COMMENT

The Very Rev Albert Bogle reflects on the impact of the Coronavirus Covid-19 on the business of the Church of Scotland.

I BELIEVE this lockdown is having a profound effect on many people. We are in hiding from this virus and like our ancestors Adam and Eve of old, we now find ourselves naked in the garden.

Hiding ‘locked in’, because we have become aware of our vulnerability and the fragility of our lives. But let us pray that we’re not locked out of the garden completely. Let us trust and believe in the promise of redemption.

Redemption may well come through change and perhaps as quickly as the hiding from the virus has been taking place. All of a sudden, within a few days, more people have time to think, time to decide if what they have been doing is really what they want to do for the rest of their lives. The ‘shut down’ is going to have far reaching personal implications. Looking back for some this will be their redemption.

We shouldn’t be surprised if many people never return to their previous employment, some out of choice will use the time to make a clean break, while others will have no choice because their job will have gone. Regardless of what happens we are all entering into a new landscape for living. The old so called certainties of the past world have gone. Capitalism as it has been known has gone. Governments have become interventionists. People for once seem to mean more than the markets.

All that I was speaking about in my last article in April has never been more relevant. The Christian church in this generation now faces the greatest challenge that any has ever faced. The Holy

Spirit is surely calling the church to reboot itself. The question is will a rebooted Kirk require all the structures of the past, especially if we discover we have survived and perhaps outgrown their usefulness?

We need to remember the way we have in the past resourced and administered the ‘ordinances of religion’. While it has, for some, been of great value it is not church. Too often we have placed too much emphasis on maintaining the structure of administration rather than being open to the free moving presence of the Holy Spirit moving and shaping our corporate lives, cutting through our futile theological debates that have for too long divided us into conservatives and liberals.

We need to discern a new reality which invites us to engage both with the humanity of Jesus and also his divinity. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit among us that will bring about the much needed transformation and confidence that will allow us to call the eternal everlasting God ‘Abba Father’

I believe this new landscape, created by an unwelcome virus, has dismantled the old order and we find ourselves once again worshipping and praying in each other’s homes. Through the wonders of digital technology we have been brought back to first century church deployment.

Every day we find Christians coming together into the Sanctuary First Virtual Coffee Shop, or calling up their friends on Zoom, and having a bible study. Acts 2 is being re-created. Some are even gathering around the table of the Lord and partaking in the reality of the Lord’s Supper on a digital platform.

For the first time in their lives some people are alone. And the fear of loneliness overtaking them means they find themselves opening up to God in prayer. A great reformation principle is being rediscovered. The church community was first instituted by Jesus of Nazareth but it is daily being constituted by his Spirit. It is when we learn to let go of the fear and anxiety that comes with living in a new space that we discover new songs of praise to sing. Like Israel of old we discover new songs in a strange land.

I was sitting strumming the guitar and the words ‘never alone’ came into my mind and before long I was writing a song of comfort for myself and indeed anyone who would listen. Over and over like a monk chanting I sang ‘never, never alone, never, never alone’ and I found myself in dialogue with the Almighty. I was being drawn deeper and deeper into the rhythm of the music and I found myself understanding that for the Christian we are never alone because God has placed his Holy Spirit into our hearts.

As I strummed the chords it was as though I heard the voice of God saying, ‘at last everyone has stopped, my world has been brought to a standstill, perhaps now people will have time to listen to and sing the new songs of deliverance that they are about to learn’. ¤

The Very Rev Albert Bogle is a Pioneer Minister of Sanctuary First Church Online at www.sanctuaryfirst.org.uk