en asked Jeremy Middleton, minister of Gilcomston Church in Aberdeen, what lessons can be learned from returning to a stricter lockdown.
The original lockdown, however unpalatable, was at least predictable. Its terms were clear and its scope was broad: a total lockdown throughout the land. We were all in the same boat.
We got used to the rigours of lockdown life and bore with the many constraints upon our lives. We learned rapidly to find fresh ways under God of sharing our lives and proclaiming our Lord Jesus Christ.
The thing we missed most, of course, was our regular Sunday worship: we came to see more clearly than ever that we are at core a congregation, a people defined by the fact that we gather together for worship. For all the different ways in which we sought at least to compensate for that great lack in all our lives, it was evident that none of these ways could ever be a substitute for that.
And thus when the restrictions of lockdown were eased at last, we breathed a sigh of relief. It was only, of course, a limited return. There was light at the end of the tunnel: the prevalent fear of the previous months was matched now by a growing hope as we pressed on into the future.
So when the second local lockdown in Aberdeen kicked in, it came as something of a sucker punch; and left many far more ‘scunnered’ this time round than they’d been back in March when the nation itself went to lockdown.
Observations and lessons
Here are some simple observations on this ‘later local lockdown’, and some salutary lessons which all of us need to learn.
1. We relax our guard at our peril. The miracle of Jericho was followed by the debacle at Ai. Why? Because Joshua and the people relaxed. The Scriptures make it very clear that the devil is a master of the sucker punch: prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour, and waiting, patiently waiting, ’til our guard is down, and he can suddenly floor us.
2. Trials are regularly plural. Alongside lockdown, the world news continued to hang over us like a pall of bleak, black clouds darkening our every horizon. Locally, a tragic train derailment took place just south of Aberdeen.
3. Leprosy isn’t pleasant. The fact that you came from Aberdeen reduced you to the status of a leper. An AB postcode rendered us all pariahs. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.
But it’s helped us maybe better understand how many in society today now feel – and, indeed, how quick we can all unwittingly be, by dint of our fallen human nature, to ostracise those of whom we are simply afraid.
4. We are either in Adam or in Christ. It was a ‘blanket’ clampdown on our communal life: a sobering illustration of the gospel truth that ‘as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive’. For ‘in Adam’ read ‘in Aberdeen’ and you get the picture. It was perhaps a further wake-up call to the residents of this oil-rich city that where you live makes a whole world of difference. Where you are, spiritually, is a matter of death or life. Either in Adam or in Christ.
5. The root of bitterness is a quick-growing weed. Lockdown’s seen great swathes of human kindness being displayed in countless ways, here, as everywhere else. But this later local lockdown saw resentment quickly stirring in the hearts of many folk.
6. Blame is our natural default. First time round, the virus was ‘one of those things’. But when the later local lockdown was imposed, fingers started pointing. It was garden of Eden stuff. Point the finger, find the culprit, create your local scapegoat. It’s scary how ready we always are to resort in this way to blame. But it’s stunning, as well, to grasp just what it was that Jesus did, when He became the scapegoat for our sin.
7. Plans are always at best provisional. We’ve all been learning that, of course, from the start of the lockdown in March. But it’s a lesson whose solemn truth has perhaps lodged a little more deeply in our consciousness since this latest local lockdown. Overnight the rules may change. Overnight the Lord may come. Overnight our lives may end.
Please God this latest lockdown will have reinforced that truth upon the hearts of people here, and prompt us all to root our lives in the Lord Jesus Christ whose plans are never provisional, and which alone give hope and a future.
