Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Happy New Year! Well, here we are at the gate of the new year, perhaps in years past January
felt a lot like a time pregnant with opportunities for the year that lay ahead. However, for
many of us after enduring 2020 and 2021 there is a great deal of trepidation about what 2022
will hold.
That is quite understandable, especially for those among our fellowship who are medically
vulnerable. If its not the threat of Covid-19 itself, then folks are worried about further
restrictions or struck by the ever present and much promoted fear that hangs over the world
in these strange pandemic days. Sometimes it feels like we will never get back to normal!
We Christians though have a hope that lasts beyond all the tumult of this world. Jesus is the
Lord of 2022, just as He is the potentate of all time. He rules and reigns over everyone and
everything. The bounds of every human being’s time on earth is decided by God, for He
personally knit us together in our mother’s wombs (Psalm 139:19), its Jehovah who sets the
length of our lives and the Lord is the One who decides the hour of our death (Job 14:5b).
That’s a startling biblical truth, the knowledge that long before we were even born God
decided when we would come into this earth and when we would leave it. I find that
incredibly comforting, knowing that all of my days are in God’s hands, but I haven’t always
had that sense of peace about my mortality.
My grandmother used to love the American soap opera ‘the days of our lives’, occasionally
when she babysat me, we would watch it together. The booming voice of the narrator would
fill me with existential dread as he sounded out “like sands through the hour glass, so are the
days of our lives!” as the hourglass rotated on the screen, and the sand slowly trickled away.
Watching this I would get chills down my spine, keenly aware that my time was running out.
Even as a little boy, I grasped mortality because I was born last into a family with lots of
elderly relatives (my Mum was 40 when I was born) and thus I felt dread fear of dying or
having my loved ones die from an early age. In fact, my fears were realized as most of my
closest family members had died by the time I was 18 years old, which only reinforced my
terrible fear of death. I think this dread terror contributed to my social phobia, a terrible
anxiety disorder that truly crippled life in my late teens and early 20’s.
And yet, once I became a Christian in my mid 20’s suddenly, like a light switch being flicked
on my fear of death was completely removed! Once I knew I had a wonderful destination
awaiting me beyond death’s dark vale, the grim reaper (so to speak) was robbed of his power
over me and I was liberated. I knew that as St. Paul said, “for to me, living means living for
Christ, and dying is even better.” (Philippians 1:21). For me a life spent following Jesus and
serving His people is amazing, but to die and be with Christ forever in paradise is even more
marvellous. Of course, I dislike suffering, naturally I worry about how I will die, but the fear
of death itself is gone for me. Any last vestiges of anxiety about the shadow of death were
hammered out of me by God on His anvil of affliction in 2019, when I had a car crash that
should have been fatal (a testimony for another time) and again in 2020 when I came within
two days of dying (according to the A&E doctors) from viral pneumonia.
If we Christians know that we are mortal and we know Christ has a home prepared for us
(John 14:3) that ought to inform how we use the time afforded to us by our Creator here on
earth. Christians ought to live in light of eternity! A lot of society seems to be utterly crippled
by fear of the Coronavirus, and poisoned by terror form the possibility of death itself. We
disciples of Jesus have an antidote though; faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We trust the length
of our days is set by God and know with certainty Christ has a heavenly home waiting for us
when the sands in our hourglass run out. Thus, we ought to resist the sort of debilitating fear
that has the unbelieving world in a chokehold, for it can stunt our growth in Jesus, sever us
from worshipping God and impair fellowshipping with other believers. Now that’s not to say
we should be reckless with our lives, each of us must prayerfully decide what degree of risk
we are comfortable engaging with, but in light of God’s sovereignty over us and His gift of
eternal life, we perhaps need to recover a little gospel boldness. Maybe all of the trials of the
last two years have been (and continue to be) a test from God to refine His church (Isaiah
48:10), do we react to this present crisis any differently to the world around us? God
demands worship and the world needs to hear about Him, we are finite and mortal and ought
to “be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every
opportunity, because the days are evil [and short!].” (Ephesians 5:15-16 emphasis mine). At
this time of trial when the world desperately needs the light of Christ, some churches have
their doors firmly shut and that is their choice, but St. David’s remains open (with plenty of
hygiene and safety measures in place) in defiance of fear to worship God and proclaim His
gospel, in the midst of great pandemic darkness, the gospel light shines brighter and more
visibly.
Whatever 2022 holds, whether it’s better or worse than the difficult two years that have
preceded it, I can assure you of this, Jesus Christ is Lord! We ought to be bold in going about
our Father’s business of worshipping His glory and proclaiming the glorious gospel of
salvation to a needy and fearful world.
Pax Christi (in the Peace of Christ),
Rev’d Brett
