When Pressure meets Presence

 

Two years ago this week, after the UK went into lockdown, we had our first cases of Covid 19 here in the islands. Within a few short days we were also confined to our homes and the nightmare had begun. Now Europe is at war again for the first time since 1945, at least from the invasion of a sovreign country by a neighbour. And the cost of everything is soaring, so that the dreaded word 'inflation' - the plague of 1970's Britain - is back with a vengeance. Tough times are here, and nowhere more so than in the residential areas of Ukraine.

Part of the learning experiences of the last two years has been the understanding that we can't go on behaving in the way we used to. Hand hygiene and mask-wearing in enclosed spaces have become common-place, driven by the fear of infection. Adversity forces change. It makes us think again about our safety and comfort. It changes our priorities. Think about the people huddled in a Kyev basement, hiding from Russian bombs. They have fled their homes with only what they could carry, pets and all. Now, all that matters is life and freedom. Their ordeal has totally realigned their priorities.

But we should not be surprised that suffering produces change. The Bible teaches that it at least can produce patience and perseverance, and those are good, but we would far rather dispense with the adversity in the first place and go straight to the 'lesson learnt' stage without the pain. Yet nobody gets a testimony without a test. Perhaps it is only in retrospect that we can see glimmers of light in the black overlay of struggle and pain that life can be for so many.

So, two years on in this global pandemic, with war raging in Europe and the cost of living soaring, are there any signs of hope? God may not have given the deliverance we longed for, but he has given us his living presence. Once when Moses was facing a great challenge he famously prayed, 'if your presence does not go with us, Lord, please don't take us there!'. But he did, and he was, - with them in their battle to claim a promised land.

The name 'Emanuel' means 'God with us' and it was given to Jesus. Born in a borrowed stable, fleeing with his parents as refugees into another country, rejected by his own people and then crucified by a cruel foreign invading army - he truly is with us! And the best news is that the grave could not hold him - he rose again. Thank God for Jesus!

A Fearful Possibility? - or a Place of Shelter?

With news of a new variant named 'Omicron' by the WHO that may possibly dodge the effects of the vaccine on our immune systems, as well as being even more transmissible than the Delta version, it is clear that the pandemic is far from over. The fear of new variants has been acknowledged for some time, but now seems to have been realised due to the low take-up of vaccination in the global south. As one scientist said on the radio recently, 'none of us are safe until we are all safe', urging the fairer spread of vaccine into the poorer nations, now that rates of protection are fairly high in the developed world.

Our own island community has seen infection rates soar since the borders were re-opened in July. The freedom from 'non-pharmaceutical interventions' that we knew - mask wearing, social distancing etc - is now a distant memory as we are tasting what the rest of the British Isles and elsewhere have been going through in the last couple of years. Covid came even closer home to me recently when Diane, my wife, caught Covid and went through a couple of weeks of the symptoms of a really heavy cold, though thankfully nothing more. At the time of writing I am grateful to be still free of the infection.

But some of he stuff I learned during my long battle with life-threatening illness is helping me now. I realise, for instance, that I must make a decision not to let fear dominate here. Why should I be afraid if I know that my life is held in God's hands? Illness and death have always stalked the Earth since the earliest days of mankind, as have wars and famines, but God has always shown himself to be faithful. Christmas is the announcement of God breaking into our fallen humanity with the presence of the one who is described as 'Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace and Everlasting Father'. None of the horrors of the pandemic have taken him by surprise and his hand is still on the tiller of history.

A prayer from the book of Psalms says; 'when my heart is overwhelmed within me, lead me to the rock that is higher than I'. (Psalm 61:2). If you are starting to feel fear's icy grip on your heart, you probably need to pray that too. The new variant may be coming, like another wave of evil, but God's rock is still strong enough for you and me to shelter by. That rock is Christ!