QUARANTINE BLOG # 225

November 10, 2020

On October 18, I started a sermon series at Crawfordville about the conversations Jesus had with individuals.  The first one was, “Jesus and the Adulterous Woman.”  I thought I had posted it, but if I did, it has escaped my detection.  Click here for that message http://davidsisler.com/christian/Jesus_and_the_Adulterous_Woman.mp3.  If you come across it in an earlier post, let me know.

👉  The score: Steelers 5, COVID 19.  The Steelers placed four players on the Reserve/COVID-19 List on Tuesday morning.  The four players include quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, offensive lineman Jerald Hawkins, running back Jaylen Samuels and linebacker Vince Williams.  All will be isolated for five days.  The team placed tight end Vance McDonald on the Reserve/COVID-19 List on Monday evening.  The lead for this piece was borrowed from a blog reader and Steelers fan who suggested this may be the only way to stop the Steelers this year.  Thanks, Matt!

👉  In case you missed Jeopardy! last night, here is the introduction to the show by its executive producer, Mike Richards, paying tribute to Alex Trebek who died Sunday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLRZoJa9elg&feature=emb_logo.

👉  And a classic 3 minutes and 14 seconds from Jeopardy!’s Greatest of All Time series between James Holzhauer, Ken Jennings, and Brad Rutter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svw6NCnuIkE&feature=emb_rel_end.

👉  The drug maker Pfizer announced on Monday that an early analysis of its coronavirus vaccine trial suggested the vaccine was robustly effective in preventing Covid-19, a promising development as the world has waited anxiously for any positive news about a pandemic that has killed more than 1.2 million people. The company said that the analysis found that the vaccine was more than 90 percent effective in preventing the disease among trial volunteers who had no evidence of prior coronavirus infection. If the results hold up, that level of protection would put it on par with highly effective childhood vaccines for diseases such as measles. No serious safety concerns have been observed, the company said.

Pfizer plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization of the two-dose vaccine later this month, after it has collected the recommended two months of safety data. By the end of the year it will have manufactured enough doses to immunize 15 million to 20 million people, company executives have said.

Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to rush a vaccine to market, has promised Pfizer $1.95 billion to deliver 100 million doses to the federal government, which will be given to Americans free of charge. 

If the final vaccine ends up with that 90% level of efficacy, it “would be higher than your regular flu vaccine, and this vaccine could have a serious impact on bending the curve of this outbreak,” said Dr. Saad B. Omer, the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health.

👉  With two states’ votes still undecided in the 2020 Presidential election, and court cases looming, the Quarantine Blog reflects that losing presidential candidates have conceded to their opponents in private chats, telegrams, phone calls and nationally televised speeches. Most concessions are gracious – less about the loser and more about closure for the country. Others have a little dry humor mixed in.

After failing to win reelection in 1992, George H. W. Bush quoted Winston Churchill and said he had been given the “Order of the Boot.”

The concession tradition had a hiccup in 2000 when Gore called George W. Bush to concede and then called him back to recant as the results from Florida went sideways. “Let me make sure I understand,” Bush told Gore on the phone. “You’re calling me back to retract your concession?”

When Bush was declared the winner after the Supreme Court halted further recount action, Gore delivered his second concession. “Just moments ago I spoke with George W. Bush and congratulated him on becoming the 43rd president of the United States. And I promised him that I wouldn’t call him back this time,” Gore said.

Democratic and Republican candidates in the presidential primaries give concession speeches too. In 1976, after he lost the race to be the Democratic presidential nominee, congressman Morris Udall quipped, “The voters have spoken – the b*st*rds.”

Richard Nixon, who lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960, said in his concession speech: “One of the individual features of America is that we have political contests – that they are very hard-fought as this one is hard-fought. And once the decision is made, we unite behind the man who was elected.”

After Gerald Ford and Bob Dole lost the 1976 presidential election to Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, Dole, quipped: “Contrary to reports that I took the loss badly, I want to say that I went home last night and slept like a baby – every two hours I woke up and cried.”

The funniest concession came from Thomas Dewey, who lost to Harry S. Truman in 1948. In his concession, Dewey likened himself to a corpse and told the story about a drunk at a wake. As a practical joke, the inebriated man’s friends laid him in a coffin, his hands folded on his chest holding a lily. In the morning, he awoke confused. “If I am alive, what am I doing in this coffin?” the man wondered. “If I am dead, why do I have to go to the bathroom?” It was sort of a humorous way of letting people know that he was still alive and that it was going to be OK.

👉  So many hymns have shared the fact that our lives here on earth are filled with trials, and challenges and problems.  Often we question why we must encounter these difficulties, and many times the answers just don’t come.  But someday they will be revealed.  We are reminded in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”  

And it is with that knowledge, and the peace that God alone can give, that we move on. “By and by, when the morning comes, when the saints of God are gathered home, we’ll tell the story how we’ve overcome, for we’ll understand it better by and by.”  

Charles Tindley was born near Berlin, Maryland, in July of 1851, the son of a free mother and slave father. In his teens he taught himself to read and acquired a fair amount of liberal-arts and theological education, largely through correspondence courses.  After having been ordained a Methodist minister, he returned as pastor to a church he had previously served as janitor.  Eventually he built that church – in Philadelphia – from some 200 parishioners to a membership of over 12,000 in the 1920s.  He wrote some 45 hymns, generally to accompany his own sermons, in almost all cases composing the tunes as well as the words.  

After bearing eight children, his wife Daisy, passed away in 1924, the very day the congregation entered the new sanctuary for the first time.  Initially struggling with her death, he would later explain, “one day I will understand it better by and by.” And so his hymn reminds us of that hope that someday the reasons for our trials and struggles will be revealed and we will fully see and understand their purposes in our lives. 

Trials dark on every hand, and we cannot understand All the ways that God could lead us to that blessed promised land; But He guides us with His eye, and we’ll follow till we die, For we’ll understand it better by and by. By and by, when the morning comes, When the saints of God are gathered home, We’ll tell the story how we’ve overcome, For we’ll understand it better by and by.

Enjoy the Bill Gaither Vocal Group doing a great rendition of Charles Tindley’s song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXUHW3WHIeE.

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