Tag: pandemic

God’s healing power

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Fifteen months ago, as I prayed about what the Christian response to the pandemic ought to be, my thoughts went to a book by sociologist Rodney Stark: The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries. From a historical perspective, there was nothing inevitable about the rise of Christianity. As Stark pointed out, paganism had been a vital part of the Greco-Roman world for centuries, and therefore “must have had the capacity to fulfill basic religious impulses.”

But then the plagues struck.

Stark said, “In a sense paganism did indeed ‘topple over dead’ or at least acquire it’s fatal illness during these epidemics.”

Why?

From the beginning of the Jesus movement, Christian values of love and charity had translated into social services and community solidarity.

When disasters struck, Christians were better able to cope.

As the pagans fled the cities, Christians went in.

They provided food and basic provisions for the sick, even for the pagans, even at the cost of their own lives. It turned out that just seeing to the basic needs of people dramatically increased the survival rate. When the crisis subsided, pagans wondered why the Christians had stayed.

Of course they had stayed because they had experienced the selfless love of Jesus Christ and the power of the resurrection.

So if the response of the early church was to go into the city, how does that inform the Christian response in our time?

By 2020, we knew more about how viruses spread, though not nearly as much as we needed to know. The faithful response of 2020 was still to see to basic human needs, but also to limit our exposure in order to limit the spread of the virus.

In 2020, part of the faithful response meant staying away instead of going in.

But what about today, now that vaccines are available?

The faithful response today is not dying, but living. It’s about going into a clinic and getting a shot.

But now it seems that the folks most reluctant to get the shot are evangelical Christians.

Friends, for every objection you have to getting the shot, I can name five more. I agree with you on most of them.

The collective response to the pandemic reflects our nature as fallen human beings. Our government wasn’t ready for the pandemic. Officials have been inconsistent, reluctant to admit mistakes, and sometimes flat wrong. Some said vaccines would take years to develop and might never come. Some probably should be prosecuted.

But it was fallen people like that that the early Christians died to save.

Today, God is working a miracle through his fallen creatures. Through vaccines, God’s healing power is once more going out into the world.

But first it has to go into our arms.

Conversation starter

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Want to start a conversation?

Ask someone if they’ve gotten the vaccine. 

People who would never speak about politics, race, or religion don’t hesitate to tell you what they think about getting a shot.

And for the most part, people have been willing to listen.

The pandemic is a global problem, but the solution is intensely personal: Baring a part of your body so a stranger behind a mask can inject you with a substance labeled “For use under Emergency Use Authorization.”

The creation of not one, but three vaccines in less than a year might just go down as one of humankind’s greatest achievements.

But taking the shot requires deep trust.

Think of all the things that have to happen before the vaccine gets to you. Years of research, experiments, trials, approvals, manufacturing, logistics, storage, and more. All that has to go just right for the vaccine to be safe and effective. 

It all seems like a miracle to me. Jana and I were pleased to get shots as soon as we could.

And faithful Christians can also choose not to.

Long ago, God sent his one and only Son from the perfect safety of heaven into the chaos of the world to bring the cure for what is ultimately wrong with us.

The cure for sin meant way more that rolling up his sleeve and getting stuck with a needle. It meant getting stripped naked and nailed to a cross.

Shouldn’t that humble us all to the dust?

Shouldn’t that help us to listen to each other? Just doing that would be a miracle too.

Whether we choose to get the shot or not.

Feeling helpless?

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The pandemic has taken away many of the things we relied on for purpose and meaning, and rioting has shaken our faith in our institutions.

We want to do something, but what?

Acts 17 tells the story of the Apostle Paul in the Areopagus in Athens, where the elites of the first century Roman world met to debate philosophy, religion, and politics. The elites listened as Paul explained who the God of the Bible was and how God was the force behind much of what they believed.

So far, so good.

But then Paul told them they needed to repent; God was sending someone to judge the world; the proof was the resurrection. 

End of discussion. Paul and his talk were cancelled. The philosophers thought Paul was crazy.

I wonder if Paul left feeling helpless.

But God wasn’t done. 

Paul wasn’t totally helpless after all; a few people who heard him believed.

Less than 300 years later, the Roman Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in recognition of the fact that Christianity had become the dominant religion of the Roman world.

The Gospel changed the world from the margins, not from the places where the elites hung out. Members of the new Jesus Movement had begun sharing their faith with relatives and friends, who shared it with their relatives and friends. People began to see there was something different about them.

Today, Christianity is the dominant religion in the world, and it’s still growing. Growing, not through force or programs, but through the quality of the members of the movement and the relationships they form.   

Friends, we’re not helpless. 

Share your faith. Point to the resurrection. Do it winsomely, fearlessly, and relate it to your audience, as Paul did.

It’s when we feel helpless, and step out in faith anyway, that God does some of his best work.

Broiled

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Last week, when tornadoes cut a path of destruction across the south, I kept thinking how awful, to have to deal with one crisis on top of another. 

A visible crisis on top of an invisible pandemic.

Later, I came across a story online about the Red River cresting near Grand Forks, North Dakota. It was the eighth worst flood there on record, but it hadn’t made the headlines. I guess there wasn’t enough space to cover all the bad news. 

Everywhere people are hurting in real, but often unseen, ways. They’re losing loved ones, losing jobs, losing dreams, to an invisible pandemic which also takes away some of the best ways to help.

Like hugs. 

Like just sitting and weeping with someone.

Let me offer one thought. When the newly risen Jesus met the disciples in the upper room on the night of the first Easter, they were so hurting they couldn’t see him for who he really was. They thought he was a ghost. Jesus asked for something to eat, and they gave him a piece of broiled fish.

Broiled.

Not baked or fried.

It’s the only time the word “broiled” is used in the whole Bible. Why?

Because it really happened that way. This is an eyewitness account.

Your grief is real, and Jesus wants you to know he is too.

Your grief isn’t invisible to him.

The Father knows

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I was in high school when I realized that my common sense went to sleep the moment my head hit the pillow at night. The rest of my brain went on working just fine, leaving the rest of me wide awake. Back then, I was skinny and pale, and I thought my head was too big for my body. I mostly worried about what kids thought of me.

I like to think I don’t worry as much now, but the truth is, I still worry more than I should. (The fear of being too skinny passed a long time ago.)

Jesus told us over and over not to worry. In a famous section of the Sermon on the Mount, beginning at Matthew 6:25, he told us not to worry about what we eat, drink, and wear. Amidst a global pandemic, we want to ask, “OK, Jesus, but how?”

Remember, Jesus’ commands come with the grace to carry them out, and there in verse 32 is the grace: “Your heavenly Father knows that you need them.”

Jesus wasn’t commanding us not to worry because eating, drinking, and clothing weren’t important. He was commanding us not to worry because God knows they are.

Didn’t Jesus himself enjoy a good meal with his friends?

Didn’t his first miracle keep the party going when the wine had run out?

Didn’t the soldiers at his crucifixion gamble for his cloak? It must have been nice.

Jesus is concerned about us. He knows our needs because he had them too. He cares that people are hurt when restaurants, bars, and businesses close, limiting what we can eat, drink, and wear.

Amidst the crisis, grace: Your heavenly Father knows.