Each day on the news, over the past few weeks, we hear of further devastation in the Ukraine. It is disheartening and cruel. Refugees have already made their way to other places. And this week, pleas of the Ukrainian President to Parliament’s special sitting, pleading for further assistance.

Recently a poet, from an online group, addressed the scene an infant would be admitted to on its birth, if it were born in the Ukraine right now. Sounds of shelling and disaster, and no doubt distress of the mother who just gave birth. It was so vivid. I’m sure those who had gone through such experiences themselves could identify with it in some way. Maybe not as an infant, but perhaps as a child or a young adult fleeing with family.

Here in Ontario, as we read the papers about the imminent lifting of restrictions—including masks—we have anxieties of our own. Much different, mind you. Who’s vaccinated? Who’s not? Who might carry the virus, or who’s sick and doesn’t know it could be COVID?

In this Lenten season in our Christian church, we grapple with the lead-up to the crucifixion death of Jesus, God’s own dear son, whom he sent to save us.

Maybe not to stop the war. Maybe not to stop the mask-wearing, or the virus. But to let us know he stands beside us in line-ups for vaccine, in distanced spaces between the person ahead of us and behind us in the grocery store or any other place, as we wait. In the, at times, impatience for things to return to the normal we were familiar with.

Also to people of the Ukraine, and other places experiencing war and distress who shelter there and those who flee. What hope is there in that?

Jesus is with us in our challenges of life, offering hope where we might not find it ourselves, when we’re anxious and prone to worry about what’s going on around us. The risen Jesus, who we will celebrate on Easter Sunday, came for us as God with us.

“Cradling Creation” by Deborah Pryce 

With permission from the artist

If you’re familiar with the song, “He’s got the whole world in His Hands,” it hearkens to “Cradling Creation” by Deborah Pryce, with the world tucked inside it (that I wished were hanging on my wall). That’s a good picture to leave you with today. And a reminder to myself too.