On 26th April 1986, an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, led to an explosion that blew the roof off reactor number 4, releasing tonnes of radioactive material into the atmosphere. 250,000 people had to be evacuated and 77,000 square miles of land were contaminated.
Thirty years later the ruins of the reactor have finally been encased in a shelter that is the largest land-based moving structure ever built, and at a cost of €1.5b possibly the most expensive. It just goes to show that some human mistakes are extremely costly to repair.
In one of Peter’s New Testament letters he says this, “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Sin is the cancer that eats away at the human soul, spoiling and destroying lives and communities. We see its effects all around us but we seem powerless to do anything. Peter, however, knew of a love that could conquer sin and its effects. It was the love that he’d seen in the life of Jesus, and he knew that it had been the costliest love for God to give, because the power of sin was covered when Jesus was nailed to a cross. Human mistakes are indeed extremely costly to repair.
