We are thankful to God for the recovery of Boris Johnson,  British Prime Minister, from what was, evidently, a bad case of Covid-19.  We are thankful, too, that tomorrow (27th April 2020) he expects to be able to return to 10 Downing Street and pick up the reigns of national leadership again.

His comments, upon leaving hospital, were heartfelt, and appreciative of the efforts made by NHS staff not only on his own behalf, but also on behalf of their many other patients.

However, not everything he said should be accepted without question:

‘We will defeat this coronavirus and defeat it together.  We will win, because the NHS is the beating heart of this country…It is unconquerable.  It is powered by love.’

No.  I love our NHS (and I worked for or with it for most of my career).  But if there is anything that the coronavirus has been teaching us, it is our very vulnerability, that fact that neither we, nor the best of our agencies, are ‘unconquerable’.  “Put not your trust in princes”, says Psalm 146:3, nor in any other members of the human race, whether whether weak or powerful, working singly or together, as private persons or as great institutions.

The best that we can do (and we should all certainly do our best) is insufficient for the task.

If pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a slumbering world (C.S. Lewis), let us hear the clarion call of the present emergency, and put our trust in God and receive his gift of life in his Son, Jesus Christ.