There is a very real sense
in which the spread of Covid-19, the newest of the Corona virus family, is not
really all that new at all. There have
been viruses that have spread around the world before and we are indeed blessed
to have never been as well prepared as we are in these days. Yet despite our technical expertise, and
world-wide collaboration there are things we can learn from the experience of
others down through history.
I remember best the Black
Death as we now know it, back then it was just the plague. I remember it because we had a brand-new
history teacher at school who made the subject come alive by setting up a
brilliant set of lessons where teams of 6 of us had to defeat the black death
as it came to our village. I can still
remember it now nearly 40 years later!
Anyway in 1348 the plague
arrived in England, at Weymouth by boat from France we believe, and in a few
months it had reached London; a year later it had covered the whole of the
Country. The spread was slower than
today but the mortality higher; without our modern health care as many as 40%
of the population died.
Such a terrible tragedy was
still in the mind of many 7 years later and one such was John Wycliffe. Already at Oxford when the Plague arrived, he
was deeply affected by what he had experienced; he was left with an abiding
impression of the frailty, fallenness and mortality of men and women and
especially himself. Comparing this with
the Love and Grace of God offered freely to him and discovered in the then
Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent writings, Wycliffe became a Christian.
He went on to translate the
Bible into English believing that, “Englishmen learn Christ's law best in
English. Moses heard God's law in his own tongue; so did Christ's
apostles.” Wycliffe found in Jesus
Christ the comfort of knowing our Creator God who is all powerful over even
pandemics of viruses. He said, “We are
under God's power, and we can do nothing but by the power of God, and woe shall
hereafter be to us if we abuse this power.”
If you would like to meet
this Jesus you can, He still becomes friends with people today, as He did with
Wycliffe. Join us at church on Sunday
(1030 or 1700) or if the advice has changed and it is better to stay at home,
join us via a live-link direct to your internet connected device. There is a link on our website (www.trinity-manningtree.org.uk) or you
can request to connect by emailing or phone
01206 393745.