{"id":8453,"date":"2020-03-26T17:25:18","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T00:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?post_type=portfolio&p=8453"},"modified":"2020-03-26T17:26:35","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T00:26:35","slug":"plague-times","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/gospel-express\/plague-times\/","title":{"rendered":"LIVING IN PLAGUE TIMES"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY Philip Yacey\u00a0 03\/24, 2020\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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It\u2019s my own fault.\u00a0 Because I\u2019ve written books with titles like\u00a0Where Is God When It Hurts<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Disappointment with God<\/em><\/a>, and\u00a0The Question That Never Goes Away<\/em><\/a>, my phone starts ringing when there\u2019s a mass shooting, a tsunami\u2026or a rogue virus that spreads across the world.\u00a0 Would I please comment on this radio show, or that podcast?\u00a0 I\u2019ve done little else this frightful week, as a tiny virus from the other side of the world has brought modern civilization to its knees.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve spent much of my writing career circling around the problem of pain and suffering, and for some questions I know better than to attempt an answer.\u00a0 Why does a tornado devastate one town in Oklahoma or Alabama and skip right past its nearby neighbor?\u00a0 Why are Italy and China suffering so deeply from the novel coronavirus when other countries go unscathed?\u00a0 Why does an omnipotent God allow such suffering to exist in the first place?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve studied every biblical passage related to suffering, and concluded that we receive little guidance from the Bible on the\u00a0Why?<\/em>\u00a0questions.\u00a0 Job\u2019s friends, who thought they had the answer, were smartly rebuked by God.\u00a0 For his part, God managed to evade the question in his longest recorded speech, at the end of the Book of Job.\u00a0 Centuries later, when the Pharisees or Jesus\u2019 disciples proposed neat answers by blaming victims for their plight, Jesus refuted them; yet he too gave no real answer to the\u00a0Why?<\/em>\u00a0questions.<\/p>\n

\"\"Two things, however, I believe with near certainty.\u00a0 First, we live on a broken planet that displeases God as much as it displeases us.\u00a0 Jesus asked us to pray that God\u2019s will \u201cbe done on earth as it is in heaven,\u201d and clearly that prayer has not yet been answered on planet earth.\u00a0 Philosophers and theologians put forward various theories explaining what happened here: an invasion by evil forces, perhaps; a Fall introduced by disobedient humans; an evolutionary process that has not reached completion.\u00a0 None of these fully satisfies, especially if it\u2019s your child who has leukemia, or your parent who\u2019s contracted COVID-19.<\/p>\n

My second belief follows from the first: God is on the side of the sufferer.\u00a0 Almost instinctively, we react to suffering by thinking we must have done something wrong for which God is punishing us.\u00a0 There\u2019s an easy correction to that innate response: simply follow Jesus through the Gospels and watch his response to a widow who lost her only son, or even a Roman soldier whose servant has fallen ill.\u00a0 Never does he blame the victim or philosophize about the cause.\u00a0 Always, without exception, he responds with compassion, comfort, and healing.\u00a0 Christians believe that Jesus is, as Colossians tells us, \u201cthe exact likeness of the unseen God\u201d (1:15, TLB).\u00a0 If you want to know how God feels about people who are suffering, look at Jesus.\u00a0 God is on their side.<\/p>\n

\"\"Jesus knew suffering up close, as a willing victim of our planet\u2019s brokenness.\u00a0 And when he ascended, he sent his followers into the world \u201cas the Father has sent me,\u201d to be God\u2019s agents of comfort and healing.\u00a0 In a lovely phrase, the apostle Paul refers to\u00a0the God of all comfort<\/em>, \u201cwho comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God\u201d (2 Corinthians 1:4, NIV).\u00a0 That is our stated mission in a world full of pain and suffering.<\/p>\n

Thus, one answer to the question \u201cWhere is God when it hurts?\u201d is another question: Where is the Church when it hurts?\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 followers are God\u2019s designated agents of comfort and help, the literal \u201cBody of Christ,\u201d as Paul put it.<\/p>\n

Looking at history, sometimes Jesus-followers have fulfilled that mission, and sometimes they haven\u2019t.\u00a0 When the great bubonic plagues swept across Europe, killing one-third of the continent\u2019s population, prophets appeared in the streets proclaiming God\u2019s judgment.\u00a0 (As it turned out, what Europe really needed was a supply of rat poison.)\u00a0 In our own time, when a tsunami smashed into the east coast of Japan, killing 20,000, some evangelical leaders blamed Japan for worshiping the sun god.\u00a0 Even now, prominent Christians propose conspiracy theories involving North Korea or China for this latest crisis.\u00a0 At a time when practically the entire world is at risk, they sow division rather than unity, fear rather than comfort.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, as a journalist I have traveled to some 87 countries, and in most of them you can follow the trail of Christian missionaries by the hospitals, clinics, and orphanages they founded.\u00a0 I wrote books such as\u00a0Fearfully and Wonderfully<\/em><\/a>\u00a0with the esteemed leprosy specialist Dr. Paul Brand.\u00a0 Virtually every advance in the understanding and treatment of that disease came from Christian missionaries\u2014not because they were the best physicians and scientists, but because they were the only ones willing to treat that misunderstood and dreaded disease.\u00a0 Following Jesus\u2019 example, they risked exposure by reaching out to the leprosy-afflicted.<\/p>\n

The sociologist Rodney Stark has written (in\u00a0The Rise of Christianity<\/em>) that one reason the church overcame hostility and grew so rapidly within the Roman empire traces back to how Christians responded to pandemics of the day, which probably included bubonic plague and smallpox.\u00a0 When infection spread, Romans fled their cities and towns; Christians stayed behind to nurse and feed not only their relatives but their pagan neighbors.\u00a0 Their proffered comfort drew others to the God of all comfort.<\/p>\n

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How should we respond to the pandemic we face now, the coronavirus?<\/p>\n

\"\"Like most Americans, I have spent too much time in recent days listening to news reports of body counts and the relentless progress of the virus.\u00a0 This week, a foot of snow fell in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains where I live.\u00a0 My wife and I walked for an hour through untracked snow, breathing the clean mountain air and kicking out a trail under evergreens blanketed in pure white.\u00a0 I needed that break, a reminder that for all its problems, the earth we inhabit is a place of indescribable beauty.<\/p>\n

Ski resorts are closed in Colorado, a heavy blow to the local economy.\u00a0 So are restaurants, theaters, concert halls, and churches.\u00a0 Yet most state parks remain open, and the government has waived fees at national parks.\u00a0 For those who can access the outdoors, I recommend a good long hike as a way to unplug from the tiresome cycle of negative news.\u00a0 (Even outdoors, however, we must practice social distancing; some parks have had to close because overcrowding has endangered visitors and staff.)<\/p>\n

When I got home, I picked up a thick book that\u2019s been sitting on my desk for weeks.\u00a0 Reading, I\u2019ve found, is an ideal way to salvage a period of self-isolation.<\/p>\n

Rather than add to the millions of words on thousands of websites related to COVID-19, I\u2019ll instead post links to a sampling of some I\u2019ve found that offer perspective and help.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/bit.ly\/PYscience<\/p>\n

First, this link provides a nuts-and-bolts overview of the\u00a0\u00a0behind the virus in an entertaining animated format.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/bit.ly\/PYCollins<\/p>\n

\"\"Pete Wehner has recently published in\u00a0The Atlantic<\/em>\u00a0a profile of Dr. Francis\u00a0,\u00a0head of the National Institutes of Health.\u00a0 The CDC in Atlanta is just one of the departments reporting to Dr. Collins, and I\u2019ve made it a practice to pray daily for the person who more than anyone else bears the weight of managing the health crisis we\u2019re facing.\u00a0 It\u2019s a long article, but well worth the time, for it gives a balanced picture of the threat we face, as well as telling Dr. Collins\u2019 own story of moving from atheism to Christian faith.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/bit.ly\/PYcaremongering<\/p>\n

Our Canadian neighbors have started a \u201c\u201d movement to counteract the fearmongering that often accompanies pandemics and disasters.\u00a0 They are finding safe ways to offer practical help to those most vulnerable.\u00a0 There are many heartening examples of people who strive to counter the sense of helplessness and fear, such as the Spanish pianist who gave a concert on his balcony to scores of quarantined residents who listened from their own balconies.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/bit.ly\/PYRohr<\/p>\n

Richardreminds us that a threat like the coronavirus forces us to see the global community, for all its diversity, as a human family.\u00a0 Although suffering cannot always be removed, it can be redeemed, and Rohr suggests how.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/bit.ly\/PYBaker<\/p>\n

At the recommendation of the artist Mako Fujimura, I\u2019ve become acquainted with the wonderful artist Dawn Waters, who recently wrote a blog about Father Damien.\u00a0 That Belgian missionary took on the mission of bringing comfort and help to leprosy patients who had been banished to the Hawaiian island of Molokai.\u00a0 His is a model story of a Christian helping the hurting.\u00a0 (While on Dawn\u2019s site, be sure to click on the tab \u201cMain Website<\/a>\u201d to view some of her artwork.)<\/p>\n

https:\/\/bit.ly\/PYLuther<\/p>\n

\"\"Finally, those who are history-minded may appreciate this piece about Martin, who lived through an outbreak of bubonic plague in Wittenberg, Germany.\u00a0 With typical bluster, he rails against the devil and has harsh words for those thought to be deliberately spreading the disease.\u00a0 Of the latter, he wrote, \u201cMy advice is that if any such persons are discovered, the judge should take them by the ear and turn them over to Master Jack, the hangman, as outright and deliberate murderers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luther lived before people understood how disease germs are spread.\u00a0 Yet on balance the great Reformer offers wise advice:<\/p>\n

I shall ask God mercifully to protect us.\u00a0 Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 If my neighbour needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely, as stated above.\u00a0 See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.<\/em><\/p>\n

Martin Luther demonstrated \u201cthe peace of God, which transcends all understanding\u201d that Paul wrote about (Philippians 4:7).\u00a0 That anxiety-quieting spirit should characterize the followers of Jesus.\u00a0 It may seem unattainable during plague times\u2014until you remember that Paul wrote those words from a prison cell:<\/p>\n

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.\u00a0 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable\u2014if anything is excellent or praiseworthy\u2014think about such things.\u00a0 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me\u2014put it into practice.\u00a0 And the God of peace will be with you.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Living in Plague Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n