Required to spend a whole week in Auckland Central recently for jury duty, I needed to find relief from the grind of sitting in a courtroom for most of the day. I was arriving early to avoid the crush of students on the bus, and lunchtimes were a full hour.
Consequently, there was time to walk up to Albert Park, and explore different food and beverage options. It's been a number of years since I had to spend any significant time in the city, so it was a re-acquaintance and a remembering of certain things.
Remedy, on the corner of Queen and Wellesley St., was a pleasant part of the re-acquaintance. It looks the same after several years, with rustic charm instead of a cold, clinical look. It's busy because others also see it as having the right ambience, with coffee flavoursome and well made enough to not need an 'extra shot'. The city, full of bustle, construction, homelessness and traffic, pushes me to seek refuge in parks and coffee shops, shelters from the storm, each in their own way.
In life, people seek remedy for what ails them. The world seems a challenging place at every level, from the global, to the local, and the personal. Where will we find relief? Among all the false prophets, vain hopes and therapies of the contemporary world, the remedy emerges for those who would ask, seek and knock.
The final Passover that Jesus experienced in Jerusalem before his execution was attended by some Greeks who asked the disciple "Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.'" (John 12:21) These Gentiles knew Jesus had the remedy they wanted, a way of life they were drawn to. It is a way that leads to our own cross-shaped journey of salvation, but it is the remedy for the nations.