Worshipping Covid Word on the Week 24th April 2021.
A new priority has been established in the land. It is to do with the Covid pandemic. It has taken over the news bulletins. The numbers of ‘new cases’ heads the statistics commanding fear and obedience. To add weight, the daily death toll is revealed and a running total displayed.
Governments control of the disease involves actions which lie contrary to Christian practice. The prohibition of meeting together, the avoidance of significant touch and the masking which prevents facial communication. We have to obey rules which can be ramped up through 5 levels of severity and the law is being used to enforce them.
The aim is to save lives. Those most at risk have been identified and have been vaccinated. Now with the older cohort done vaccination has been distributed on an age basis with the oldest coming first. By this means the entire population will receive the vaccine. In the UK consideration is being given to the issue of a certificate recognising that you have been done. In future the rules may state that only those with certificates can travel etc.
Here the ship of state, having cast off its Christian moorings, is floating rudderless, while funding weekly the bulk of the working population out of borrowed money. Those receiving an income cannot work because the Covid rules forbid it. At present all hope is centred on the vaccines being effective over time and against variants of the disease.
There has been no recognition that we are made in the image of God with a life expectancy which extends beyond the grave. This desire to keep the elderly population alive for another few years, however worthy, sits uneasily against the background of the government’s dallying with euthanasia. And for the remainder of the country the preserving of life flies in the face of the legalisation permitting abortion where not even the dead are given a burial.
Where is God in all this? He must know all about the pandemic – after all He permitted it! Where is the call to prayer to call upon his mercy? Where is the recognition of guilt before a holy God? Where is the pleading of the merits of the blood of Christ on the altar which is Calvary? 1 Chronicles chapter 21 verses 13 to 27 is where a repentant King David caused a plague to cease.
Repent of letting RTE’s 6 o’clock news become your daily diet of fear and rules. Rely on the God who answers prayer (despite our doubts that He will) as when Peter tried to join a prayer meeting which was praying for his release (Acts Chapter 12 verses 5 to 17)!
Jesus answered “Have faith in God” (St Mark Chapter 11 verse 22).