Covid Continues Word on the Week 26th September 2020.
We never supposed it would be like this! The virus seemed to depart from our shores for warmer climes only to come roaring back just when things were returning to normal. It’s becoming wearing on our emotional intelligence!
Our ordinary intelligence hasn’t got us very far. We are not quite sure how the virus started, or why the whole world is affected. We don’t know how to get rid of it. It appears to be designed to break up close relationships and is highly successful at playing havoc with work and the sports scene.
The virus has a particular attachment to the infirm or elderly. It is selective in choosing who will get a bad dose and its fatalities seem to be picked at random.
How can we figure out these things and get accustomed to talking to each other over the internet? How can we share feelings when it gets harder to work out what each is experiencing? Try empathising via zoom!
The ancients did much better with their emotions. The Psalmist was able to write, when depressed with others mocking his faith, that his tears sustained him when memories couldn’t. But he knew he was saved! (Psalm 42 verses 3 to 5).
Jeremiah, known as the weeping prophet, mourns
over the plight of his people. Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my
eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night for the slain of my people. Oh, that I had in
the desert a lodging place for travellers, so that I might leave
my people and go away from them;
for they are all adulterers, a crowd of unfaithful people.
Jeremiah Chapter 9 verses 1 – 2.
Jeremiah let it all out! His desire was to bring his sin-sick people to the ‘Balm of Gilead’. Their sickness (adultery and faithlessness) required His attention. On their own they were lost (Chapter 8 verses 20 – 22).
The last time Jesus visited Jerusalem prior to the crucifixion was an emotive time. From his vantage point on the Mount of Olives he saw, not just the current rejection of his mission, but that he stood in line with the prophets back through the avenues of time. All had suffered the same fate in the long run.
Then comes his lament – ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem’ and the illustration of the mother hen with its great care of its chicks. Jesus sees himself as a broody hen such is his unquenchable love for his rebellious people and his longing to gather them to himself for safety, security and salvation (St Matthew chapter 23 verse 37).
In a pandemic there is no better place to be for us rebels. Let the word of God prevail on your emotional intelligence to commit your life to Jesus (St John Chapter 1 verse 12).