Is God in the midst of this pandemic?
I love the news. Since I was young, I loved sitting down and watching news coverage with my parents. However, at this stage in my life, my news consumption is primarily from online sources, which for a while now have been covering mostly one subject. COVID-19, or more commonly called the coronavirus, has turned the modern world upside down. This deadly virus has gripped many with fear and instilled a general feeling of instability in many nations as economies falter, schools and churches shutter their doors, borders close, gatherings and travel are banned, jobs and income are lost, entertainment outlets are put on hiatus, hospitals and medical workers are over-burdened, and loved ones, neighbors, as well as strangers, are quarantined, hospitalized and even killed by COVID-19. Because of the present distress, I wanted to devote time to answering a few questions that are worthy of our time:
“Where is God in this upheaval?”
“Why would God allow this?”
“What response and role are Christians to have in this turmoil and suffering?”
“How should we pray?”
Since the outbreak of this virus, the world seems to have been catapulted into a narrative that seems more akin to thrilling fiction than our sobering reality. We’ve never seen anything quite like what we are witnessing – the cessation of normal life in almost all nations across the globe. Governments, either by appeal or force, enact quarantines in a bid to stem the tide of a virus, that unless slowed or stopped, has the likely potential to kill and hospitalize millions of people. Unlike the typical westerner who subscribes to a materialist worldview, or in some cases may retain some sense of an impersonal spiritual realm, the Christian is under obligation to think deeply about the COVID-19 outbreak. Many of whom hold this perspective believe the unfolding of history and events to be, at their root, purposeless and unguided. But we, as Christians, worship Yahweh, the triune God who has revealed himself to us through Scripture. The claims he makes about himself do not allow us to neglect the grand questions of purpose, meaning and suffering. Failure to contemplate God’s presence in the present difficulties and sorrows, as well as our response to it, would be a dereliction of our duty, because our calling as followers of Jesus demands a commitment to mindfulness and love. When anxiety and fear weigh heavily on our soul, it’s easy to neglect truth by slipping into a state of alarm and self-preservation. But in these perplexing times, we must hold fast to Jesus and pray for his wisdom to infiltrate the most troubled places in our hearts and minds. What follows is intended to be the first of four posts, each one briefly addressing one of the questions above, since their answers can play a significant role in how we as followers of Jesus view God and relate to the world we find ourselves living in.
I don’t take writing on this issue lightly. It is no little thing to claim to have something to say about transcendent truth and its connection to a virus that is the cause of so much suffering, poverty, tears, and death, especially when the scope of its baleful influence is only increasing with each day. What I hope to accomplish with these words is to direct our hearts to love and our minds to truth, making a small and momentary contribution to the lifelong calling we have to follow Jesus in faithfulness.
A Glimpse of God
When chaos abounds and uncertainty is prevalent, we may be tempted to ask, “Where is God while the world is suffering from this pandemic?” It’s an understandable question, especially as we attempt to understand how the suffering and death wrought by a pandemic and a good God could possibly have any relation or co-existence. A simple glance over the two might naturally lead one to say they are at odds – there is no way to harmonize the suffering caused by COVID-19 and Yahweh who claims to have made the world and love it. However, that conclusion would be ill-informed and a whitewashing of God’s character. Let us take a glimpse of the great God and see where he is as COVID-19 continues its devastating march through the nations of the world.
God’s Immanence
When someone asks, “Where is God?” or “Where was God?”, the question inherently carries with it the assumption, and sometimes the accusation, that he is absent, detached and distant, either unwilling or unable to devote his attention to what is taking place in our lives. There could hardly be a statement about God that is further from the truth. The whole testimony of the Bible, God’s self-disclosure, reports just how present he is in the world, especially in the lives of those he has set his love upon. God’s immanent presence is nowhere more evident than in Jesus’s incarnation – the Father’s great rebuke of the notion that he might somehow be absent, detached or distant. Jesus set aside his eternal and immeasurable glory to tabernacle in human flesh for the purpose of redeeming what he deeply loved – an enslaved people and a creation that groans for freedom from corruption. To enact his salvific plan, the eternal one elected to be born as a servant into a lowly family and an oppressed people with the intention of having his earthly life sacrificed by the spiteful wrath of man in order to bear the holy wrath of the Father. In doing this, he forever proclaimed the nearness of his love and guaranteed his eternal immanence to those he loves. The last sentence in the gospel of Matthew quotes Jesus as saying, “And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.” (28.20) That Matthew ends with this statement is no accident. It’s intended to emphasize to the Christian reader that though you’ve finished reading this text, there will never be an end or even a temporary suspension in your communion with Jesus. By the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, he is always with the Christian, near and continuously active in them, with them and through them, whether they are thriving and healthy or struggling and hospitalized.
But what of those who do not know Jesus? Can he be said to be with or near the multitude who do not love him as they endure sufferings and evils of all kinds? Though God’s covenantal and familial presence is exclusively for those who have been joined to him through faith in Jesus, there is reason to say God is immanently near all people – though in a very distinctive way from his covenant people. Chapter one of Genesis relates in verse two that even before God had created image-bearers to know and enjoy his wonderous glory, “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” of the earth, an allusion to God’s presence within the created order – a presence which God robustly emphasizes in Job chapters 38 through 41. If God is steadfastly immanent in this world, even after the entrance of sin, in what way does the nearness of his presence engage and connect with the lives of those who are outside of the church? First and foremost, he is near and very much aware of their needs and sorrows. The greatest of these needs to which he turns his attention is the spiritual poverty and ignorance that so many are burdened with because of the blinding effects of sin and spiritual powers of darkness. To the prophet Jonah, God expresses how his love for sinners has drawn his heart near to Nineveh saying, “And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle” (4.11)? Nineveh, a city great in its splendor and might lacks one fundamental thing – a knowledge of the living God, which is expressed as being so out of step with reality, that it is compared with being unable to discern something so simple as the difference between one hand and the other. Similarly, Paul in Acts 17 says to the Athenians that every nation was formed so that they would seek after God, and then Paul affirms that their seeking is not in vain because “he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’” (17.27-28).
Because God sustains our lives by his will and has sown aspects of his character into human nature, he will always be near to humanity, proclaiming the glory of his name that they might turn from sin to God – their greatest good – by embracing Jesus. As evidence of his immanence and commitment to people’s good, he is unrelenting in dispensing his common grace to mankind by giving good gifts like modern medicine, competent healthcare systems, restorative rest, supportive friendships, and much more to both the good and the evil (James 1.17; Matthew 5.44-45). Suffering and death may be present in the life of mankind – they must be since they mirror the spiritual decay and death inborn to each of us – but to overlook the many evidences of his close and personal care of each human, no matter the desperate state of their life, is as imprudent as being invited to a feast and complaining that your favored delicacies were not provided.
God’s Sovereignty
As lovely as the Lord’s immanence is, he would be bereft of deed if in his nearness he could not sovereignly act to exalt his name, build his church, demonstrate his love, provide for the needy, heal the wounded or judge evil. Sadly, what is meant to be one of the most comforting aspects of God’s character often tends to be the most troubling for Christians and non-Christians alike, that being that God is sovereignly powerful over all things. As one who possesses sovereign strength, he alone reigns as king over all that exists – the physical and the spiritual – by exercising complete rule to control and determine all that occurs. This tends to be one of the most maligned and diluted aspects of his character by man, while also being one of the most, if not the most, affirmed by God himself, as he frequently speaks of his intimate involvement as being the prime instrument in the unfolding of people’s lives and history. In Isaiah 45.7, Yahweh makes a sweeping statement regarding his sovereign involvement in creation, saying “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things.” No one objects to God’s involvement in goodness and well-being, but where protest arises is when he claims sovereign rule over evil and calamity – going so far as to say they are his creation. If his assertion makes us uncomfortable, have we considered that his sovereignty is also unified to his immeasurable love and infinite wisdom? When God acts, his whole character remains intact. He never sets aside his love or wisdom or kindness or grace or holiness. Every sovereign act is united to the fullness of his perfect and holy personhood. Were God to be disconnected from evil and calamity, it would leave us with a dualistic universe where evil is a randomized and equal competitor with good, free to inflict havoc apart from Jesus’s loving involvement. Praise God that this type of dualistic universe is antithetical to the one we have.
Is God in our midst in this pandemic? Yes, and even in the evil unfolding we can be confident that he is sovereignly doing good, both eternal good for those whom he has and is drawing to himself, and temporal good to the just and unjust. But if God is sovereign and all things unfold according to his willful purposing, why would a pandemic overtake the world? Why do seemingly innocent people suffer and die? Why do the wealthy get the healthcare they need while many poor do not? Why would God permit, or perhaps even cause, something like this? We will look to explore and further answer these questions in the next post.
Tyler Conrad
Assistant Pastor, Youth and Families