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A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with the Revd Dr Stephen Wigley.

Good morning.

‘Oh yes, at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender.’ It’s been a few weeks since this year’s Eurovision but to my mind there was nothing there to compare with Abba’s classic song from 1974. Nor am I alone, as Waterloo was voted the best song at the 50th anniversary Eurovision in Copenhagen in 2005. ‘At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender’ and indeed, 210 yrs ago today that’s exactly what took place. It was a close-run thing for Wellington and his allies but it was a final and decisive defeat for Napoleon and his armies, leading to his exile in a place from which he could never return, on the island of St. Helena.

Now the genius, or alternatively the cheek of the song, is to take the impact of an international event and translate that into a pop song for Eurovision. From Abba’s perspective, moving from the battlefield into the complexity of human relationships in which love and hate intertwine, falling in love changes everything; it leaves the protagonist with all their defences down so that the only option is to surrender.

From a broader perspective, it serves to remind us that things in our life and relationships don’t always work out as we hope or plan. Events happen, relationships blossom or break, and we have to learn to adjust. Indeed, adjusting to apparent disaster is a theme which runs right through the Christian story – what bigger disaster could there be than the Crucifixion? But as Abba remind us, there will come a time for many, perhaps each one of us, when we finally meet our Waterloo and discover there is a new and very different future ahead of us than we first thought.

Loving God, in the life of Jesus you show us how to cope with both triumph and disaster; help us to be inspired by his example, so that we can find and face up to our own Waterloo whenever it happens.

Amen.