Do you remember Hill Street Blues? It was a popular television series about a police precinct in an unnamed American city. At the end of morning roll call when Sargent Phil Esterhaus was handing out the day’s duties he would wind up by saying: ‘Let’s be careful out there!‘ It became a catch phrase for anyone working in a community and might be facing challenges. A friend of mine who drove a taxi often had it in mind when he set out on a night shift.
It came to my mind when listening to a special television programme on the coronavirus. It would seem that wherever there are people we have to be careful. Concerts and sports events are under threat. In parts of Italy Church services have been cancelled. At a personal level we are being warned about personal hygiene. Hands have to washed to two verses of ‘Happy Birthday’; alcohol based hand gel is a must; and we should be wary of touching other people.
There are certain groups that are deemed especially vulnerable not least the elderly and those with underlying health problems. I suppose that means me - at least in the latter category! The transplant I underwent has wiped out all my childhood vaccinations. I’ll have it all done again eventually but for the time being I’m vulnerable to all kinds of things. Chickenpox, shingles and flu cold be especially nasty. And now there is the coronavirus.
So what do you do? Well, follow all the advice of course but the worst thing could be the need for isolation. In the past the message we received from all quarters was that community was something to be desired. At the moment the message is that we should be wary of it. Who knows who is behind us in the supermarket queue, beside us at the football match, shaking hands with us in Church. A few days ago and feeling a bit of cabin fever I thought about going into town to buy a new pair of Doc Martens. Not a good idea, I was told. A shoe shop is not a good place to go for a immunodeficient person. It’s at times like that that you feel the sharpness of restriction.
I knew a bit about isolation during the transplant and a couple of weeks after discharge. Confinement is not easy when you are used to being out and about. There comes a point when the things that usually bring you comfort like books and music and dvds just don’t work. But as with so many things there is comfort in the Gospels.
Jesus often reached out to people who were isolated due to ill-health. There was the woman who had been ‘subject to bleeding for twelve years’. Because of her condition she was in a constant state of ritual impurity and anyone who touched her would be similarly regarded as impure. In the community to which she belonged she was not a good person to know. In touching Jesus, even his clothes, she was taking an enormous risk but Jesus dealt with her kindly and declared her healed. (Mark 5: 24-34)
Then there were lepers who in many ways were the living dead, cast out from the community, unable to be close to people even in the gatherings for worship in the synagogue. But Jesus reached out to them, touched them and healed them. (Mark 1: 40-45)
This is something we should remember about Jesus as He comes to us through the Holy Spirit. He still has a heart for the isolated and hears our prayers for anyone affected by illness that has placed restrictions on their lives and keeps them enjoying human contact to the full. We can go deeper with this. On the cross He knew an isolation that can never be fully appreciated by our finite imagination. That experience has been taken into the Godhead and those who for any reason feel isolated can be confident of a Companion who sustains and delivers.
At the end of his life Paul wrote to his friend Timothy about an experience that left him feeling painfully isolated: ‘ . . . everyone deserted me.’ But there was another Presence who endured: ‘But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength . . .’ (2 Timothy 4: 17) He still reaches out!
