Friends in Christ,
What a time this has been! You are likely starting to feel the effects of isolation and social distancing. Like you, I miss our usual interactions. But I will endeavor to use this space to share encouragement and peace with you as we go forward.
Some have described this time as a “strange land.” Rev. James Harnish has written, “A solitary psalmist sang the question that echoed in the hearts of the Israelites in Babylon who were isolated from people they loved and cut off from places they knew so well. ‘How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?’ (Psalm 137:4 KJV). But sing they did! And the songs have been passed down to us.”
We Methodists are singing people. We sing a song of God’s love and protection. Our song is in our music as well as in our actions.
John Wesley once wrote a book he called Primitive Physic, or an Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases. Medicine has advanced a great deal since Wesley’s time. But this represented his best attempt to do everything he could to be an agent of God’s healing, particularly for the poor who couldn’t afford to get sick.
Though his brother Charles was the preeminent hymn writer, John wrote some hymns too. In one of those he wrote, “Son of righteousness, Arise; With healing in thy wing; To my diseas’d, my fainting soul, Life and salvation bring.”
May this be our prayer today: that God will continue the work of healing and life-giving in us, through us, and throughout our world!
Peace,
Rev. Taylor Mills