It seems a very long time since Friday night when I came into the house after picking my eldest son up from Boys' Brigade to see the Ulster Rugby team finish off a tight, tense victory over inter- provincial rivals, Munster. Since that night, when the joy of playing and following sport was so evident from the crowds at Ravenhill Rugby ground, a deep sadness has enveloped the sporting community, the farming community and one tragically bereaved family in County Down.
There have already been many tributes paid to Noel, Graham and Nevin Spence. There has also been a genuine outpouring of sympathy from all quarters to a mother, two daughters and a daughter-in-law with two small children who are enduring unimaginable suffering, and doing so with real dignity and faith.
I have rarely seen such a widespread impact from one family tragedy. It brought home to me what I have been learning in my five and a half years as a pastor in a semi-rural congregation - that the ties which bind the farming community in Ulster are deep ones. Perhaps they are so deep because they recognise that these tragedies are not as uncommon as we would like them to be. We, who do not live off the land, sometimes fail to appreciate the risks that some people take simply to provide food for our tables. On Sunday morning as some of the farmers in my congregation left church, it was all I could do to hold myself back from saying 'would you people PLEASE take care of yourselves'. I suspect that I didn't really need to anyway.
But the other thing that has struck me forcibly in the light of this tragedy is the immense depth and wonder of genuine faith in Jesus Christ. The media will scratch their heads as members of the Spence family and friends from their own congregation and others express their certainty that, for these three men, true life has really just begun. Unable to deal with this powerful hope the media will, instead, ignore it and focus back on the appalling tragedy that has occurred. They will talk about how the family will need support from their neighbours, friends and fellow Christians (and there is no doubt that they will). But they will shy away from talking about how the source of all their comfort will be found in Jesus Christ. They will not talk about his death and resurrection which, while they do not give an answer as to why this accident happened on Saturday afternoon, do give this family the strength to face the future certain that their loved ones are enjoying that fullness of life in which they will one day join them.
The grief is real. The heartbreak is real. The outpouring of sympathy from across this community and from further afield is undeniably genuine. But none of it is more real, more certain than the love which is ours in Jesus Christ, from which no-one and nothing can separate us.
I realise that I am adding to the sea of words already spoken and written this weekend about the Spence family and their awful grief. I hope that what I have written is seen as someone who has watched the events unfold trying for himself to come to terms with something so dreadful. I know that other tragedies have made the headlines this weekend - a man dying of stab wounds in Craigavon, two British servicemen killed in Afghanistan, apparently innocent civilians killed in a NATO airtstrike as well as the continuing mayhem and murder in Syria. My mind and heart are unable to process so much suffering but on this weekend, I have not been able to stop thinking about this family whom I do not know, for whom everything has changed in the blink of an eye.
May the God of all comfort and the God of resurrection hope be to them all and more than all that they need.
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