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Yad Vashem and 100,00

 


"The soul of man is a candle unto God".  These are the words which are over the door into the memorial for children who died in the Holocaust, part of Yad Vashem near Jerusalem.   As you enter the darkened space their names are heard being read out while you walk along a narrow corridor.  You turn a corner and enter a large space, cave like in its echoing shadows and your breath is taken from you.   In the centre is a column of candles around which are a number of mirrors which reflect the candlelight in all directions.  It’s like stumbling into a galaxy of flickering, living flames.  Indeed the soul of man is a candle unto God.   

The emotional impact of the Yad Vashem Children's Memorial is one way of helping us register in a visceral way the appalling reality of what lies behind the numbers and statistics which our minds can only handle in a very muted and almost abstract way.  This week not only have we marked Holocaust Memorial Day but also in the UK we have passed the grim milestone of 100,000 precious lives lost to Covid-19.  We have become so used to daily updates of numbers that I fear we become immure to what such figures truly represent.   

A flickering candle is alive, warm and in constant motion yet fragile and exposed too.  I've been at a number of deathbeds and I know how it is when the final breath leaves and the candle quietly turns dark.  The person is there but we know they have gone.  All that is special and wonderful, life giving and heart warming about each of us comes out of that inner place where the candle of our soul burns. That soul light is made physical and tangible in our friendships and loves, our deeds of kindness and care, the solid day to day ordinary sacrifices and service that we each contribute to our magically diverse human race.

At the core of our Christian faith is the belief that we are made in the image of God and that God loves each human being with an infinite love.   Personally I find these two beliefs the only light that is left sometimes in very dark times, when all evidence is to the contrary.    Yad Vashem and our recent 100,000 deaths to Covid-19 are such times.     Where does this leave us?  Victor Frankl and others who have been through the unspeakable speak with the authority of the camps. When a young boy was hung for stealing bread a heart rending cry was heard ‘where is God?'  A quiet response came from an old Rabbi ‘God is there on the gallows’.

I honestly don’t know where all this will end, but as Christians one of our distinctive offerings is that in some manner God is suffering with us, that he is in solidarity with his broken pandemic world.  We can cry in our pain and confusion with Jesus on the cross as he quoted Psalm 22… ‘My God, my God why have you forsaken me?’. And we can also draw strength from post Easter people who testify to God’s presence in extreme circumstances again and again through the centuries and across our world today: “God has said ‘I will never leave you or forsake you’: so we say with confidence ‘The Lord is my helper’”.  (Hebrews 13:5,6)


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