Love in a time of Corona

In Café church we are working our way through the book of Revelation.  It made me uncomfortable a couple of weeks ago to be studying chapter six.  Here we read that Jesus is in charge of history, and part of God’s plan of judgement and mercy on this world is that he releases pestilence upon the earth.  Could God really be responsible for the Coronavirus?  How does that square with his love?  How are we to show his love in a time of Coronavirus?

The book of Revelation was given to the apostle John at the end of the first century.  John is now an old man and he is in exile on the island of Patmos.  He is probably having to work in the quarries.  Here was a man who is known as the beloved disciple and yet his circumstances would put into question if Jesus really did love him.

Through this revelation Jesus gives messages to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia Minor (now in Turkey).  They are living at a time when the Emperor Domitian is venting his hatred against Christians.  They know what it is to be persecuted.  Their circumstances would put into question if Jesus really loved them.

John is invited into the throne room of heaven.  There he sees the throne of God and the lamb who was slain.  Remembering that Jesus is the lamb who was slain should dispel any fears that God does not love us.  In an earlier letter John had stated, ‘this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid done his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our life for our brothers and sisters’ (1 John 3:16).

In the control room of heaven John sees a scroll.  This scroll contains God’s plan of blessing and judgement for the world.  The scroll is sealed with seven seals, and only Jesus is worthy to open the seals.  As each seal is opened history comes into being.  But don’t think of these seals being opened at some distant time in the future.  The things that are spoken of as the first four seals are opened focus on what takes place now and until Jesus returns.

The first four seals focus on what have been referred to as the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  What you find with these four horsemen is military destruction, civil disorder, bloodshed, social breakdown and death.  This is not a pretty picture.

The first horse is white, and its rider has a bow, a crown was given to him, and he comes out conquering and to conquer.  White signifies a spirit of conquest.  The bow was a symbol for military power.  John’s first readers would have seen the might of the Roman empire as it dominated their world.  There have been many empires bent on dominating other peoples since.

The second horse is red.  It is the colour of blood.  Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and make men slay one another.  To him was given a large sword.  While the white horse represents invasion from without, this second horse seems to focus on civil war.  Between A.D. 68 and A.D. 70 there were four different emperors on the throne.  The people of the Roman world knew all about civil unrest.   God takes his restraint off the destructive instincts of human beings and they express the hatred and violence that lurks within each of our hearts. 

The third horse is black.  Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand.  This is not the scales of justice.  These are the scales of trade.  There is inflation here.  A quart of wheat was what one man would eat.  But a day’s wages would only give him enough to feed himself, not his family too.  He could have reverted to the cheap stuff, the barley, but that would only have given him enough to feed three.

The fourth horse is pale, the colour of a corpse.  Here the rider is named death and Hades follows close.  They were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth (8).  Once society began to break down in those days the wild beasts began to take over.  The Coronavirus is not the first time the world has been hit by pestilence.  There have been many times of pestilence.  The Black Death of the fourteenth century wiped out a third of Europe’s population.

So, is God responsible for the Coronavirus?  There is a sense in which we have to say yes.  God is in control of history.  Jesus opened the scroll and war, violence, scarcity and pestilence were realised on earth.  These are uncomfortable words.  This is part of living in a world that is subject to both God’s judgements and blessings.  But how do we reconcile this with a God of love?

Coronavirus is God’s wake-up call

The first verse that came to my mind in thinking about this is from Lamentations.  There Jeremiah tells us that, God ‘does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone’ (Lamentations 3:33).  In other words, God releases his judgements on our world with reluctance.  He is showing us his anger against a world in rebellion against him.  He is also acting in love.  His purposes include waking people up from spiritual sleep.

All around us people try to live as if the inevitable will not happen.  They don’t like to talk about death.  They don’t like to think about it.  But all of us will die.  Times of pestilence remind us that death is very real.  There is something far worse than death itself, that is to die without Jesus.  To die without Jesus will bring you to hell.  The Coronavirus is God’s wake up call to tell us to be ready to die.

In Luke’s gospel Jesus is asked to comment on two tragedies of his day.  ‘Were the people killed in those tragedies worse than everyone else that they died in this way?’  ‘No!’ he answered, ‘but unless you too repent, you too will perish’ (Luke 13:3,5).  The people of Wuhan were not necessarily more sinful than anywhere else that they became an epicentre of this disease, but take note of what is happening, if you do not repent and turn to God you will perish in your guilt.

Coronavirus can grow our faith

God is allowing the Coronavirus to wake people up to the reality of death.  He is also allowing Coronavirus to grow his people in their faith.

Thankfully the mortality rate from the Coronavirus is relatively low.  But I cannot promise you that none of you will get it.  God’s will for his faithful people can include sickness.  The apostle Paul was directed to Galatia because of an illness (Galatians 4:13).  In the Old Testament, the great prophet Elisha, died of an illness (2 Kings 13:14).  But God’s people know that to die is to go to be with the Lord, which is better than the best life has to offer (Philippians 1:23). 

You don’t have to pretend that you are not afraid, for there is power in being real with those who are around us.  But we can bring our anxieties to the God who cares for us (1 Peter 5:7).  As we pray, God can give us a peace that transcends understanding (Philippians 4:6-7).  I read one article on the Coronavirus that said, ‘remind yourself continually: it takes the same amount of energy to worry as to pray.  One leads to peace, the other to panic.  Choose wisely.’  It may be that as we face this crisis with our trust in God, our friends may ask us to give a reason for the hope that we have within us (1 Peter 3:15).

The Coronavirus may yet give us the opportunity to show God’s love in action.  In the ancient societies of the first century, religions were not known for their care of the sick and dying.  Christians who risked their lives for their neighbours offered a radically different lifestyle than anything that was known at the time.  In ancient Rome, it was common to abandon the sick and the dying.  In Rome, sick and elderly slaves were routinely left to waste away on Tiber Island.  If a father decided that the family could not afford to feed another child, that child was left in a public place on its own.  Defective new-borns were cast aside.  We often forget how Christianity has changed the world!

As we go through this crisis we are to demonstrate God’s love to a panicking world, as we pray for a cure, as we co-operate in taking precautions, as we ask God to wake people up to the shortness of their lives and as we seek the opportunity to tell people of how Jesus experienced death on a cross for our guilt so that we could know his acceptance and forgiveness and one day go to a place where there will be no more crying, sorrow, death or pain (Revelation 21:4).

Conclusion

Things are not out of control.  God is on his throne.  His people are safe in his care, even though they could die of this virus.  In the next chapter of Revelation, we see God sealing his people—as they live in a world subject to God’s blessings and judgements nothing can separate us from his love.  Even death has lost its sting (1 Corinthians 15:55)!

The book of Revelation ends with an invitation: ‘The Spirit and the bride [which is the church] say ‘Come!’  And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’  Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life’ (Revelation 22:17).  May God even use these difficult events to gather many people into his kingdom at this time!