2020 “Definitely Would Not Recommend”
2020 – I’m over it.
And I’m not alone. This year has felt like a never ending bad thriller where every day there’s yet another twist. This is the world we’re living in. A world where a guideline is relevant on Friday and hopelessly out of date by Monday.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve seen a growth in the memes are wishing the end to 2020 and wanting 2021 to come on in! And I get it. This year has thrown situations at us that we would never have predicted. Looking at photo memories from a year ago, I’m taken aback by how many people I’m in a room with, and how close we were standing to one another! It seems like a different world. And it is. Let’s not underplay it.
And, it’s not just the little things, it’s the big things as well. Many of us have faced personal tragedies that were unthinkable a year ago. Seemingly healthy and young friends and family have passed
away. We’ve not been able to see them, we’ve not been able to attend their funerals. A friend of mine died recently from cancer. She was diagnosed in lockdown and I haven’t been able to see her and couldn’t attend her funeral in person. Live streams have their place, but a funeral is not it. Sat on my sofa watching people I know and love grieve is not something I want to go through again anytime soon.
So I’ve embraced the festive cheer. I’ve bought new baubles that coordinate with my lounge, I have outside lights for the first time and I am ready for sparkly lights on cold and dark nights.
But there’s a niggle in the back of my mind. I can pretend life is sort of ok with my pink baubles and festive candle. But it’s not quite enough. What if 2021 is not what I want? What I expect? There’s hopes of a vaccine now for covid, but what if other things happen? If 2020 has proven anything it’s that anything can happen and we have so little control. This year, has left indelible scars on the hearts and lives of those around us. And wanting to bunker down until storm 2020 passes us by is appealing.
But leaving 2020 doesn’t mean leaving the pain, confusion and general rubbishness. We have no promise of that whatsoever. 2020 has been collectively awful, but pain, suffering and death are not new. It may seem really acute this year, but these are not new themes. Every year since the garden of eden has left indelible scars on the hearts and lives of humans.
I think that the obvious thing is that it’s not a calendar year we’re trying to get rid of! The numbers 2020 aren’t causing me pain! Isolation, death, separation – they are causing me pain. And it feels that 2020 is full of more of that than we’ve been used to. And that is right to grieve. It’s right that we feel the pain of our broken world.
{But} This Christmas like every year, when we hear carols, we’ll hear of a baby. A baby that was born into a world that is messy and broken. And that birth is true good news because it’s not just a baby. It is God himself, come to the world that he created to bring his people back to him.This baby, God with us, Immanuel, came so that we in our mess, and sadness and confusion could have a relationship with the God who created us.
In this baby there is an answer. It’s not a vaccine. It’s not increased social distancing, it’s a certain hope that “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” Romans 10:13. Saved from pain, suffering, death, darkness, from worry, from sadness, from anxiety. this world will be renewed when Jesus returns, but we can know him and his certain hope right now. That’s the hope we can hold on to right now. And boy do we need this.
So if you’re like me, and you’ve been tempted to see 2020 as a storm, put your life on hold and bunker down until ‘normal’ returns, then maybe it’s time to consider this little baby afresh?
Sarah
Sarah is a Northerner through and through, but has lived in the (much) sunnier south for the last 13 years. She works for a charity that welcomes international students in the UK, and gives them the chance to find out about Jesus. She loves chocolate, netflix, coffee and cake. Cliches but they all bring her joy!