Pandemic
“Tell those rich in this world's wealth to quit being so full of
themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow.
Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the
riches we could ever manage — to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be
extravagantly generous. If they do that, they'll build a treasury that will
last, gaining life that is truly life.” (1
Timothy 6:17-19)
With 877,489
confirmed cases of the Coronavirus, another
81,792 people recovering in hospitals, and 49,605 deceased souls taken by the
virus, all of these and counting; with 4.4 million people now without jobs, and
untold present and future economic damage and destruction, there’s not much we
can say about COVID-19 that’s cause for celebration in the United States.
Making matters worse, we’re $24 trillion in the red and, seemingly, there’s no
end to the disease, the debt or the despair. And with a Presidential election only
half a year away, this pandemic takes on an added resonance. At a time when the
nation seems economically paralyzed and politically polarized, the calamity of the
Coronavirus pandemic gives all of us some
pause for thought. The perfect storm, they say.
What recent
events, and the responses to them have demonstrated is that when the media
devotes wall-to-wall attention to something, and government officials bring a
sense of urgency and ask the public to respond in kind, remarkable things can happen.
What this past month has demonstrated is that even though we can't do anything to
stop a pandemic, we can help mitigate a virus’ destructive impact with resolve
and collective action. It appears that the capacity for human compassion and
action is always present. But why do we tap into that kind of resolve only when
natural disasters and external attacks occur? We’ve witnessed other calamities like
9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the ancient land of Abraham become an ISIS war
zone for his descendants. So, you’d think we’d have seen enough. But then came the
Coronavirus pandemic – a wave of disease that sucked life and
innocence out of our collective selves and national conscience.
The truth is
we have another crisis that's been hovering over us for 2000 years or more and
shows no sign of abating. And Jesus criticized the leaders of his day for
focusing on the weather and ignoring the signals: “You find it easy enough to forecast the weather — why can't you read the
signs of the times?” (Matt. 16:2-3) As you’ve listened
to COVID survivors, have you noticed their words? Few are running through the
streets advertising their Coronavirus-themed
jewelry on Etsy, or shouting, “Dean
Koontz predicted this in his 1981 Book, The
Eyes of Darkness.” If they mourn,
they mourn for people lost. If they rejoice, they rejoice for families saved.
“Where is
God in this storm?” The disciples asked Jesus that identical question. “Jesus made his disciples get into a boat and start back across the
lake. But he stayed until he had sent the crowds away. Then he went up on a
mountain where he could be alone and pray. Later that evening, he was still
there. By this time the boat was a long way from the shore. It was going
against the wind and was being tossed around by the waves.” (Mt.
14:22-24)
In other
words, what we saw with Hurricane Katrina, the disciples saw on the Galilean
Sea: tall, angry waves. Their fishing boat bounced and spun on the white-tops.
The sky rumbled above them, the water churned beneath them. And I wonder if
they asked, “Where’s Jesus? He told us to get into the boat. Now we’re alone in
the storm? Where is he?” The answer? Jesus was praying. “Then
he went up on a mountain where he could be alone and pray.” Jesus made
intercession his priority. Did he know about the storm? Could he feel the winds
and see the thunder? No doubt. And when he sensed the danger, he chose to pray.
He still does. He offers unending intercession on our behalf. He is “in the
presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.” (Rom. 8:34) He prays
us through the storm. And, at the right moment, he meets us in it. “… Jesus came
walking on the water toward his disciples.” (Mt. 14:25) Jesus became the answer
to his own prayer. He entered the turbulent world of his friends and reached
out to them.
And he’s
doing the same at this very moment. Through the steady hands of first
responders; the compassion of physicians; the kindness of neighbors; the
generosity of people like you and me. We see only a small portion of his
activity. But we know this: he still steps into the pandemics of life. And,
let’s face it, this is a turbulent time for our country. Struggling economy.
International conflicts. A divided electorate. And now? An epic, world-wide
cataclysm. Could Jesus also be reminding us that
people matter more than possessions? In a land where we have more malls than
high schools, more debt than credit, more clothes to wear than days to live, could
Jesus be saying, "Watch
out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist
in the abundance of his possessions"? (Luke 12:15)
We see entire
countries in quarantine. Here, we’ve seen millions lose jobs, lose loved ones
and lose hope. Gary Easley was worried as he took a bus to the pharmacy
at West Virginia Health Right, a free
clinic that has stood for decades in Charleston, W.Va. Normally, he went to Walgreens and Kroger to get the nine prescriptions he relies on for his high
blood pressure and high cholesterol, diabetes and mood swings, leg pain and
lung trouble. But three weeks before — on March 17, the day West Virginia would
become the last state to confirm its first Coronavirus
case — Easley was summoned to the general manager’s office at the Four Points - Sheraton at 9:30 a.m. His
job of five years as the hotel’s morning-shift chef, he was told, was ending in
a half-hour. His health benefits ended two weeks later. Out of a job and out of
a health plan, and Health Right,
swamped with new patients, represents just one of the millions of ripple effects
associated with the novel Coronavirus
sweeping the country. In a nation where most health coverage is hinged to
employment, the economy’s vanishing jobs are wiping out insurance in the midst
of a pandemic. And in the back of our minds we hear the quiet echoes of Jesus
saying, “What good
will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26)
Pandemics have
a way of prying our fingers off the stuff we love. What was once most precious
means very little now; and what we once ignored is now of eternal importance
and significance. If all our possessions were washed away in a tidal wave of naturally
occurring, or engineered virus, could we still worship? Better yet, would we still
worship? The answer to that question is probably indicative of our grip
strength on the stuff we cherish most.
Through
circumstances like pandemics and natural disasters, Christ reminds us, “Stuff
doesn’t matter; people do. So, understand the nature of possessions.” But we
must be equally clear on the nature of people. We’ve seen the most incredible
servants and stories of selflessness and sacrifice. We’ve seen people coming to
the aid of their neighbors, and first responders risking their lives for people
they don’t even know. We’ve seen humanity at its best. We’ve also seen humanity
at its worst.
At the Food for Less in Hollywood it was shades
of Armageddon. Entire shelves were empty, and everything else was on the floor
– it looked like it had been ransacked during a robbery. And don't even think
about getting bread, eggs, cereal or pasta. All the canned beans were gone
except for the organic Goya black
beans because, apparently, people would rather starve than pay $2.99 for a can
of beans. Limits of two of anything to a customer. No toilet paper. No hand
sanitizer. But ammunition and alcohol sales are through the roof which is not a
particularly good combination, especially when purchased by the same person who
insists that a high enough blood alcohol content will kill the virus.
We are
people of both dignity and depravity. This pandemic infected more than our previous
un-social distancing habits; it blew the N-95 respirators and surgical masks right
off the face of mankind. The main problem in the world is not global warming or
Mother Nature, but human nature. Strip away the police barricades, or fill the
skateboard parks with 27 tons of sand and the real self is revealed – it turned
teenage skateboarders in San Clemente into Evil Knievels. We were born with a “me-first”
mentality. And if you don’t believe that, just ask yourself whether or not you
had to teach your kids how to argue. They don’t have to be trained to demand
their way, do they? You don’t have to show them how to stomp their feet and
pout, do you? It’s their nature … it’s our nature. “All of us have strayed like sheep. We have left God’s paths to follow
our own.” (Isaiah 53:6)
God’s
chosen word for our fallen condition is spelled, “S-I-N.” And sin celebrates the
letter in the middle – “I”. Left to our own devices, we lead godless, out of
control lives of
“…doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it.” (Ephesians
2:3) And we don’t have to go to lower Manhattan to
see the chaos. When you do what you want to do, and I do what I want to do,
humanity and civility implode. And when the pandemics of life blow in, our true
nature is revealed and our deepest need exposed: a need deeper than food, and more
permanent than lost jobs and police barricades. We don’t need a new system; we
need a new nature. We need to be changed from the inside out.
A
lot of discussion will continue around the future of some of the more
devastated areas of our country. Will the cities and economies be restored? Will
the boarded up businesses be reopened? How long will it take? Who will pay for
it? One thing is for certain, however: a vaccine has to be found, and the national
and local economies need to be restored. No one is suggesting otherwise. And everyone
knows that someone has got to find a solution to this mess.
And that’s
what God offers to do. He comes into our sin-infected lives and wipes up the
old. When Paul reflected on his own conversion, it prompted him to write, “He gave us a good bath, and we came out of
it new people, washed inside and out by the Holy Spirit.” (Titus
3:5) Our sins don’t stand a chance against the scrub brush of God’s grace, no
matter how many times we’ve washed our hands or faces.
But he
does more than just clean us up; he rebuilds us. In the form of his Holy
Spirit, God moves in and starts a renovation project; a complete makeover. “God can do anything, you know – far more
than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does
it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and
gently within us.” (Eph. 3:20) And what we can only dream of
doing with a virus, God has already done with soul after soul. And he can do the
same with us, too. If we let him.
Post-pandemic,
a return to “normal” may be a thing of the past; we have this sense that
something’s been lost and that, perhaps, “normal” will never be normal again;
that “normal” has been irretrievably lost. But think of all the things that
Noah couldn’t find, or were lost because of the flood. He couldn’t find his
neighborhood; he couldn’t find his house; he couldn’t find the comforts of home,
or the neighbors down the street. Frankly, there wasn’t much left that Noah
could find. But what he did find made all the difference. Noah found grace in
the eyes of the Lord. (Gen. 6:8) You see, if we have everything and no grace, we’ve
got nothing. But if we have nothing but grace, we have everything.
Have you
found God’s grace? It’s right there, you know. The hand of your rescuer, the
Great Physician, is reaching out to heal you. Grab his hand; take the
prescription; trust in him while you still can. Your Redeemer lives, and he
wants to rescue you – pandemic and all.
Grace,
Randy
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