Reservations for cruises next year are up 40 percent from 2019. If you book one, expect to experience more stringent boarding procedures, regular temperature checks, expanded onboard medical centers, improved air filtration systems, and crew-manned serving stations.
And don’t be surprised if a robot cleans your room. Sterilization robots already in use in hotels could be on your next ship.
We’re looking for help with COVID-19 in every direction, from the Senate deal yesterday on a $484 billion aid package to the New York City mayor’s plan to throw a parade for healthcare workers and first responders when the city reopens.
But the most significant direction we can look today is up.
A powerful image of divine judgment
I am reading through the Book of Isaiah these days and came upon a chapter that speaks directly to our crisis.
The prophet foresaw a day when the people of Israel would be judged by God: “It shall be as when the reaper gathers standing grain and his arm harvests the ears, and as when one gleans the ears of grain in the Valley of Rephaim. Gleanings will be left in it, as when an olive tree is beaten” (Isaiah 17:5–6).
I have been in Israel during olive harvesting season and seen workers beating the trees to knock the olives from their branches. A few olives are always left, while most fall to the ground.
This is a powerful picture of God’s judgment against his sinful people. But here’s the resulting good news: “In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made” (vv. 7–8).
The people had trusted what they could make rather than the One who made them. When they got so far down they could look nowhere but up, they would turn back to the God they should have…
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