Isaiah 64:1-9
I’m sitting in a donut shop called “Hero.” The weather has changed from humid summer heat to crisp fall air with the concomitant crystal blue sky, which stays for about 3 weeks this time of year. The sun peeks above the pin oak across Oxmoor Road and spills onto my page while
early 90’s rock plays overhead and a classic Porky Pig cartoon flashes on the singular TV in the dining area. The buzz of conversation around me covers everything from marketing strategies to college courses.
If it weren’t for the ubiquitous hand sanitizer by the door, the space between the tables, or the masked employees, I might never suspect COVID was a “thing.” Still, my friend of 20 years travels down to Sylacauga today for the funeral of her aunt who died from COVID last week – the new normal, I guess.
When COVID became the “pandemic-we-were-waiting-for” and the world closed, fear struck me as I wondered if whatever is Not God could do “exceedingly abundantly more than all we ask and imagine,” just as God could. I believed then, had to believe then, that God could guide us through collectively, though grief would remain in these living generations as the world was re-made or even re-born – another evolution towards a new future. Still, I shuddered in considering what that future might be – the undulating history of humanity at once fragile and unflinching – crashing into chaos and rising with victory throughout a multitude of obstacles along the way.
In Isaiah, I sense a desperation the pandemic engendered – a fear that maybe we have brought our own disaster upon ourselves – and worse, that God stands distanced letting us feel the full weight of heartbreak and pain. In the season of Advent, Isaiah paints the picture of our understanding of reality: our actions separate us from God and bring down God’s judgment upon us, and we are left alone to fight the battle or pick up the pieces or pay the price; and we must beg and plead and remind God to be merciful.
Yet this is the season of “God With Us” not “God against us” and what is absolutely, positively amazing is that God is with ALL of us – the victim AND the perpetrator, the transgressor AND the transgressed. In the person of Emmanuel, we come to understand that God is With Us in Love – regardless of our views on masks and vaccines, regardless of our fears and trepidations, regardless of how we stand against ourselves and others – even when we convince ourselves that God is not ____ (with us, for us, concerned about us, loving, just, kind, etc.) because of some fact of our life. These items have no bearing on where and how God responds to us – they are the shriveled fall leaves blown down to feed spring growth. God is simply, unimaginably, unapologetically With Us, loving us every season of our lives, beside us each step of the way.
From St. Patrick’s Breastplate: Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every [hu]man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.
