Because I am in my church office on Tuesdays, I have not heard what others have said about this subject. It may be that I repeat what others have said. It may be that I contradict them and you conclude I don’t know what I am talking about. In either case, I trust Christ will be present and help us make sense of what is happening in our world. I make some general observations about what I see happening around us, and then we come back to our New Testament Scripture.
The Pandemic
At the beginning of 2020, we heard rumblings about a new coronavirus, now known as Covid-19, with the potential to sweep across the globe. Lois and I were planning a trip at the end of March or beginning of April to visit our granddaughter in Texas. As the reports of a possible pandemic spread, we began to wonder if we should fly down to Houston or not. By mid-March, the choice was taken out of our hands as travel restrictions came into place and, soon after, the border with the USA was closed.
Since then, we had services online for several months and now our church meets at 30% capacity. We avoid singing in the service, with a music team at the front providing our music. We can eat out, but tables in our restaurants are spread apart for safety. We are not able to visit freely when people go into the hospital. Our members in personal care homes have their visits restricted as well. Pandemic fatigue is setting in, and we find it hard to maintain the level of care needed to slow the spread of the virus. At the same time, numbers are climbing, especially in Winnipeg, just as we find ourselves less able to enjoy the open air and are confined to the indoors, where the virus can spread more easily.
Medical researchers have made a lot of progress, but we’re still waiting for better treatments to ensure healing; we’re still waiting for a vaccine to slow the virus’ spread. Our best guess is that we may not be able to move freely until the end of next year. If you think we’re tired now, how do you think we’ll feel a year from now? It’s easy to paint a grim picture of the future. It’s easy to give up hope.
Some people respond to all this “doom and gloom” by denying that the virus is serious. They tell us that it’s not really so bad, just another illness something like the flu. Medical people tend to be less hopeful, as they see the danger of hospitals being overwhelmed and the possibility of long-term complications from the disease.
Nevertheless, I also would speak a word of hope – not like those who deny the seriousness of what we face, but grounded in our relationship with Jesus. Covid-19 is a major problem; it threatens the economy and the stability of our relationships and society. Even so, we do not need to be afraid. A meme has gone around the internet, placing a sound bubble of God speaking beside pictures of the pandemic, the wildfires in the Western United States, and the racial riots in the USA. The voice says, “Now that I’ve got your attention!”
We can use that idea destructively to say that God is punishing us with the virus. Or we can use the idea that God is trying to get our attention through the problems that we face. That is what I want to do by looking at Colossians 1.
Colossians 1: 15-20
Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians about 60 or 62 A.D. (I follow those commentators who locate this as one of his letters from prison, written near the end of his life.) His emphasis on the supremacy of Christ suggests that some in the church at Colossae were not sure that Jesus was truly human and fully divine. Paul is concerned to make sure that they know who Jesus is, so he writes as follows:
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Consider briefly Paul’s claims for Christ.
· When we see Jesus, we see God. If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.
· Jesus identifies with Creation as well as with God.
· Jesus is the creative Word (John 1. Genesis 1) through whom all that is exists.
· Jesus comes first, and everything else “holds together” in him. This is the primary point I want to come back to shortly, in relation to the pandemic.
· Jesus is the head of the church, the one in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17: 28).
· Jesus died with us and has risen for us, so that we also can rise with him.
· God dwells fully in Christ; if you want to see God, look at Jesus.
· God reconciles “all things” through Jesus on the cross.
There is a remarkable amount in this short passage – possibly originally a hymn that Christians sang in their worship services. It would take weeks to unpack it all, and I return to one idea only for our purposes today.
Everything Holds Together
We are not the first people to feel as though the world is falling apart. A hundred years ago, William Butler Yeats wrote these words in a poem called “The Second Coming”, reflecting on the disintegration he saw following the First World War:
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …"
He wrote these words in the midst of the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918-1920, describing his sense that post-war Europe was unable to deal with the forces of disintegration in their world.
“Things Fall Apart” became the title of a novel by Chinua Achebe from Nigeria, written in 1958. The title has become a common saying for the disintegration experienced by traditional people in the colonial setting. It describes well enough what First Nations peoples experienced in Canada as they responded to the growing influence of the dominant Canadian society. In short, “things fall apart” is a description of the human experience. What we are feeling today under the pandemic is the normal human experience.
In the midst of this disintegration, Paul reminds us that everything “holds together” in Christ. Things fall apart in this world; things hold together in Christ. This word “holds together” is a curious one in the original text. The old King James rendered it as “consist”, with the idea of coherence. Most modern translations use “holds together”, which is again the idea of coherence. “Cohere” means “holds together in at least two ways: 1) everything is integrated and works the way that it’s supposed to – in Christ; and 2) everything is integrated and makes sense – in Christ. Not “makes sense”. meaning that we understand, but “makes sense”, meaning that does what it’s supposed to do. Everything fits together just right.
In 2003, Lois and I travelled through southern Africa while I was on sabbatical from Providence. We drove a car that broke down in almost every country we passed through. Many different mechanics worked on it. You might say that our car did not “hold together.” I remember one mechanic in Zambia who was basically self-taught. He was good! As he worked with the car, he remarked, “You know that you are putting it back together when everything fits just right. If you have to force it, it is wrong!” In Christ, everything fits just right.
A Reminder of Genesis 1
Look back to Genesis 1 (hinted at in verses 15 and 16). Thew creative word of God speaks into chaos and emptiness, bringing about an ordered and peaceful universe. Consider the sequence of creation. Day 1: Light and Darkness; Day 2: Sky and Waters; Day 3: Dry Land in the Waters. You see a set of three, which is mirrored in days four to six. Day 4: The sun and moon and stars, giving light to creation; Day 5: birds and fish, populating the skies and waters; Day 6: vegetation and animals, including the human pair, filling the dry land. A second set of three, with the seventh day making a perfect seven for a perfect creation.
A basic theme in the creation account is that God brings order and peace out of chaos and disorder. This truth is what Paul is thinking of as he reminds us that all things come together and hold together in Christ. Christ, the Eternal Word of God, is the one who brings peace and order into the chaos and disorder of our lives.
Back to the Pandemic
When we think of the effects of the pandemic, we often think that Covid-19 is really different from anything that has gone before, but of course it isn’t. As many have reminded us (C.S. Lewis for example, writing about the atom bomb), it only reveals what is always true. We were always going to die some day; we live every day with the reality we are not in control; in truth, we were made for something beyond this life. Covid-19 just strips away our efforts to cover up reality and convince ourselves that we are in control of what is happening. We aren’t in control. We never were in control.
Into that reality, Paul drops this reminder, “In Christ, all things hold together.” In Christ, life and death make sense, In Christ, good and bad in our lives are integrated into a meaningful and wonderful reality.
How Does This Work?
What do we do with this truth? How does Jesus make sense of the way that Covid-19 has disrupted our society? Here I make two basic suggestions, but you as a community of believers, with Christ as your head, need to work out the answer for yourselves.
1. The first basic and necessary step is to be reconciled with God. All people live in rebellion against God to a greater or lesser extent. Some are active and open in their insistence that they and they alone can run their lives. Others appear to submit to God, but, like the little boy told to sit down, they are “standing up inside”. This rebellion separates us from God. In verses 21 to 23, Paul describes this condition and reminds us that we are reconciled with God through the cross. The first step, then, is to embrace the cross of Christ.
2. A second step is to seek God actively every day, to pray and read the Bible and mediate on Jesus and develop our relationship with Jesus every day. What this relationship looks like depends on you and your community. Some people like music. Some prefer chorales by Bach, and some like country western. God loves both, and we can draw close to God with both.
Some people like mediation and silence, with Christ at the centre of their silent prayer; some prefer community settings where everyone prays out loud and a cataract of sound is lifted up to God in prayer. God loves silence and noise, when it is given to God with our whole hearts.
Some people read the Bible systematically – my Dad used to read about three and half pages a day, because that took him through the Bible in one year. Some people read in big chunks and then don’t read again for a week. God doesn’t care, so long as we immerse ourselves in God’s word and listen to God’s story.
Some people take courses in seminary, and others talk over the latest book study in their small group. God is present in both. The point is to seek Jesus and listen to Jesus and be open to the presence of God’s Spirit in all that we do.
Conclusion
A closing example. In 2003, our family spent half a week in the Taizé community in France. I will not describe the community’s history here, but you can look it up on the internet and learn how it came together. Taizé is a community of 200 or so brothers who spend time together, working, studying Scripture, and praying. They have three times of prayer each day, at 8:30 in the morning, at 12:30 in the afternoon, and at 8:30 in the evening.
The centrepiece of their worship is these prayer times, and at the centre of the prayer is a 10-minute silence. We took part in the work, Bible study, and prayers for the four days we were there. I have never experienced a depth of peace as we did in that place. The depth of that peace is seen in the horrific end of their founder’s life. In August 2005. A deranged woman ran up and cut his throat at the end of the prayer time. Terrible! Jason Santos had just arrived at Taizé, planning to write a history and description of the community. In his book, he describes the events after Brother Roger’s death. There was grief. There were tears. There was all of the indescribable horror of a senseless murder. But the peace of the community was greater than their grief. “Peace that passes understanding.” The prayer and silence continued, and God swallowed up their grief in the fullness of the presence of the Spirit.
That is what this passage promises us. We can find God, made available to us in Christ, greater and more wonderful than even the Covid-19 pandemic, as we immerse ourselves in our lives with Christ. Paul had done that. The Brothers of Taizé did that. We are offered that same re-integration of life and peace as we embrace Christ in the pandemic.
1 comment:
Very moving and much appreciated.
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