Pandemics/epidemics
whatever we may call them are nothing new in human history. While the
coronavirus is probably the best documented pandemic to ever occur, it is not
the first. I read that when epidemics happen, two reactions are common among
most people. First is denial: "This won't affect me." The second is
fear: "What if I get this and it makes me sick or perhaps kills me."
But everyone has their own timeline and intensity in their reactions to it.
Some view it as God's punishment, while others view it as opportunities to
reach people for Christ, in both word and deed, while others believe that both
reactions go hand in hand. In the midst of all the questioning you will have
some who will take this opportunity to ask "Why?", "If God loves
us, why doesn't he stop this pandemic?"
God made this universe a perfect place: No evil, no viruses, no cancer, no
addictions. Look up to heaven, and you can still see signs of his perfect
created order. The Bible teaches that satan rebelled against God, then tempted
the first two people that God created to do the same. When Adam and Eve sinned,
something was unleashed in the universe that didn't belong. Perfection was
wrecked, all the way down to the molecular level. Jesus came to break the power
of sin by His death on the cross and His resurrection. One day, according to
Revelation, there will be a new heaven and a new earth, with no evil, no
viruses, no cancer, no addictions. But while we are getting closer to that day,
it has not yet come.
Many of us believe that God must have his reasons, even if we do not know them.
This belief may seem or feel hollow and shallow at times. Yet, it is profoundly
true. God owes us no explanations. People of old would have laughed at the idea
of a god having to explain himself. Yet, the one true God, the Great "I
AM" allows His children to come before Him to ask with the right heart
attitude; but when He does not answer the way they understand, He does expect a
level of trusting Him in spite of not knowing, by each one of them. This is why
the message of the book of Job is so radical. When Job cried out to God because
he felt he was suffering unjustly, God answered him not with an explanation but
with an encounter. In a crisis, it is appropriate to reach out to God and ask
"Why?" It is also good to know that God may answer you not with words
but a whirlwind like He did Job in Job 38:1; 40:6. In Jesus, God ultimately
comes to give us unlimited access to Him, so in a crisis we might cling to Him.
God knows we need Him more than we need thoughts about Him.
When early Christians faced human suffering, they did not write long
explanations trying to explain God's actions. They served the suffering. Upon
my reading on the early church, a plague would strike a Roman city and the
citizens would flee, leaving the sick to die and hoping the plague would die
with them. Christians stayed and cared for the sick. They prayed for God's
mercy. They prayed for healing. They thought it more important to be the hands
and feet of God, rather than explain God.
How
could they stay when everyone else ran away? Those early believers had a
different outlook on their economy and their of life. They knew that life was
eternal. Their hope was not in long life but in God's kingdom. Death would
simply be a passage to the next stage of being with Jesus. May we be more
concerned today about serving the suffering than trying to explain God's
actions to them!
Hold
Fast,
-Bren
No comments:
Post a Comment