Friends
As we start the New Year, with its round of New Year’s Resolutions, Covenant Services, hopes and fears, we wonder if by next year we will be living with a Covid that has become manageable. We may also be wondering what a return to normal will look like. What is normality in the context of a world that has been so changed over the last two years? We can look back in the history of the country, or indeed the world, to see how everything returned after previous pandemics and two world wars, but it is still hard to imagine what it will be like in our time. Our exit from the European Union has also been murmuring along in the background, but it has not been as front and centre as it would have been if it was not overshadowed by the international efforts to manage this massive health crisis and we still don’t know what further impact we will experience from this.
It is all to easy to ask “But what is God’s response? What is God doing? Why is he allowing this? Where is his redemptive act in all of this?” We want to see God at work now, and we are faced with other people who, having always challenged the idea of a loving Creator God, now feel that their scepticism is borne out. And yet…
Two thousand and twenty years ago, give or take a couple of years, a baby was born and laid in a manger because there was no room for him at the inn. In that single act, all of the answers were given and the events that were set in motion, events we will follow in the lectionary between now and Pentecost, tell us that the answer is the work of God through God’s people, enabled by the indwelling Holy Spirit. We cannot ask what God is doing about the pandemic because he has already done it. And setting in place this chain of events, he equipped us to respond to all the exigencies of life leaning on his power, following the pattern shown to us by Jesus, strengthened and led by the Spirit. Not a magic, wand-waving, three wishes and all your problems are solved sort of response, but a way of life set out and enabled by a loving parent.
Jesus was able to live that life perfectly and we should certainly aspire to do so also. However, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” * and aspiration is usually all we can manage. Someone who has always been honest about his “fallen shortness” and yet who has spoken with great eloquence about his love of God, is the singer Johnny Cash. At the end of January, when all the Covenant services are complete, we are going to do something a little unusual. On the 30th we are going to have a morning Circuit service, which will be at High Street, and also streamed, and which will be led by a Christian band who use the songs of Johnny Cash to speak into the life of faith. For those of you who would find that too challenging or not conducive to worship, we are asking the churches to offer a low-key local arrangement, but the hope of the staff team is that as many people as possible will attend, either on site or online, as we explore something different in our worshipping life.
High Street is the ideal church for this because of the tech support it can offer and I am grateful to them for agreeing to host this. Although parking is always an issue in this circuit, the Nicholson carpark is free on a Sunday and the staff team and I hope to see you there. In the meantime, may I wish you all the very best for a wonderful 2022 and may God’s blessing rest upon you this Epiphany and always.
God bless
Vicci
*Romans 3:23