You can’t fail to have noticed the words ‘normal’ and ‘normality’. They are to be heard and read everywhere.
For the Christian disciple, ‘normal’ and ‘normality’ both have a meaning far beyond their current usage.
Years ago, I heard a lecture by an American theologian and philosopher, Dr Francis Schaeffer, who, in the course of the lecture, said, “When I wake up in the middle of the night, I say to myself, ‘I live in an abnormal world.’ Having reassured myself of a key Christian belief, I turn over and go back to sleep.”
What did he mean by ‘I live in an abnormal world’ ?
One of the key tenets of our faith is the hard, unavoidable reality of sin. If there is no sin, what need is there of a saviour or salvation.
The abnormal world of sin in which we find ourselves (does it hide behind corona virus ?), is not the world at first created by the Almighty. That was normal. The presence of sin makes a normal world abnormal.
The hope of the believer is that God has promised to restore the world and all its inhabitants to its original state. There will be no more tears, no more death, no more crying, no more pain. That is a normal world.
The world in which we now live (even with covid19) is truly abnormal.