It’s amazing how Bible stories that I never really thought about before have become vivid for me during this pandemic. Today, I find myself thinking a lot about Moses – not in the bulrushes or beside the burning bush or telling Pharoah to let the people go – but towards the end of his life, standing atop the mountain with God, looking at the promised land that he cannot enter. The image of Moses looking longingly at a land he cannot go into fits with how I am feeling at this moment in the pandemic.
I am so ready to get to the promised land of post-COVID life. I know it will be different because we are different just like Canaan was different from Egypt. Nevertheless, I am ready to build that new way of life. Unlike Moses, most of us will eventually be able to journey into that new country (pandemics always end). Still, for now, we look at it with deep soul longing and cannot go there just like Moses atop that mountain surveying the promised land.
We are so close to that promised land. Things are going well in Ontario. Our cases are slowly declining. Our vaccination rates are slowly growing. Our hospital system is able to cope. We’ve had many of the restrictions loosened. Stores, cinemas, gyms, restaurants are open. Schools are operating in person. More visitors are allowed in hospitals and care homes. Many churches are worshipping in person with COVID modifications. Before Thanksgiving, we were not told not to gather but rather asked to keep our gatherings small, take them outside if we could and continue to be careful.
We have made tremendous progress after many months of great sacrifice in the wilderness.
With things going well, it can be so tempting to want to eliminate all restrictions immediately and return to a freedom we have not known in more than 18 months. We are more than ready to get out of this desert wilderness and start tilling the soil in a new country.
Yet, it may be precisely because we have kept some restrictions like masking and distancing that things are going well. If we remove all restrictions too fast, we might find ourselves thrust back deeper into the desert.
So in this moment, I am feeling an invitation to a biblical value that I also had not given much thought to before “steadfastness.” To be steadfast is to stand firm and resolute in the face of pressure. It’s a kind of action that looks like standing still but really is a strong act of faith.
So let me leave you with this blessing from the Apostle Paul: “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of God, because you know that in God your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
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Beth Kerr serves as pastor at Atwood United Church and Trinity United Church in Listowel.
