I was privileged to attend the welcome service for Rev Abe Konadu-Yiadom recently. It was an inspirational and uplifting meeting. One of the songs the band played for us was ‘These are the days of Elijah’. As we sang it, it struck me how relevant its words were for our situation today. The two prophets mentioned in the first verse – Elijah and Moses – lived in uncertain times. They literally had to depend on God sending them food and providing water. Every day we hear more about the escalating cost of even our most basic necessities.
The verse goes on to speak of times of ‘famine, darkness and the sword’. With failing harvests due to the heat and drought, the prospect of higher fuel costs and strikes plunging us into winter darkness and the sword representing the ongoing conflicts such as in Ukraine, this could not be more potently relevant. Still we declare the Word of the Lord in these desert times.
Then, of course, the chorus mentions ‘the Year of Jubilee’ – couldn’t be more apt for the closing months of 2022! So if all of that speaks to us of our time here and now, surely verse two should as well. This verse shifts emphasis to the times of Ezekiel and David – times of restoration and rebuilding – when new life is breathed into the dry bones of the nation and God’s worship is re-established in a new Temple. This is what we have to look forward too. The harvest of the vineyard. Times maybe tough now and we can’t see a way through but there will be salvation and deliverance. After all, there is no God like Jehovah. Here he comes, riding on the clouds ……..