Chaplain’s Corner: Vol II
“With God Anything is Possible”
I love the story of Abraham and Sarah in the book of Genesis. The strangers who drop in on this elderly couple in their desert tent bring them the outrageous news that they are to have a baby. Scripture tells us that Sarah just laughs.
Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? Is anything impossible with God? Barrenness is not the last word for Abraham and Sarah for scripture tells us God is capable of what may seem impossible to become possible.
Centuries later, another improbable announcement of a birth came from the angel Gabriel to Mary. But Mary didn’t laugh. “How can this be?” she asks Gabriel, the messenger from God. “With God”, says the angel, “nothing is impossible”.
On Easter, the angel proclaims to the women who have come to the tomb that Jesus (that baby born of Mary now become a man) God has raised from the dead. Death no longer has the final word. With God even the impossible is possible.
What the angel knows is this: Earth has no power to thwart the will of God.
God’s will for our life and our wholeness is always loving even in the face of disease and death even when disease and death seem to have the final word. The Resurrection assures us, we can live and die; we can face the future even in the midst of great tribulation because God never abandons us.
Great tribulation! We have seen that in recent weeks. We have laid awake at night worried about our loved ones and if the coronavirus will come to our door. We have daily witnessed the nursing staff, the food service and dietary staff, housekeeping, maintenance, transportation, activities and the administration staff that come each day to minister to the needs of this home we know as Westminster Village. They too are among the Heroes.
We will come through this crisis. But if scripture and especially Easter tells us anything it is that with God all things are possible. The power of love that God loosed in the world on that first Easter is alive to bring healing and wholeness, joy, hope and love even in the face of this tribulation we call coronavirus. Let us never forget that.
Faithfully, Chaplain Ron Naylor
