The coronavirus pandemic is confusing and frightening for hundreds of millions of people. Many around the world are sick and many others have died. Unless the situation changes dramatically, many more will fall ill and die around the globe. This crisis raises serious medical, ethical and logistical questions. But it raises additional questions for people of faith.
In situations like this, it’s very easy to lose faith, a blame God for allowing this virus to harm humanity and to live in fear of the headlines and the unknowns. This week particularly… the headlines say this week will be a grim and dark week with mounting deaths in the U.S..
While this pandemic is frightening and disruptive as never before, the history of humanity is blighted by disasters of one form or another. accompanied by great loss of life. That is historical fact. Those events affected followers of God as long as there have been people who followed God, pre-Christian times and Christians after Christ.
We wonder, is God in control? Is He watching over his followers and protecting them? Does He care what is happening to so many people?
One thing that has been evident as this crisis began to sweep across the U.S., people began to panic. Hoarding fo food and cleaning, disinfectant supplies became an everyday ordeal.
I know it’s easier to say than exhibit during times of crisis and high stress, but we all need to resist panic.
This is not to say there is no reason to be concerned, or that we should ignore the sound advice of medical professionals and public health experts. But panic and fear are not from God. Calm and hope are. And it is possible to respond to a crisis seriously and deliberately while maintaining an inner sense of calm and hope.
Panic, causes confusion and fear, causing us to pull away from the help God wants to give us. This time in our lives, living with the threat of exposure to coronavirus is in the hands of God.
Jesus has all knowledge and all authority over the natural and supernatural forces of this world. He knows exactly where the virus started, and where it’s going next. He has complete power to restrain it or not. And that’s what’s happening. Neither sin, nor Satan, nor sickness, nor sabotage is stronger than Jesus. He’s never backed into a corner; he is never forced to tolerate what he does not will. “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations” (Psalm 33:11).
“I know that you can do all things,” Job says in his own repentance, “and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). So the question is not whether Jesus is overseeing, limiting, guiding, governing all the disasters and all the diseases of the world, including all their sinful and satanic dimensions. He is. The question is, with our Bibles as our guidepost, how are we to understand this? Can we make sense out of it?
All natural disasters — whether floods, famines, locusts, tsunamis, or diseases — are a “loud noise, a call to hear” of divine mercy in the midst of judgment, calling all people everywhere to repent and realign their lives, by grace, with the infinite worth of the glory of God. And the basis for that building block is Luke 13:1-5. Pilate had slaughtered worshipers in the temple. And the tower in Siloam had collapsed and killed eighteen bystanders. And the crowds want to know from Jesus, just like we are asking right now… “Okay, make sense of this, Jesus. Tell us what you think about these natural disasters and this cruelty. These people were just standing there, and now they’re dead.”
Here’s Jesus’s answer in Luke 13:4–5: “Those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent [he shifts from them to you], you will all likewise perish.”
Now, that’s the message of Jesus to the world at this moment in history, under the coronavirus — a message to every single human being. Everybody who’s reading this and praying everyday for understanding of this crisis, every person who hears about this, is receiving a wake-up message of God, saying, “Repent.” Repent and seek God’s mercy to bring your lives — our lives — into alignment with His Will, His Purpose and live harmoniously with Him.
Now, the biblical fact is simple as expressed in Mark 4:41: “Even the wind and the sea obey [Jesus].” That is as true today as it was then. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
So, put those two facts together — the historical facts of past disasters and great loss of life and the biblical fact — and you get this truth: Jesus could have stopped any of histories natural disasters, but he did not. Since he always does what is wise and right and just and good, therefore, he had wise and good purposes in everything that affects humanity.
Food for Thought
In the midst of life's difficulties, right now the coronavirus crisis, some folks panic while others are calm. A calm and peaceful demeanor is a virtue that only true, faithful believers possess. They know that there is nothing to fear, not even death, because God is in control, even when it may seem like He's ignoring our plight.
God knows that in our desperation we will cry out to Him. Yet far too often we wait until we simply run out of human solutions to our crises, then we call upon God. By then, however, it's often too late. Instead of it being the last thing we do, seeking HIM should be the first thing we do!
