Diary of a pandemic – quarantine - Day 40#
Quarantine [from the Latin quadraginta meaning 40] first came into widespread use
during the Middle Ages when plague ravaged much of Europe. Even then, without
the benefit of contemporary science and modelling, there was an awareness that enforcing
isolation could benefit the population and slow the spread of disease.
In 2020, the campaign
against Covid-19 has been highly visible, with graphs of statistics showing infections, recoveries, and deaths,
and hard-to-believe media images of overwhelmed hospitals in the world’s most
developed economies.
For some the last forty days have brought unimaginable grief
as loved ones have succumbed and livelihoods have been lost. For them, lines on
graphs don’t ease the devastation.
For the well-resourced with good mental health, the forty days may
have provided an unexpected opportunity to express their creativity, spend
quality time with family, and enjoy the long overlooked natural environment
around them.
But for those of us who entered this forty days already carrying the gathered grief of significant deaths or
endings, the accumulation of further losses has added to the invisible
inner conflict which, though graced with touches of God’s presence, has been
exhausting.
In Christianity the period of
forty days has spiritual significance, often indicative of a time of interior struggle and spiritual
realignment. In 1 Kings there’s the story of the prophet Elijah and
of his determination to uphold the uniqueness of God in the face of widespread
Baal worship by the Israelites. Jezebel’s wrath at his victory threatens his
life, and so, spiritually and emotionally depleted, he runs away, so overwhelmed
by fear that he wants to die. Instead he is sustained by miraculous food, and goes
on in the strength of that food for forty days and nights – time to face his
interior ‘demons’ and process his experience, and time to recover physically,
emotionally and spiritually. Then he encounters the ‘sound of sheer silence’ and
it is as if everything that has gone before fades into the background of
his life. God meets Elijah, listens to his story, gives him the way forward and relieves him of his responsibilities.
In the New Testament, as soon as Jesus has been baptised, full
of the Holy Spirit and affirmed as Beloved by his Father, he enters the
wilderness for a period of temptation that lasts – you guessed it - forty days
and forty nights. In this time he uses the sword of the Spirit, the word of
God, as his primary weapon against the seductive lure of avoiding physical suffering,
gaining global power and the devilish invitation to do something spectacular
that would both test his trust in God and make him a 1st century ‘celebrity’,
with prestige that would heap glory upon him at his Father’s expense.
There is
no doubt that this period was a sustained test of the person-hood of Jesus, of his mission, his strength of character, his obedience, his courage and his
capacity to listen to God and keep on trusting God to the end.
Because of this forty day tempation, we can take
confidence that God is not a distant divinity remote from humanity but, in Jesus,
knows the human condition from the inside.
Being afraid like Elijah,
being tempted like Jesus may resonate with you as you reflect on this period in
'quarantine'. Whatever it’s been like for you, taking the time to process the gains
and losses of these few weeks will strengthen you for the journey ahead,
whatever form it takes. Hopefully we will all emerge with a clearer sense of what we truly value and a greater capacity to listen to God's 'still small voice'.
As Jesus did, let’s put our trust
in the One whose faithfulness and steadfast love are everlasting.
