Christ is Risen. Alleluia!
In the Words of our Collect, “Risen Christ, you revealed yourself to the Disciples and calmed their fears: meet us in our uncertainties”
It is with this prayer in our hearts that we approach this day and seek the peace of God which surpasses all understanding.
Uncertainty feeds discontent and discontent leads to disillusionment. We must apply ourselves to stand against discontentment and disillusionment. Putting things into proper perspective will assist us most in this task.
We have all had our lives disrupted and as I often say (we are human beings not human doings” it is not just our activities that have been disrupted it is our “beings.” Our sense of identity made up of our vocational purpose, our leisure activities, our community, be it sport, cards, or Church, our community is disrupted.
In an article I read this morning the author was saying that we need to grieve for our dreams and goals, the future that we had anticipated, because it’s all changing.
The Bible is one long story of people interacting with God and crying out to Him to rescue them from discontent and disillusionment. The Bible teaches us two things about overcoming these. Firstly, we must remember that God has won us freedom. We are not prisoners of our circumstances. When we are in difficult circumstances, we have a reason for living, we have a hope for the future, and we have a purpose that cannot be negated by our present situation.
Many people are not able to perform their normal daily jobs at present and this challenges their identity. Those at work are working in such abnormal situations and everything is so different that they spend most of their energy working out how to do what they have been doing as a matter of course for years.
In this challenge, no matter who you are or what your circumstances are, it is critical that we reconnect with our true identity, that of “Children of God.”
We are children of God who normally, practice as accountants, or sales reps or are retired accountants or sales reps. Therefore, although we are not able to do our normal work in a normal way, we are no less of the person that God wants us to be.
The principal of Sabbath, the Sabbath year and the year of Jubilee, (Exodus 23 and 25) have a valuable lesson to teach us. We are not accustomed to relying solely on God to provide for us. Usually God provides for us through our work our ability to catch a taxi, earn a living, go to school. It is God who gives us these things. Like the people of the Bible in any era, they viewed their fortunes as a gift from God and couldn’t understand God providing in another way. Can you imagine taking your whole family and going with three million others and in a spectacular fashion being set free from slavery only to end up in a barren wilderness with no food and water? Can you imagine having the Church buildings (all of them) totally destroyed and a Leader completely against the Christian faith demanding that we stop worshipping.
And this has happened in modern History as it has happened in Biblical History and we are experiencing the same challenges in our present His Story! And every time, God comes through, water from a rock, manna from heaven, delivery from fiery furnaces, appointment of Godly leaders after a long line of ungodly ones! Can you see the pattern here?
We do not practice the principal of the Sabbath year in which we plant nothing and God provides for us. It is time that we wrap our heads around this biblical principle. Trusting in God for our physical needs as well as our emotional and Spiritual needs has been a challenge since the beginning of time, and yet we see that God continually reminds us that He is faithful and that we must look to Him to provide for us. This does not mean that we must do nothing, but it means that we must be able to trust God in times of drought and pestilence and war and COVID -19.
In the words of Hebrews 12:2
We must keep our eyes on Jesus, who leads us and makes our faith complete. He endured the shame of being nailed to a cross, because He knew later on He would be glad He did. Now He is seated at the right side of God’s throne! (CEV).
May the Lord our God encourage you today!
Be assured of my prayers!
Rector.
