What a strange term we have had! For the first time since I suspect the polio epidemic of the 1940s, we didn’t have a Term Three Eucharist. The world we are living in at the moment is so unpredictable. But if we look back through history we shouldn’t be so surprised. The recent 20 year anniversary of 9/11 reminded me of how much that shocking event changed our world. All through history there have been events that have changed our world – for better or worse. September is also the 128th anniversary of women’s suffrage in Aotearoa NZ, which changed the world in a good way!

In the midst of so much unpredictability it is important to hold onto some things that are solid and unchanging. For example, hope is described in the Bible as being an anchor (Hebrews 6.17). An anchor can keep you safe and enable you to hold your position when you are surrounded by stormy seas. In addition, God is described in the Bible many times as a rock: “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (Psalm 18.2).

In times like this we can also hold onto the truths that we find in scripture. In the Hebrew Scriptures, for example, the book of Ecclesiastes reminds us that: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (3.1), even “a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing” (3.5), which might relate to social distancing! Then in the New Testament, Paul writes to the Christians in Rome who were facing severe persecution, saying:

What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? … I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8.35, 38-39).

As we head into the holidays, and onward into Term Four with all its changes (and unknowns), hold onto what you know, including the knowledge that just as the seasons change, there is a time for everything, and that these things will pass. And may you also hold onto hope as an anchor, cling to God the Rock, and trust that absolutely nothing can separate you from the love of God.