The New Normal Will Adapt to the Old

Picture by Kate Trifo, Unsplash.

We're all wondering what the "new normal" would look like. We get some hints now and then from the news, like continuous wearing of masks, social distancing, curfew hours and some limitations on who could go out. In other words, adapt to the "new normal" during the 1918 pandemic Spanish Flu. Which is old but resurrected as new.

It'll be a strict daily regimen, to be sure, that would run probably some 4 years or so. And I'm sure modern spoiled brats, the wayward and self conceited won't like it. Malls, offices and institutions will implement stricture rituals before anyone can enter them. Checkpoints will be part of the cityscape. These are all welcome, instead of getting sick with Covid 19.

Old Fashioned 2020

Not just the "normal" that Spanish Flu introduced. I also mean we're going to be old-fashioned again. I can imagine how men kept their distance from women in the earlier days--in the days of our grandpas and grandmas--and how women hid their faces behind veils or hand fans or hankies. We're going back to that again.

And riding bikes. I saw one news item saying biking would be preferred over driving vehicles in the new normal. Well, that's another old fashioned thing we're going to adapt to.

People in my grand dad's time were disciplined. They moved with the cadence and tempo of the times, doing everything exactly as they were told. There was no room for defiance or stubbornness. Being a spoiled brat was the exception than the rule. We're going back to that, whether we like it or not--probably with the help of military checkpoints if we don't behave. Those old ways will become the "new normal."

Perhaps like the Bagong Lipunan days.

The Leviticus lifestyle will persist for a while--I mean the disinfecting process we do before we leave or enter our homes today which is something reminiscent of the tedious rituals of Aaron and the Levitical priests in the Old Testament before and after they entered the temple.

But these are not enough. Viruses--because they're invisible to the naked eyes--cannot be utterly stopped by such measures. Even with a proven vaccine, a virus that keeps evolving and mutating may take on different forms and behaviors today than it was yesterday. So I think the new normal will keep using these measures until no trace of Covid 19 is left for, say, at least 5 years or so?

Church New Normal

How about church? I guess church people would gradually try to bring back "normal" worship service into their man-made sanctuaries and also try to do away with social distancing bit by bit because they love to shake hands there. Because that's the only way they know how to do church. Church building to them is life. More so what they do there.

But God has a different "new normal" in these last days, making all things new. After all, a new creation has nothing but new. The old is past. All true believers should be well familiar with God's new normal by now. Jesus and the apostles introduced it in their time but the modern church and its theology and interpretations rejected it and preferred the rituals of traditional religion instituted by men.

He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." [Revelation 21]

Church still worships following its man-made programs based on the same patterns every Sunday. And these are all derivatives from the Roman Catholic church. Their celebrations are mere carry-overs from the same and even when ministers are ordained they make themselves look like Catholic priests and bishops and popes with their robes, sashes and headgears. Jesus never did these things. Imagine him wearing them and looking like a Pharisee. They still think church is a building and cannot imagine worship or ministry without it.

Building is life to them.

Jesus is the Way and introduced the new normal of the Kingdom, which is supernatural. Everything he did was different from what the priests, Pharisees and law teachers did or taught. He was worlds apart from them. New wine cannot be kept in old wineskins, he said, because new wine will ruin them. The same with Jesus' ways. It ruined the traditions of men.

And the same today. If you try to keep Jesus in your old church traditions, it will ruin your church. The new wine is designed to ruin old vessels--particularly man-made vessels. Church tries to keep the ruin and damage secret, but the rottenness in church just leaks and smells and shows itself in public. They cannot hide their sins and the sins of their fathers. What's secret and hidden will be made known in broad daylight. Just look at the betrayals, splits, corruption, greed and immorality which they try to sweep under their rugs. But the bad smell just leaks through even if they try to cover the cracks.

So I will pour out my wrath against the wall and against those who covered it with whitewash. I will say to you, "The wall is gone and so are those who whitewashed it, [Ezekiel 13.15]

The new normal will veer towards the old, physically and spiritually. Though most people invent the myth that old school is obsolete, the old will prevail because it is really the new--and what they think is "new" is really the old--the old, stubborn and rotten ways of men who see everything not helpful to their ego as "old-fashioned" and useless.