Why Will You Die?

We are on the verge of 2021, and I hear so many people holding out high hopes for the coming year.  Everyone seems glad to be rid of 2020, as though there is something magical about the turn of the calendar page.  That is, of course, pretty shallow thinking.  The division of our days into years is arbitrary.  There is nothing innately special about the change from December 31 to January 1.  It’s just another rotation on our axis, another revolution around the sun which is a continuous circle beginning and ending at any point.

People are so hopeful that with the new year and the possibility of getting a vaccine against covid, the pandemic will be over.  This makes the assumption that this pandemic will not be followed by another.  Or that the virus will not mutate in a way that makes the vaccine ineffective.  I’m watching people on television standing in line for the vaccine so excited that now life will get back to “normal,” and they will no longer have to isolate from family and friends.  I hope this optimism is warranted, both for their sakes and my own. 

And then there is the hope of the stimulus money…if only congress will pass that bill that gives everyone $2000 instead of $600.  Where do you suppose this money is coming from?  If the government needs money, it just prints it.  Here comes inflation which produces even more hardship.

Those who are left-leaning politically are so sure that the Biden administration is going to solve the problems of our society.  If we can just get rid of Trump, all will be well.  The right-leaning element is, of course, sure that disaster looms.  We will lose our freedoms.

None…well, maybe a few…of our problems are Trump’s fault, but Biden is not our savior.  There is only one Savior.  It doesn’t matter who sits in the oval office, God is on the throne of the universe.  I do not pretend to know the mind of God or be able to predict the future, but I can’t imagine how much longer He will tolerate the flaunting of His guidelines.

In spite of the crises we have faced, I do not see people in droves realizing the need to repent of their wicked ways and give God His rightful place in their hearts and in our society.  The threat of annihilation has been wasted on us.  That being the case, perhaps actual annihilation is coming. 

Here I am dressed (figuratively) in sackcloth holding a sign “Repent for the end is near.”  Perhaps this is influenced by my recent Bible reading in Ezekiel.  Last night I read, “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.  Turn! Turn from your evil ways!  Why will you die…?”

I want the New Year to be a happy one.

I want us to be able to see one another’s faces without masks.

I want to travel to see my grandchildren.

I want hospitals to return to “busy” and leave “frantic” behind.

We all want “normal,” but what does that mean?

Are these things possible in a society that accepts immorality…promotes immorality…praises immorality…a society in which immorality has become the “norm?”