Codebreaker

When my wife and I were on holiday recently we visited a place in England called Bletchley Park, where there had been a lot of activity during the Second World War to try to decipher enemy coded messages. Many thousands of people were based there, and yet no-one was allowed to talk about their work, either to their colleagues or to their friends and families. In fact, even the local population was unaware of the secret activity going on there. The purpose of the establishment was simple – find out what the enemy was planning to do and tell the British armed forces so they could stop it.

The processes involved in the codebreaking were highly complex and hugely technical, as the enemy was continually seeking to make the codebreaking more difficult. It seems that, even at the end of the war, the Germans were unaware of how successful the codebreakers had been at Bletchley Park.

We saw some huge machines which had been used to assist the process, including a computer called Colossus, which was the first one of its kind in the world. It contained miles of cables and thousands of valves, in order to help the codebreakers.

I was struck by the difference which exists between this human striving to understand great secrets from other human beings, and the way that God lets us in to His amazing secret. He started by telling His prophets in the Old Testament era of what was on His mind, giving instruction about His intended relationship with us. When people didn’t understand and respond, He sent more prophets to make it even clearer. That failed as we know, because of our human inability to grasp the things of God. So, in the end, as our text for today reminds us, God had to speak to us directly, by His Son Jesus.

That is really incredible – because all the human codebreakers in the world still can’t ‘get it’. We have to hear directly from God Himself, through Jesus. God has taken the initiative and revealed Himself, no longer in code, but by means of the Saviour Jesus. And furthermore, He has also sent His Holy Spirit, so we can all know God and understand His word to us. He is the best codebreaker.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for speaking to us directly through Jesus and His Spirit. Thank You that we don’t need complicated mechanisms be able to understand Your Word, but the Spirit gives us understanding. May we join the Kingdom codebreakers as we declare the truth we have received – no longer a secret, but open to everyone. Amen.