(Originally Posted December 2, 2020)
I heard a story the other day about a couple, sleeping soundly in their bed, who were awakened by the terrifying crash of their neighbor’s tree tearing through the roof of their bedroom. Through no fault of their own, their night and their house were ruined. If this isn’t a metaphor for 2020, I don’t know what is. In January/February we heard about this nasty bug that was going around in Italy, and by March were all in lockdown.
Out of nowhere this thing came along and ruined our year. Thankfully we are the people of hope, and we have someone to turn in these times of trouble. Psalm 147 says,
1 Praise the Lord.
How good it is to sing praises to our God,
how pleasant and fitting to praise him!
2 The Lord builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the exiles of Israel.
3 He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.
5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit.
Though we are scattered, exiled if you will, we know and can find comfort that the Lord will gather us together in the future. Though our heart breaks from cancelled plans and opportunities that feel lost, we know that our wounds can be healed. We worship a God who has counted the uncountable, and if God can know them so well how much more does God know us?
When this current trouble passes (and it will). You are not required to look back at this time fondly. The year 2020 doesn’t need to be celebrated as a time we all hunkered down to watch too many hours of television and assemble more puzzles than we have done in the previous decade. We can grieve it and grieve it together. However, in that grief we know that there is a God that will gather us from this in-home exile to be together once again.
How good it is to sing praises to our God!