take the Phoenix under tow, and by lunch-time the ship was wrecked on the rocks. The crew were lifted off the ship by helicopters and no-one was lost or injured in the tragedy. (It caught my attention, because we live at the top end of Sheffield Beach Road!)I call it a tragedy because a ship is a noble thing. We all look with fascination at the ships anchored off the coast or tied up at the docks - they are so BIG, so majestic, so romantic. Yet, just as we humans have feet of clay, so too these ships have an Achilles heel. It is found in the very material that gives them their great strength - the steel.Steel and salt water do not live happily together and as the years pass the steel structure is eaten away by corrosion, despite the best efforts of the owners and crew to maintain the ship. Eventually the ship gets to a point where it is no longer safe and has to be scrapped.I guess as we get older we feel a bit like old ships - bits of us don’t function quite as well as they used to, technology overtakes us, and the power systems slow down. Old ships make their way to the scrap yards, to be broken down and their steel recycled to be used in new buildings, new cars - same steel, new body.For us there is also a promise of a new body. Paul tells us this in 1 Corinthians 15: Someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.”So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.So, when the going gets rough, the swells are running and the wind is gusting at 30 knots, take heart, the best is yet to come!Sarah and I would like to thank you for your love and friendship during our visit.Bless you all.Rob Jobling