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A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with the Revd Dr Rosa Hunt, Minister at Tabernacle Chapel Cardiff and Co-Principal of Cardiff Baptist College.

Good morning. The new university term started recently, and in my role as a university lecturer in church history I found myself talking to first year students about conflicts in what was then the Roman province of Palestine. It was noted with sadness that two thousand years have passed and religion and politics are once again causing violence and suffering in that part of the world.

Jesus taught his disciples to forgive their enemies, and even to love them – never to repay violence with violence. As we watch news footage of children being burned to death as casualties of war, Jesus’ advice may seem at best naïve and at worst immoral. But a few months ago I was talking to a colleague of mine who works in a Christian college in the Middle East. We commented on how costly it must be for him, his family and his church to put Jesus’s teaching into practice. He paused for a moment, and then replied: yes, loving your enemy is costly, but the cost of hating your enemy is even greater.

Loving God,
In the flesh of your Son you bore the weight of senseless human suffering. He hung on the cross, an innocent victim like many millions before and after him, and refused even then to hate those who had tortured him. Thank you for his teaching and example. We join our voices with all those who cry out to you from war-torn regions, and we pray, O Lord, for lasting peace, for genuine reconciliation, and for healing of minds, souls, bodies and lands.
Amen