Dear Friends,
One evening, just before the great Music Hall star Mary Martin was about to go on stage in ‘South Pacific’, a note was handed to her. It was from Oscar Hammerstein who at that moment was on his deathbed. It read:
‘Dear Mary, a bell is not a bell until you ring it! A song is not a song until you sing it! Love in your heart is not put there to stay. Love isn’t love till you give it away’.
After her performance that night many people rushed backstage saying, ‘Mary, what happened to you out there tonight? We never saw anything like that performance before’. Blinking back the tears, Mary read them the note. Then she said, ‘Tonight I gave all my love away’.
Jesus says ‘The greatest commandment is this, love one another’. There are many, many ways of giving love away, both in practical support and actions, and in words. And there are so many people who feel unloved, particularly after all that we have endured during these last months. The Gospel message is all about love, and this means that everything we say and do in the name of Christ should, as far as we are able, reflect his love.
The first verse of our final hymn in this morning’s service says:
We have a gospel to proclaim
Good news for all throughout the earth;
The gospel of a Saviour’s name:
We sing His glory, tell His worth.
Now that there is real light at the end of the tunnel, and new freedoms are promised as the Covid restrictions gradually come to an end, let us resolve to use our new freedoms to do everything we can to share the Gospel of God’s love in the way that we live, so that everyone will know ‘Whose we are and whom we serve’.
With love and blessings
Marion.
Categories: Minister's Blog