St Stephen’s Uniting Church, Sydney, Friday 7 March 2025
Sermon by Rev Tinirau Soatini, read by Rev Dr Rod Benson
Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. ‘Kia Ora-na’, as we say it in the Cook Islands: which means, ‘To live on’ or ‘Continue being alive.’
To a Cook Islander, ‘to continue being alive’, is ‘to be in Christ,’ for Christ is why a person is alive. Because Christ is the Path and the Destination for all souls.
To be alive in Christ is for a person to continue walking on that Path, with Christ, to get to the Destination, where he or she will receive, Life everlasting, for the soul. And who will he or she be receiving that Life from at the Destination? Jesus Christ. So ‘Kia Ora-na in Christ.’
The Cook Islands consist of 15 Islands, scattered over 2 million square kilometres, withing the Pacific Ocean. Out of the 15 Islands, 12 are inhabited. They lie in the centre of the Polynesian Triangle, and are surrounded by neighbouring Polynesian Islands, like Tonga, Samoa, Fiji and the French Polynesian Islands of Tahiti.
The capital of the Cook Islands is Rarotonga Island, a volcanic Island with a population of 16,000 now living on the Island. Most of the people of the Cook Islands, have migrated now living abroad in New Zealand, Australia and other countries, estimated to 100,000 or over.
Of all the population of the Cook Islands, 65 per cent live on the capital Island of Rarotonga, while 35 per cent live on the outer Islands.
Captain James Cook came to the Cook Islands in 1777 and went ashore on one of the uninhabited Islands called Palmerston Island. He never founded the other Islands of the Cook Islands, and yet the Islands are named after him.
In 1821, the Light of Christianity emerged, through the Gospel brought and preached by missionaries from England to Tahiti and to the Cook Islands, by the London Missionary Society, the Reverend John Williams, and by Polynesian missionary preachers from Tahiti.
They landed on the Island of Aitutaki, and in the years that followed they expanded their mission to the other Islands of the Cooks. Through the hard work of the missionaries, converting first the Arikis (kings or high chiefs) who accepted the Christian Gospel, this was a turning point for the people of the Cook Islands.
And that was the greatest journey of the people of the Cook Islands, coming out from the dark into the Light in Christ.
Today we honour God for giving the people of the Cook Islands life in Christ. A journey with Christ, to die with Christ, to rise again with Christ.
‘I Made you Wonderful.’ Is the Theme of this year’s World Day of Prayer, based upon Psalm 139.1-18. Being made into a beautiful being, inside out, by the hand of God.
“For you created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” (Ps 139.13-14)
These words invite us into the knowledge that each of us was made, with care and with love, by God.
When we receive this profound truth, everything in our life changes and we begin to radiate and shine from within, treating all those wonderfully made by God, as beautiful beings.
May our Prayers of intercession guide us to ask God for wisdom and courage, that our world would come to treat all people as wonderfully made by God.
Let the whole world praise the Lord.
“Know that the Lord is God, it is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture” (Ps 100:3).
As Cook Islanders, we are proud of our unique and special culture. We are friendly, vibrant, colourful, courageous, hospitable and enthusiastic.
We love God, we love the Lord Jesus Christ, and we love the Holy Spirit. We have been Blessed by the Lord in everything, and we praise the name of the Lord.
We are a Christian Nation, with God as our Foundation, in all we do.
We are Cook Islanders.
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2.10).
God bless you!
Reverend Tinirau Soatini
Cook Islands Christian Church
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