The New Year has seen our community tumble into a new phase of the Covid pandemic with the arrival of the highly infectious Omicron variant, and transitioning from zero-tolerance of the virus, to living with it. And as much as vaccines have helped us prepare, we still feel exposed and vulnerable.

Before the pandemic arrived, we lived in what seems now a golden time of freedom of living, opportunity, and connection with people. We thought of this as normal life, to which the pandemic was a shocking upheaval. People have kept talking about when we will get back to how things were, when they were – you know – “normal”.

However social commentators are now saying that the pre-pandemic era of great freedoms that we thought of as “normal” was in truth, in the greater scheme of history, a relatively brief aberration (i.e., only a few decades, following WW2 and the Cold War). In the bigger picture of history what is in fact much more normal are regular cycles of social and political upheaval. 

The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega (Rev 22:13) – i.e., He is Lord in and over all the upheavals and turmoil of history, and of our personal lives. He does this so that we may realise our total dependence upon Him. Yet also know that He is our merciful Saviour, who came to save, forgive, heal all who look to Him in faith and repentance, and bring us to ultimate fulfilment in His eternal kingdom.

Welcome to “normal”!

Grace and peace, Jonathan.