Unlike this world, the word of God is living and active.

It is Easter Saturday and I have no fast internet… and two boys who are rediscovering books and the joys of the playstation 2. We have been spared. Ele Ludemann lives an hour or so north of me and she has blogged about yesterday’s storm, which was not accounted as a Cyclone (after if left Queensland) but did a lot of damage. I’ve added to the note she posted yesterday the results, from the local paper.

I am warm, dry, and the cellphone has a data plan. Many are not.

From the Facebook page of Waitaki Mayor, Gary Kircher:
Gary Kircher – Mayor for Waitaki
Latest update on river levels:
North Otago
Kakanui at Clifton Falls has peaked at 580m3/s at 12:30pm and currently at 495m3/s and still receding.
Kakanui at Mill Dam is at 550m3/s and still rising, the water from Clifton falls will take approx. 4 hours to reach this site. This will continue to rise and then slowly recede after. The SH1 at Maheno is closed.
Shag at the Grange is holding at 230m3/s
The rainfall for the North Otago catchment has slightly eased off with hourly accumulations now at 5-7mm and hour.

Long queues of traffic built up either side of Maheno when the Kakanui River burst its banks yesterday afternoon, forcing authorities to close SH1 at Maheno.

Waitaki District Council emergency services manager Chris Raine said the welfare centres, accommodating up to 400 people, were established last night when it became clear there would be no way through for vehicles overnight.

The centres were at the Palmerston Child Care Centre, Hampden Hall, Maheno Hall and at St Kevin’s College, Waitaki Boys’ High School and Waitaki Girls’ High School in Oamaru, which have boarding accommodation and kitchens.

Southern District Command Centre deployment co-ordinator Senior Sergeant Brian Benn, of Dunedin, said traffic was initially diverted along the coast road but one of the bridges at Kakanui was single-lane and there were concerns about its structural stability, so it too was closed. SH1 was reopened last night.

”It’s been very frustrating for people travelling north and south of Oamaru.

”There’s some big queues there. I’m sure that’s frustrated quite a few people.”

The heavy rain, which got Easter off to a sodden start, is expected to ease today but Otago Regional Council flood managers say the worst may be yet to come.

The deep low from ex-Cyclone Ita, which sat west of New Zealand yesterday, is expected to weaken and move across the lower South Island tonight.

The MetService lifted its severe weather warnings for Dunedin and North Otago at 5.30pm yesterday but ORC flood managers say many Otago rivers remain high and are likely to stay high for the next few days.

By 8.30pm yesterday, the Silver Stream had peaked at 120cumecs and the Kakanui River at Clifton Falls had peaked at 575cumecs, one of its highest recorded levels.

The Shag River (at The Grange) was flowing at 258cumecs and the Taieri River (at Outram) at 314cumecs at 8.30pm, but both were still rising.

As the day progressed, most district roads in coastal Otago had surface flooding – some serious enough to be closed, including Silverstream Valley Rd and Danseys Pass.

But, given that the internet is flakey, I am experimenting and composing this in Libreoffice, and then I hope to import it into WordPress.

Onto today’s text. There are two things that I consider important on an Easter Weekend: one is to re-proclaim the gospel, and the other is to discuss why this matters.

So let’s start with why text, why the quotes from scripture. Daily. Many mornings I would rather sleep in – and many days I really do not want to confront a text that is living, active, and by the work of the Holy Spirit lets us discern the truth. But it is, and so I do.

HEBREWS 4:1-16
1Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2For indeed the good news came to us just as to them; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. 3For we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, “As in my anger I swore, ‘They shall not enter my rest,'” though his works were finished at the foundation of the world. 4For in one place it speaks about the seventh day as follows, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5And again in this place it says, “They shall not enter my rest.” 6Since therefore it remains open for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7again he sets a certain day – “today” – saying through David much later, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” 8For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later about another day. 9So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; 10for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from his. 11Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.
12Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.
14Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. 16Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

ROMANS 8:1-11
1There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law – indeed it cannot,8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

The reason for having disciplines around the reading and meditation on the word of God is that this forces us to read the word of God, to proclaim the word of God. This occurs in all the confessional churches — among the reformed the tradition is that you carefully preach and read every text in one book of the Bible then another, while the more liturgical churches read every verse of the Bible in a three year cycle.

For the word of God is living and active. It is not God incarnate — Christ is — and we do not worship the book as the Muslims in their superstition do, calling the book God incarnate rather than Christ who died for us. Today the liturgical churches are dark as we recall his time in the grave. Today the text reminds us of what this meant.

Let us therefore consider that whatever he is asking us to do today, he has done more. Our rest is with Christ, and not in the fleeting pleasures of this time. The leaders and fashions of this time will pass. The word of God will remain.