A Sombre Day
On the 12th April the Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that the UK coronavirus death toll has reached 10,000, calling it a ‘somber day’. The great biblical leader and prophet Moses had his own ‘somber day’. Nearing the end of Israel’s 40 year journey he learned that he would die out in the wilderness and not enter God’s Promised Land. By that point Israel’s death toll was nearly 2.5 million - most of the people who left Egypt were dead and buried. That is a large number of funerals! It was probably around that time when Moses wrote Psalm 90. This ancient song expresses the confusion and disappointment God’s people experience in the face of death, when we are confronted with the brevity of life, and our failure to realise God’s promises in the way that we had hoped - things many of us may be feeling now . Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from ever