Day 95: Continue to Cheer for Every Day

DAY 95

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK FOURTEEN: WEDNESDAY 17 JUNE 2020

Continue to Cheer for Every Day

“Every day we do our best, but this virus takes our patients one after another. Then we step outside into the fading light and hear applause. The cheers ring out and the sirens blare. It is a celebration of the survivors. May we all continue to celebrate this survival, continue to cheer for every day we are alive.” - An Internal Medicine Resident, Brooklyn

He had just graduated from university with an enviable future ahead of him when, riding a motorcycle, he tried to beat a changing signal, ran a red light, was hit broadside and killed instantly. At his memorial worship service the church was packed. I struggled with what to say as an opening ‘call to worship,’ The first words out of my mouth were these: “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”  Psalm 118:24.

How can such an invitation be given in such a context? Is this Biblical invitation conditional? Do the contents of the particular day determine whether it is appropriate or not? If the focus is on the invitation to rejoice it is debatable. But the call to rejoice is predicated on the prior claim: that the day, whatever day, any day, every day, is one that has been made by the Lord, and that in itself is always cause for rejoicing. The first thing God created was day: “And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day … And God saw everything that he had made, and it was very good.” Genesis 1:3-5,31. This is an ownership by virtue of creation, so there is no day, no matter how difficult or tragic, that He has abandoned. They are all His, and in this we can rejoice.  

In the midst of a day marked by famine the prophet Habakkuk affirmed, “Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”  Habakkuk 3:17-19. So there it is – whether in the midst of a pandemic or a famine, there is still a commitment to rejoice in the day because of the Lord who made that given day or, as the internist put it, “to cheer for every day we are alive.”

Reflective question: Is there a day in your history you can’t thank Him for? Talk to Him about it.

Reflective Scripture: Psalm 50:15 – “Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will rescue you, …”

Reflective hymn:

“Day by Day” – Translated from Swedish - Carolina Berg (1832-1903)

Every day the Lord Himself is near me with a special mercy for each hour.

All my cares He fain would bear and cheer me, He whose name is Counselor and Pow’r.

The protection of His child and treasure is a charge that on Himself He laid.

“As your days, your strength shall be in measure,” this the pledge to me He made.