LAYING OFF OF HANDS
What is happening to the world at this time? This pandemic, aka COVID-19 or the corona virus is killing people but it’s not even about that so much as it is about how they are dying: by having someone coughing in their face or shaking their hand or just leaving their germs somewhere that they may touch or even just breathe in at the right (wrong) moment.
But, worse than that is the fact that we not only don’t have any vaccine yet, everybody, it seems, is a potential carrier, who may or may not even have any symptoms. Talk about becoming a hermit: it appears almost as if your very life may, now, well depend on becoming one. And, it appears, that everybody is beginning to stay at home, wherever that home may be, and the vast majority of the population is becoming used to doing “everything” they can do online.
And so, what is a Christian man or woman supposed to think about this? Is it God that is doing this? To teach us what? That we mustn’t put any trust in the green paper money with dead presidents’ pictures on the fronts that we use to buy and sell everything we have, or is it that we are being tested to see if we are hypocrites or Christians who really do believe in God?
When’s the last time you shook someone’s hand or picked up a small child and kissed him or her? When’s the last time you saw someone shake anybody’s hand or hug someone or put his arm around someone? How about food, do you have enough? When’s the last time you bought as much food as your shopping cart could hold? And tissues and toilet paper and …?
What denomination are you? The pope now holds church services online. How about your church? Does your preacher still shake your hand(s) when you enter into the church, chapel, synagogue, mosque or whatever building you and your fellow worshipers enter to attend church services?
When is the last time you saw or heard of a preacher laying his hands on a parishioner, to heal them? This is a practice that Jesus himself began and passed on to all his apostles who then passed them on to many of their disciples. The two baptist churches in Spring Hill I have regularly attended for 15 years are now closed and holding services online. Are we coming to a religious crisis with this corona virus? Are preachers hypocrites or are we all hypocrites? Am I expecting too much “magic” from some of the “preachers” who,once upon a time, not long ago, were more than happy to line up 30 or 40 parishioners and walk by them slapping their foreheads as they fell down and then stood up mysteriously “cured?”
Am I asking for too much when I ask for the truth to be spoken by all human beings so that we can all get to the promised land, where it is the norm? Is it too much too ask for human beings to treat each other fairly and equally, no matter what their positions, religions, skin color or financial abilities? Why is it so hard for human beings to believe in the holy spirit? And if we believe in the holy spirit why is it so hard for us to believe in miracles, just because they have not been “proven” to “enough” people? Do we use our heads, filled with knowledge, when making “important” decisions and forget about our hearts and our spirits. Do we choose love over hate? Do we choose love over money? Do we choose love over all our decisions or do we continue to use our knowledge to lie, cheat and steal as much as we can get away with?
And if we do not believe in God how do we then explain the presence of the devil and if we do not believe in either God or the devil, then how do we explain the terrible wars fought for thousands of years or the enormous amount of good will that so many human beings have shown throughout the human history of this world. And, most of all, where is one person, just one human being, who can explain the birth, life and death of the Lord & Savior Jesus Christ, also known by too many other names to mention, discuss or argue about?
Keith's Corner 