Psalm 62│Isaiah 47│1Thessalonians 2.13-20│Matthew 15.1-20
Our rock and our salvation
'Vernd/Protection' by Einar Jónsson, 1874-1954From Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56338 [retrieved November 28, 2020]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KeurMoussaAutel.jpg.
What plans were you making this time last year? Travel? Moving house? A new job? Or most likely, just carrying on as before, free to decide day to day what to do with your time, where to go, who to meet up with. The economic indicators were OK. And then it all came tumbling down. I doubt even the gloomiest prophet could have foreseen the pandemic and the consequent reactions by those who govern us. As Isaiah 47.11 says: “Disaster will come upon you and you will not know how to conjure it away. A calamity will fall upon you that you cannot ward off with a ransom, a catastrophe you cannot foresee will suddenly come upon you”. It certainly feels as though that’s what’s happened, people and nations flail around, economies totter and the old certainties and expertise, from “the astrologers and stargazers” of our own day do not seem to lead to successful remedies. The whole chapter makes for grim reading, rather too apocalyptic for comfort.
But
Psalm 62 is there as well, to reassure believers that they do in fact
have the answer: to find rest in God, who alone is our rock and our salvation.
Even the psalmist admits that it’s not going to be easy, but nonetheless
repeatedly reminds us that if we trust in God we will find in him refuge and
salvation. All we need to do is follow his advice. And especially
this year, in the Advent run-up to a Christmas that will undoubtedly be very
different from the celebrations everyone is used to, we must remember to
proclaim the true Good News to those around us.
Carol de Lusignan
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