Social Distancing
By Andrew Wilson
They are two words that we are all probably more familiar with now than we wish we were. Social Distancing. That’s the recommendation from government and health officials in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Avoid large gatherings of people, stay at home and away from others, and if you must be in contact- keep at least six feet away from anyone else for your own safety.
As we have sought to obey our leaders and protect our congregation and those who gather with us- Trinity leadership made the difficult decision to cancel all midweek and Sunday worship services through the end of March. Listening to many Ohio and national health leaders, the need for such social distancing could extend much farther, but it’s too early to know for sure.
I know that some of you may have wished we made this decision earlier. I know that others are frustrated that we made it at all. I also know how frustrating it can be to have our regular routines and everyday lives so significantly changed beyond our control. From regular weeks spent meeting together at church, local restaurants, and in our places of work- many of us are now spending much more time apart. And yet if you think about it, social distancing really isn’t anything new in our fallen and broken world. It’s how we have long sought to protect ourselves as God gives us wisdom to do so.
“And just as we have been given wisdom by God to stay away from grizzly bears, volcanoes, and addictions- sometimes God gives us wisdom to stay away from people too.”
God gives us wisdom when we meet a grizzly bear on a hike to slowly back away instead of running to meet it. God gives us wisdom to watch an erupting volcano from a safe distance, instead of driving into it for a closer look. God gives us wisdom to distance ourselves from things that we know we have an addiction to and will only cause us problems too. And just as we have been given wisdom by God to stay away from grizzly bears, volcanos, and addictions- sometimes God gives us wisdom to stay away from people too. God gives us wisdom to distance ourselves from the bully at school. God gives us wisdom to distance ourselves from those who keep trying to pull us into their dangerous lifestyles. God gives us wisdom to distance ourselves from people who continually try to hurt or harm us. And so too does God give us wisdom to physically distance ourselves from each other and the threat of serious illness during these unprecedented days of our lifetimes. You see, in our broken and fallen world- there are a lot of things that we are wise to distance ourselves from.
And that is what makes what Jesus has done for us- so, so incredible. For not long after God created the world and everything in it, calling it very good- we messed it all up. We brought sin into the world and because of our sin- distance came between us and God. And no matter what people tried, mankind couldn’t shake it. They built golden statues to worship, towers up toward the sky, empires and kingdoms to their own glory- but all those things couldn’t reduce the distance between us and God one inch- they only made the divide all the more evident. And though we look back at our forefathers and can’t believe they were so foolish- so are we. We who have fallen short of the way God would have us to live. We who have sinned in thought, word, and deed. We who have failed to do the good we should and we who have so often done the wrong we shouldn’t. You know, if God knew what was good for Him, He’d be wise to keep a safe distance from people like us!
“If God knew what was good for Him, He’d be wise to keep a safe distance from people like us!”
But that… is not what happened. Instead of thinking about what was good for Him, He thought of you. And in His love, He sent Jesus to earth, not to avoid you, but to be with you. And yet in mankind’s sin- we did what we so often do. We tried to distance ourselves from Christ. Peter denied Him, His disciples left Him, the crowds abandoned Him. But none of that stopped Jesus from accomplishing what He came to do. For Jesus had come to save you. To live the perfect life that we never could and to suffer and die on the cross to pay the penalty and the price of your sin and mine- so that the distance between us and God that is caused by our sin would no longer exist. In His death, you are forgiven and you are free. In His resurrection, Immanuel- God with us, has promised that He always will be.
And just like social distancing may sound foolish to some of you, how much more so does the message of the cross sound foolish to our world. Paul said just this in 1 Corinthians 1:18, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Thanks be to God that He has given us wisdom to protect ourselves and others during our lives here on earth, but even more, thanks be to God that He has given us Jesus- in whom we have life, both now and for all time.