humans

Human Beings? Who needs them?

955 dead; 2,436 injured; 56,885 houses destroyed!

It all happened as the result of a couple of air raids by Hitler's
Luftwaffe in 1941. Crumlin road Presbyterian Church was one of a number of
building destroyed in North Belfast. At a time when the collective memory is
taken back to VE and VJ Day we are reminded of the pain caused by National
Socialism but carried out by ordinary men and women just like us.

On the other hand this time of extreme violence was a time for heroes
and community spirit. There was the story of Lance Corporal Gordon Cowell of
the 5th Royal West Kent Regiment. On the 5th August 1941 he, along with
Sergeant William Chick rescued the pilot of a spitfire which had crash
landed in minefield.

Without any regard for themselves they headed towards the minefield.
People were standing by the railings, shouting, 'Don't go in there, you'll
get blown up,' but the only thought they had was to reach the stricken pilot
and get him out. They reached the smouldering plane, and after a struggle
with the pilot's straps, got him out of the cockpit. The soldiers could see
his leg was badly injured. They carried him back over the minefield and when
they got back to the railings, the Spitfire blew up. Each one of us is
capable of being heroes one day and villains the next

In a recent edition of the London Times Dr Jonathan Sacks, the Chief
Rabbi in the UK, said that

"God does not want us to cease to be human, for if He did, He would
not have created us"

Jesus is the complete man, the second Adam who was at peace with His
heavenly father and with men. Becoming a better human being means becoming
more like Jesus.

Human beings? Who needs them? We do, when they are like Christ. After
all Jesus was a man. Hitler destroyed our church and all our records and he
butchered many millions of people but he did not, he could not, destroy the
work of Jesus Christ.

"Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with
sin, another person did it right and got us out of it"

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