Lessons from Falling

Yesterday…

…Cycling home from church, I passed Alan cutting his hedge. Alan’s bungalow is on a corner, and he has a high hedge on two sides of his property. Growing in his hedge were several bullace trees. He picked a few and offered them to me. They looked and tasted good, like small round plums. He explained how he makes bullace rum with them… if it’s made in September, it’s ready for Christmas!

A lot of the bullaces had already fallen from the trees and were trampled on the pathway.

…Looking out at our bird feeders, I saw a jackdaw busily, carelessly, attacking the fat-balls. Six pigeons were on the ground, beneath the feeders, enjoying bits of the fat-balls that were falling. They were looking at the ground, focusing on their food, appreciating their dinner, but unaware of where it had come from.

…Watching ‘Antiques Roadshow’, a gent was talking about ‘The Goldfish Club’.

Formed in 1942, this is a worldwide association of aircrew members who have escaped an aircraft by parachuting or crashing into the water, and whose lives were saved by survival equipment like a life jacket or inflatable dinghy. Its members have fallen from the sky, ‘come down in the drink’, and survived.

…Listening to Minister-Lou preach, she quoted:

‘In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

‘Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!’

Jesus, humbly ‘falls into’ our fallen world, trampled underfoot like fallen bullaces; people, like the pigeons with their heads down, don’t realise where Jesus has come from; Jesus survives His ‘Goldfish Club’ fall, turning death into life… setting us an example in humility and obedience, bringing us life and hope.