Medway Messenger, 2nd April 2004
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Medway Messenger, 2nd April 2004 |
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So
now we know what a newt is worth: £60,000. The project to save endangered
species from the effects of the A228 improvements is £180,000, and three newts
have been saved. I dread to think how much Roman Abramovich would pay to put one
on the books of Chelsea FC … Those
working on this scheme clearly expected to find far more newts and other
creatures, but many found breeding grounds elsewhere. But in an age where
conservation and ecological matters are increasingly important, we have to pay a
price like this. £60,000
for a newt seems every bit as extravagant as the ludicrous fees paid in
Premiership football transfers, and maybe we think it is a waste. What else
could money like that go on? Hospitals? Third World
poverty? But
if a newt is worth this amount of money, then how much more is a human being
worth? Perhaps we need a reminder of just how valuable a life is. Around the
world, life is cheap – from innocent victims of war to the foetus in the womb
not given the chance of life. I
found myself reflecting on the value of life when thinking about Mel Gibson’s
controversial new film ‘The Passion Of The Christ’. I don’t think a
Christian film has received an 18 certificate before, and of course the reason
for that is the level of violence displayed. The
New Testament certainly doesn’t go into the gory details involved in the
torture, suffering, and death of Jesus, but Mel Gibson does. However the first
readers of the Gospels would not have needed the horrors of a Roman scourging
and crucifixion spelling out to them: they knew about it. We are far removed
from that culture and Gibson’s film reminds us that Jesus’ death on the
Cross was an unspeakably cruel death. The Cross is not a pretty piece of
jewellery: it is one of the vilest methods of killing someone ever devised by
the human race. What
has this got to do with the value of a life? Simply this: if Jesus was willing
to suffer that much for our sins, then we must be infinitely valuable to God. You’re worth more than £60,000. You’re worth more than the £25 million Real Madrid paid for David Beckham. You’re worth Jesus to God.
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Copyright © David D Faulkner, 2006 except where other sources are attributed or noted as inspiration. |