(41) Is God Causing the Pandemic?

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Is God Causing the Pandemic?, originally shared on August 17, 2020. It was the forty-first video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   How are you holding up in this heat? I once did a wedding on the Saturday after the church was air-conditioned (in the old building). Before it started I was talking with the congregation about the wedding and I said that I was sure they were happy that the wedding was that Saturday, instead of the Saturday before, as we had just had air-conditioning installed during that week. After the service, an older guy came out and, as he shook my hand said, "I don't think churches should be air-conditioned." "Why not?" I said. "I think people should have to hear about heaven and contemplate the alternative," he said. I think he was at lease half-serious, and I suppose a lot of people have reason to be doing that this week.

   We’ve had fires all around us, and today, we had a strong smell of smoke outside our house and ashes on everything, probably from the Bobcat Fire near Azusa. We are praying for all those affected by the fires, and for those who are fighting them in 100 degree+ heat.

    It’s been a strange week on the coronavirus scene this week as well. Cases are up, cases are down, deaths are up, deaths are down, kids should be in school, kids shouldn’t be in school, teachers should be in school, teachers shouldn’t be in school. We’ve hit 600,000 cases, people are still dying at a higher rate, and others are saying it’s just a bad flu.

   I drove by graffiti last Saturday that said, “Covid-19 is a lie”. I guess you could believe that if you didn’t know anyone with the virus, or who has died of the virus, or who is caring for someone with the virus, or if you don’t trust any reputable news source, any public health agency, or anyone who does research on the virus.

   What does it mean? What do we make of this pandemic that has destroyed livelihoods, closed businesses, caused people to fear one another, kept people in their homes, all in order to keep things from getting even worse?

   Why is the world suffering like this? Is God punishing us? Is there something good that we can learn from this?

   The word “pandemic” does not appear in the Bible. However, my Bible study software Logos tells me that the words “plague” and “pestilence” appear 122 times, along with the description of individuals and nations being afflicted with a terrible illness.

   The stories of the 10 plagues visited on ancient Egypt in order to set God’s people Israel free from slavery, the plague visited on Israel because of their rebellion against God in the wilderness, the plague visited on Israel for her unfaithfulness to God and their healing when their right relationship with God was restored, and many others show a connection between sickness and sin (remember it was the priests who had to attest to a healing, not doctors).

   Evil enters the world by human rebellion against God, but healing comes by the grace of God.

*Mark 2:1-12

   However, the idea that sickness is a punishment for sin is rejected by the whole book of Job and by Jesus’ stories in Luke 13:

*Luke 13:1-5

   Luke was probably both a Jewish doctor in the Jewish Diaspora and was interested in the nature of divine healing, basing it on the idea that only God can forgive sins. God heals, whatever the means God employs.

   I’ve seen all kinds of reasons from people online who claim to have insider information, usually in a “Wake up America!” kind of post (even though it’s a global pandemic), why people (of all religions) think God is punishing us with COVID-19, reasons ranging from removing prayer from the public schools, to changing attitudes toward gender and sexuality, to abortions of convenience, to racial injustice, to removing religion from the public square.  God is a jealous God (that is God is not tolerant of idolatry), but God is not petty or vindictive; you certainly can’t get that from the Bible. Instead God is longsuffering and tolerant of human beings, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, the Bible says.

   I think that the best we can say about whether things like this pandemic are sent by God is that it is a mystery, not in the sense that it’s something for us to solve, but in the sense that we ourselves cannot know enough to make the connections.  There is a distinction between the cause of a pandemic, the mechanics of it, and the origin of the cause, which may or may not be knowable by any but God.

   What we can do is to worship God for God’s mercy and steadfast love, do as much as we can to ease human suffering, and to learn from the suffering and resulting change that we see in ourselves and in the world.

   What I think we can know is that God is with us in our suffering and calls us to learn from this present pandemic.

   Here are four things I think that we have learned about ourselves:

1.    We have learned what we truly need.

2.    We have learned who we can rely on.

3.    We have learned that we can reconfigure the workplace, learn new skills, and that we can adapt.

4.    We have learned to appreciate things, large and small, that we took for granted in the old normal.

   Here are four things I think that we have learned things about our society and our place in our world:

1.    We have learned, like it or not, that we are a part of a larger society and civilization full of people who are both like us and different from us, and that we have a common interest in working together.

2.    We have learned to reflect on the world as it is and seen that some things need to change.

3.    We have learned that the world can seem like a different place when we have a common challenge. Today, we all want the same thing and are working together for it, to end to the virus.

4.    We have learned that the world is both a better place than we had feared and a worse place that we had hoped.  We tend to think of the world through the lens of our own experience and the people we have known. This pandemic has taught us that some, maybe most people are willing to sacrifice for others, risk their own health, work longer hours, and care for something that is called the common good. We have also learned that some people don’t care for anybody or anything but their bellies, their indulgences, and themselves, and that they will tear down anyone who comes between their impulses and themselves.

   What else do you think we have learned? Put it in the comments section below.

     Here’s one thing that I think we haven’t learned:

1.    We haven’t learned that there are many things over which we have no control. Ultimate control belongs only to God, and God is trustworthy.

   Finally, whatever the external conditions of the world are, what always remains to be seen is whether we will repent, turn away from a life without a living relationship with the living God, and believe in the Good News of Jesus Christ. Our ultimate wholeness of body, mind, and spirit is a gift to all who open their hearts to accept it. Will we?

As the prophet Joel says:

*Joel 2:12-13