Do you like our family photo?! Revealing isn’t it! This was bad and good news! ( for those unfamiliar with lateral flow tests, the two lines mean that you have Covid.)

It was bad – 2 more of our family had Covid, but it was good news that I no longer had to isolate alone! Isolation can be hard, we’re made for community and relationships, and so it was great to be able to see my family again. But Dorothy has experienced worse symptoms and of course it means we have to stay where we are for longer.

Amazingly the children seem relatively unaffected, and its the fully vaccinated adults who are suffering more. It’s hard to understand the transmission of the virus, with my son remaining negative while daughter is positive, and my sister’s family remaining clear of the virus despite mixing with us before we knew we had it. Now we’re staying apart, we feel a bit like a family of lepers would have done in the New Testament times, when we want to go out to the garden we phone my sister and she makes sure everyone is behind closed doors, and the doors to outside are wide open, then we make a hasty exit (with our face coverings on!).

We do not go near anyone else, we are outcasts! Having just preached through Luke 5, I feel a greater understanding of how the leper felt, although he had the disease for much longer and was more alone. But how wonderful, though he had to isolate from everyone, Jesus could still draw near to him and touch him. And instead of the Jesus becoming unclean, the leper became clean! The perfect purity of Jesus was transferred and the leper became well and clean. It’s a great reminder that while we have to isolate from everyone, we don’t need to stay away from Jesus! He still draws near, and nothing, not even Covid, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8). He will never leave us, nor forsake us.

There was a certain stigma that went with leprosy, wonderfully God’s law provided ways for the healing to recognised and ways for the person to safely return to the community. Covid carries a similar stigma, once you have it, you feel slightly unclean, cut off, and you wonder what people will think of you, even once you’ve served your time in isolation! But wonderfully we can know Jesus response even before we’re out of isolation, he welcomes us, not because we’re clean, but because He came for those who know they’re unclean on the inside.

I’m so grateful for this, one thing being under pressure, feeling unwell and locked in a small area does, is expose the heart. Does Covid make you unclean? No, it’s not the Covid, it’s my heart! Covid just exposes what’s in the heart already. It shows me I’m not perfect, my patience isn’t endless, and what comes out of my heart isn’t always clean, don’t you know that?

But thanks be to God for the gift of His Son, He draws near to us in our uncleanness, and offers to take it, it was the very reason He came! He came to take away our sin and to welcome us into His family, into perfect community with the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The family photo He gives us is far greater!

Omicron – what is it and should we be afraid?