Friends of mine got sick in Spokane, another in Davenport. They were denied testing for coronavirus, because there weren’t enough tests.
Another friend is a doctor, delivering babies at Davenport’s Edgerton Women’s Health Center. She enlisted a squad to sew personal safety equipment, because there isn’t enough. Her husband—you know him, Pastor Rob Leveridge—described the serious spiritual discipline required for him to stay calm about this.
A colleague in Seattle said the high school nearest her has a football field. It’s now a temporary hospital. “All the nursing homes have COVID,” she said, holding back tears. “Including the one my parents live in.”
Over and over—34 times!—in the original Greek of the Gospel of John, there is this little word, μένο (meno). In English, it’s translated variously: stay, abide, continue, remain, dwell. Meno is this Gospel’s definition of what Jesus does, so much that it’d be better to say meno is who Jesus is.
Jesus stays with my sick friends, abides with my doctor-friend, and continues with her husband. Jesus remains on that Seattle high school football field and dwells with my friend’s parents and in all the nursing homes.
The cross is Jesus abiding. So is the resurrection.
-PC
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