Chauvinism the curse of Christendom!
Human chauvinism has been the curse of Christendom down the
centuries and it has resulted in the most vile practices of cruelty
inflicted upon defenceless animals for no other reason than to
practice blood ‘sports’; to gratify the human palate; to adorn ones
self in some obnoxious clothing; to put on the body the camouflaged
waste and offal of slaughter houses; and to horribly condone the
prolonged torture of assumed lesser creatures in order to prolong this
transitory life a little longer before meeting one’s Maker to receive
a just and lasting sentence for eternity? For, I tell you this,
all the emphasis on the necessity of having a so called Saving Faith
in the mediatorial works of God’s Son - undergone for miserable
sinners such as us - counts for nothing: unless we have the love that
Christ commanded of us. Indeed an outward going sacrificial love
which was so commonly expressed in a past shepherd’s care for the
least and most wayward of his flock. Yes, and summarised so well in
the following cry of a shepherd in search of one lost animal:
“Although the roads be rough and steep, I’ll go through deserts to
find my sheep!”
Ah’ but none of the ransomed could ever know, how
deep were the waters crossed
Nor how dark was the night the
Shepherd endured before finding the sheep that was lost.
For out in
that desert he’d well heard its cry: it was sick and helpless and
ready to die
‘Lord, whence are those blood drops all the way, that mark out
this mountainous track?
They were shed for a sheep that has gone
astray; ere this shepherd can bring him back!
Then all of a sudden
- through the boisterous mountains roar – up from, the rocky steep -
There echoed a cry from the gates of heaven: “rejoice, rejoice, I have
found this sheep!”
Verses modified from a hymn by Elizabeth Clephane (1830-69)
Go on to
Stepping Out Of The Picture: or ‘the
true meaning of Christmas’
Return to Winter 2012 Issue
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