THE CHRISTMAS LESSON FOR A COVID VACCINE

In the Middle East, if you are approached by a stranger and asked the question “Who are you”, your answer will always include two components:  TIME AND COMMUNITY.  You will never answer by simply giving your individual name and personal data, as we do in the West.  And this is one of the unexplored demises of the Church in the West

In the Middle East, Africa and Asia, your answer will always refer to your community and the previous generation.  You are who you are because of those who surround you and because of those who have gone before you.  Your answer will include the names of your father and grandfather, even before you acknowledge your own name.  Your own name might even include that.  Think of the Biblical names we so often repeat:  Barabbas, Bar-Jesus, Barjona, Barnabas, Bartholomew and Bartimaeus, where the Aramaic noun בר (bar) is cognate with the Hebrew noun בן (ben) and both mean “son of” or “one of,” i.e. one of a certain house, one of a certain profession, one of a certain country, and so on.   If I am asked the question who I am in the Middle East my answer should be Barfred and not Mike, because I am the “son of Fred”.

Think about the Christmas story.  We are not simply introduced in Scripture to Jesus.  Jesus is described in the first chapter of the New Testament (Matthew 1) as .. a descendant of David, who was a descendant of Abraham….   (17)  So then, there were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, and fourteen from David to the exile in Babylon, and fourteen from then to the birth of the Messiah.

Jesus was born into a community and into a generation.  This is the context of all of Scripture:  Moses, Joseph, Gideon, Joshua, Paul, Peter… you name them – they were all born within a community, for a purpose, and within a specific generation. Esther is mentioned specifically (Esther 4:14) as someone who has “come to her royal position for such a time as this?”

We all exist within a timeframe of eternity.  Not only eternity forward but eternity backward as well.  We do not exist outside a framework of time and therefore we cannot base our decisions outside that framework of time.  Time past, and generations before, have determined where, when and why we exist today.

Time past has divinely pre-determined where and when Christ was to be born and the timeframe of His birth.  Galatians 4:4  declares that “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son”.  When everything came together – and all the universe cooperated – Jesus was born.  It didn’t just happen on the day that Mary gave birth to Jesus.  It was when the pre-destined time came together that Christ was born.  Think about this.

The apostle Matthew records that the birth of Jesus was accompanied by an extraordinary celestial event: a star that led the magi (the “wise men”) to Jesus. This star “went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was” (Matthew 2:9).  What was this star?

Well, whether it was a star as defined as an enormous mass of hydrogen and helium gas powered by nuclear fusion, or a supernova (an exploding star), or a bright comet, or a conjunction of planets, or even simply God’s shekinah glory beaming down from heaven, is fairly irrelevant.  What is relevant is that in our Solar System, we see light from our sun reflected off the planets. In more distant galaxies, light from many millions of stars takes a long time to reach the eyes of those dwelling on Earth. It takes light 4 years to reach the Earth from Sirius, a near neighbouring star. Using the Hubble telescope, we can see the light from the Eagle Nebula, which takes 7,000 years to reach the Earth. This means that when the magi saw the light of the star, it was a predestined light that actually happened years earlier to appear “in the fulness of time”.  The birth of Christ happened with a specific time-frame but was pre-destined before.

But it also happened within a community, within a family, and bringing an accountability.

Time and community have two consequences:  heritage and accountability.  Your life on earth now will impact the lives of others tomorrow.  Nobody leaves this world alone – we all leave enemies and friends behind, those that suffered because of us and those who excelled because of us.   We will either give life or drain life- there will be no neutral exchange.  Our choices today will hugely impact the lives of others tomorrow.  This is the consequential impact of our lives on earth.

Think about Shammua, Shaphat, Igal, Palti, Gaddiel, Gaddi, Ammiel, Sethur, Nahbi or Geuel.

The fact that you don’t recognize these names is probably more their failure than yours.  Each of these was a leader in his own right; brave, highly skilled, with power and authority, and above all, they were chosen by God.  They were all prominent Biblical figures and should have the same prominence as the likes of Moses, David, Noah, etc.   Yet, their names faded into obscurity.

They were ten of the twelve spies sent by God to scope out the Promised Land. The account is documented in detail in Numbers 13.  The fear of their convictions led to a whole community spending 40 years in the desert, never entering the promised land.

In the same way, our life on earth today will impact the lives of our communities tomorrow.  Our decisions based on our individual preferences, fears, and opinions will influence the well-being of our communities – positively or negatively – whether we believe it or not.

The Christmas lesson for a Covid vaccine in 2021 is therefore twofold:

One:  we might exist in the present, but we were never created to exist only for the present.  We are people with eternity in mind.  Our existence was pre-determined and therefore we need to live within the “now” of time, to secure and “end” of time for those around us.  The vaccine is not about my rights, my preferences or my opinions.  If data proves that more people are saved by the vaccine, which it does,  then I act according to the best interest of those around me, regardless of my own rights as an individual.  This season, with all the Kairos opportunities given to those who believe, cannot be lost by wasting time on individual preferences.  Time is ticking

Two: whatever we believe and confess, we need to apply within the context of community.  When the disciples heard the call to be salt (Matthew 5:10-12), they understood that seasoning and flavour is only produced when salt is poured out selflessly and scattered mercilessly.  Christians can only produce flavour once it is scattered in the community. We can fight for our rights as much as we want but we will remain a useless commodity if we remain in our containers.  Salt has no purpose inside a container.  We will not produce any flavour outside the container.  By being scattered we find the reason and the purpose of the crosses we carry and the Christ we display

No, your personal rights are not a Biblical gift.  The only thing Jesus said about our rights is to deny it (Mat 16:24  Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.)  I have no rights as an individual.  I only exist within the framework of a community where God has placed me as His witness for “such a time as this”.  I would rather give up my rights to keep my witness than keep my rights and lose my witness.

The story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-) is such a good example.  The priest and the Levite likely asked, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?”. The Samaritan likely asked a very different question – “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

So, when we consider the choices we make regarding the vaccine, and we choose to make a decision with an ethic of “my rights”, then we completely nullify Scripture, disregard community and ignore the season.