Loving God in Days of Pandemic

Luke 10:25-37 – ... with God in Days of Pandemic
Third Sunday in Lent – March 15, 2020 (am)
   

I had intended to greet some of you personally this morning, but it was at the eleventh hour that the Elders ended up making the decision to cancel our service this morning. That was a difficult decision but, as we’ve mentioned in our written communications this week, the scenario before us is changing by the minute.

So, we are recording this message in an empty room with the intent of making it available to you on our website. And we are doing so because we believe it is a very important message for all of us to hear during these challenging days.

But how much sweeter will be our gatherings, handshakes, and hugs on the other side of this season of separation?

Many are fearful during these days. My daughter, the nurse, says that her job at the hospital during this season has become much more a challenge in managing anxieties than in treating illnesses.

And we’ve all seen that, haven’t we? From the pictures that have circulated among family and friends in recent days you only need to snap a quick shot of the toilet paper shelves in your local mass-retailer to discern the hysteria.

And as of yet no one has been able to explain to me what manifestation of coronavirus is managed or eased by the possession of excessive amounts of toilet paper!

We’ve noted, though, that it poses a unique challenge to loving our neighbor as ourselves if the toilet paper we really need is being stored in his basement.

And there are other manifestations of anxiety as well. As we hear about measures that can be taken to slow or stop the progression of this virus, implementing those measures can quickly become our highest priority, even to the extent that someone who is not implementing them becomes an enemy.

He becomes a threat, even if he’s unaware of the proper procedures—even if he’s never learned how to cover his sneeze rightly or how to maintain appropriate distance in this newly identified etiquette called social space.

But this morning we don’t want to focus in on managing the anxieties that are awaked by the failure of others to follow the rules of safety in days like these. We want to focus in on those who cross that line to help in times of need, even at great risk.

We want to focus in on those who follow the proper procedures of preventing disease, but who do so for the sake of others well-being more so than their own personal safety.

We want to spotlight what it looks like to be so confident in the gospel we profess and in the ultimate outcome it promises that we’re not thrown off our game whenever a new and untamed virus shows up on the scene.

We don’t want to be numbered among those who love this life so much that they shrink from death (cf. Rev.12:11).

We want to be numbered among those who know that to live is Christ and to die is gain (Phi.1:21), those who’ve been [delivered] from the lifelong slavery that is rooted in fear of death by Him Who, through death, [destroyed] the one who has the power of death (Heb.2:14-15).

We want to be numbered among those who’ve been [given] a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control (2.Ti.1:7).

And, my friends, that’s our inheritance in Christ! It’s an inheritance that enables us to love as the Samaritan loved, to cross uncomfortable barriers. For him it was primarily the barriers of ethnicity and religion. For us on this day it’s the barrier of health and wellness.

As long as our calling is to model the measures of cleanliness, the proper safeguards against the transmission of disease, we’re very glad to love our neighbor, to keep them safe. But if our calling transitions into breaching those barriers to help the sick, we don’t want to balk and back away from that calling.

Christians throughout the ages have modeled this sort of courage in days just like the ones we’re facing. Our brothers and sisters have girded up their spiritual loins and entered into the battle against invisible enemies on the molecular level that threaten human life and often bring excruciating death.

But by faith in Christ and with full confidence in His promises they do whatever is necessary to care for the sick.

I love that quote from Martin Luther. He was facing bubonic plague in Wittenberg. That’s well beyond the threat of coronavirus; and it was especially so back in the sixteenth century. He said:

I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence (social space!). If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me however I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.

Now there’s the heart of the Christian! I’ll observe all the recommended safety regulations to guard both my own health and my neighbor’s. And I’ll keep doing that until my neighbor is sick and calls for me. Then I will go to him. And there’s nothing foolish or reckless about that.

So, where does that heart come from? It’s a work of the Spirit within us that comes by faith in Christ, enabling us, as we’ve been seeing in Deu., to live according to the law of God—to love Him with all our heart, soul, and might (Deu.6:5) and to love [our] neighbor as [ourselves] (Lev 19:18). [There’s a fearlessness] in love because perfect love, God’s love, casts out fear (1Jo.4:18). It frees us up to love! It frees us up to live! It frees us up to lay down our lives! And [g]reater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends (Joh.15:13). Regarding this present crisis, Lyman Stone wrote: For Christians, it is better that we should die serving our neighbor than surrounded in a pile of masks we never got a chance to use.

C. S. Lewis tells us what this looks like with yet one more of his reliably vivid descriptions. Few of us are old enough to remember the terrifying days following WWII when humanity first realized that the atomic bomb was no longer theory but reality. Lewis helped that generation put it into perspective:

In one way, we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.  

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

Believers in Christ have much more to live for than that. And through Christ’s death on our behalf we have been delivered from the fear of death which in turn delivers us from fear in life! Then that empowers us to love the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart and with all [our] soul and with all [our] mind, and to love [our] neighbor as [ourselves] (Mat.22:37-39.

So, what does that look like in our strange times today? I actually believe this body is showing us what it looks like. When our Staff Musician had to go on self-quarantine upon her return from Europe, she said she had so many offers to bring her food and supplies that she couldn’t use them all. That’s what it looks like!

Look for ways to help people. Then just do it.

Offer to bring groceries to people in quarantine.

Look in on the elderly, and the ill. See if they need anything, including just a visit.

Offer to help our cleaning crew here. And by the way, we really appreciate Dave Clark, and our Deacons.

Keep your space, but not out of self-protection—out of love.

By the way, CDC says six-feet of social space. WHO says one meter, or three-feet. We quoted one and linked to the other in our letter, so please don’t stumble over the difference. The main thought is, keep some space.

But be more devoted to the people than to the space.

Be very, very patient with one another, even with the sometimes irrational sensitivities and fears others feel.

Remember, it’s not our job to correct misconceptions about medical matters. Let the medicine men do that. Just turn your attention to loving people in the midst of all the craziness, regardless of whether the craziness is warranted.

Regardless of whether it’s justified, it’s real! It’s happening right now! And this is the world we inhabit! If the furor over coronavirus is ill-conceived, believe me it’s not the craziest misconception this world has believed! Much of this world actually believes there’s no God in heaven!

Keep reviewing in your mind that it really is true: to live is Christ and to die is gain. If we understand this virus correctly, it doesn’t really threaten the lives of most of us. But it has put the frailty of life right in front of our eyes, and the value of life, and people are thinking about that. Talk to them about it!

The Elders received an email from a man in our body who had multiple gospel conversations in the workplace just this past Friday. It was exhilarating! And they’re continuing. This is the time to talk with people about the big picture, ultimate reality—God and creation and sin and salvation and coming judgment and eternal life.

This is the work we should be about in these days! This is what it looks like to be a Christian, to be the church, in troubled times. Now may our Father enable it within us!

Thank you for listening today. God be with you wherever you are. Let’s pray.