by Ross Moughtin, Christ Church, Aughton

SINCE visiting Greece last May I have been following the euro crisis with growing alarm.

I recall having lunch in the picturesque Cretan hillside town of Kritsa. Facing us was an upmarket souvenir shop and inside its young proprietor, just sitting there. He looked forlorn. There were tourists around but during our meal, not one person entered his shop. His prices in euro were simply too high.

For me his was the human face of this crisis, how ordinary people are caught up in this political and economic crisis, not just the poor. And there seems very little the individual can do faced with such an over*whelming threat.

In the Bible the apostle Paul writes our struggle against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world. The problem is our human nature and more, there is something in the way our society is ordered, its systems and structures. These can demean, even destroy us. And we are wholly vulnerable.

The Greek word crisis often appears in the New Testament: it is derived from the word to decide. But usually the context is not us doing the deciding but God himself: it is his decision, his judgment. So Jesus says ‘I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me. ‘ (John 5:30).

However, it is this Jesus who allows himself to be nailed to a cross as an act of judgment. However, the sins for which he was being punished are not his but ours. My selfishness, my greed, my pride, all those factors which have worsened, even caused, the euro crisis. Jesus has suffered the full consequence.

But his cross is not the last word. Jesus’ powerful victory, demonstrated in his resurrec*tion, was not just over death; it was against the tyranny of sin, against the systems of this world which would destroy us.

And this resurrection victory gives us the opportunity to decide, no longer in the grip of powers we cannot control or understand. The opportunity to surrender all to the God who in Christ loves us, for*gives us and renews us. Now it is our call.