by Roland Wrinkle
Last month, I blustered about the coronavirus pandemic in light of the coming ofEaster. Now, let’s take another look at things but from a post-resurrection perspective.[1] Where do we stand as people of God? Let me start with a simple historical observation. This little church on Newhall Ave. (and many of its members), have weathered and persevered through World War I, the 1918 influenza pandemic, the Great Depression, World War II, the San Francisquito Dam Breach, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the MERs pandemic, the 1993 Earthquake, 9/11, the 2008 Great Recession, the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, Swine Flu, Avian Flu, Mad Cow, Middle Eastern Wars, the SARs pandemic, the HIV crisis, the recent fires and floods and much more. Now, it’s coronavirus. God proved to be bigger than all of them.
In such times, we are called to respond as followers of Jesus and to act, not out of fear, but out of love for others and with the responsibilities that come with acting out of God’s Love. As demonstrated throughout history, scripture calls us to do whatever we can to help those who are most severely affected by this crisis. That is a calling Christians have always taken upon themselves and the people of God invariably have acquitted themselves to the glory of God. “God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7). This all comes under the category of living out the faith we profess.
In such times, we are also called upon to “feed the hungry” but to “welcome the stranger.” When people are more threatened by fear than virus, they tend to manufacture groups of “Others” so that these groups can become scapegoats and persecuted. We tend to focus generalized anxiety on fear of the “Other.” Fear of that with which we are unfamiliar. Fear of what appears strange or different from us. Fear that there will be a shortage of goods and services because of competition with the “Other.” Fear of folks who don’t look like we look. Fear that the “Other” is the source of all contagions. Fear that “rapists, drug dealers and murderers” are entering our shinning city on the hill. Fear that those who disagree with us politically are a “basket of deplorables.” Fear that there are conspiracies at work to do us harm. As the Apostle Franklin Delano Roosevelt put it, “Fear of fear itself.”
God knew that fallen humankind would inevitably fall into this trap of fearing “Others.” So, He had much to say about fear and He had much to say about how we treat the “Other.” Scripture says 137 times something like, “Do not fear” or “Don’t be afraid.” Can we believe what God says? Can we actually trust God?
On how we treat the “Other,” scripture also has much to say. “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:19); “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself….” (Leviticus 19:34); “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner…” (Leviticus 27:19); “I championed the cause of the stranger.” (Job 29:15-17); “The Lord watches over the strangers.” (Psalm146:9).
In just three years, from 1348 to 1350, the Black Death killed more than one-third of the entire population between Iceland and India. People would go to bed perfectly healthy and…well, not wake up. People barred themselves in their houses or fled to the country. A fourteenth-century writer, Jean le Bel, wrote that “one caught it from another, which is why few people dared to help or visit the sick.” They barricaded themselves in their homes or fled to the hills. But young Catherine of Sienna stayed. Following the example of the early Franciscans and Dominicans, she and her followers stayed to nurse the ill and bury the dead. Similarly, it was Christians who risked their health and their lives by creating and serving at the first hospitals. She and they did not fear the “Others.” They did run. They did shun.
Jesus himself was an “Other.” “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Matthew 25:35); His own disciple questioned, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1.46). He was killed because he was an “Other.” Peter got into trouble because he had the same foreign accent as the condemned Jesus. (Matt 26.73) But guess what happens when Jesus comes back? He will bring with Him the final and full culmination of New Creation which He launched from the Cross, i.e. God’s plan to “restore all things.” And, in that promised New Creation, “there is neither Jew nor Gentile.” (Galatians 3.28); In that renewal, “there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.” (Colossians 3:11). When the Holy Spirit was sent at Pentecost to birth the Church of Christ, guess who were favored: “Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11….” (Acts 2.9).
News anchors keep asking the scientists, “Is this an existential threat to humanity.” In other words, “Is the world coming to an end?” Every scientist reassures us that this threat, while to be taken seriously for sure, is not existential. They are 100% correct. This fallen, broken and battered world is never coming to an end. It gets renewed. God will declare, “I am making everything new!” (Rev 21). Not, “I am making all new things,” but “I am making all things new.” “God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
In light of the future God has planned for us (and which began to permeate reality the moment Jesus defeated all evil on the Cross in anticipation of the inevitable final victory of God over evil), we have no business to use a virus pandemic as an excuse to horde toilet paper and hand sanitizer before our “neighbors” do it to us first. In Psalm 73, beaten and battered Israel had just returned from exile to a beaten and battered Jerusalem. Listen to how the psalm starts out: “Such are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches [i.e. You let them horde all the toilet paper and hand sanitizer]. All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence [but not with hand sanitizer].” But then he thinks back to the promises of God and remembers what God has promised. And this is how it ends, “God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever. For me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, to tell of all your works.”
Nothing has changed since then. God was bigger than all of the calamities, plagues, wars and troubles of history. He is bigger than the current coronavirus. We just need to “Be still and know that [He is] God.” (Ps 46).
[1] Once again, this is being written long before you read it, so you have me at an advantage regarding the current state of affairs. I will (safely) assume some level of continuation of significant disruption, uncertainty and anxiety.