The Oasis - December 20, 2023
Author: Rev. Dan Hollis
December 20, 2023
This week my prayers are with all those in northern New England
dealing with the effects of this weekend’s stormy weather. Nestled safely at
home here in York, never once losing power, if I wasn’t keeping an eye on the
news and keeping up with colleagues in northern Maine, I might not have
known that not all that far from here trees were coming down, cars were
sliding off the road, and powerlines were sparking and failing. It isn’t until it’s
your roof or your car or your refrigerator full of perishables that you
remember just how scary the untamed world can be.
We think we know how things work. We have satellite imagery and
flood barriers and grocery stores full of food. We have utility companies with
dedicated linemen. We have cell towers and emergency services and our old
New England spirit to keep us warm and dry. But in the dark of the night
when the wind howls through the eaves, the rain buffets the windows, the
hum of electricity dies down, and the temperature drops another degree…
nature shows us that we don’t know anything.
In the book of Job, God shows Job that the universe he thought he
understood is so much bigger and scarier and more complicated than he ever
could have imagined. All Job’s plans and preparations and cause-and-effect
rationalizations meant very little in the face of the God of wind and rain and
flood and ice and snow.
Does that mean we stop preparing? Does that mean we succumb to
fear and helplessness in the face of a universe we could never truly conquer?
Of course not. We may be tiny, fragile things clinging to skin of an inscrutable
world, but when the night is coldest, darkest, and full of terrors… we
remember that the God that births the ice and snow is the same God that
birthed the plow driver. The same God that lets water fall from the heavens
won’t let you sink beneath it.
Pastor Dan
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