Where is God in this Covid-19 pandemic?

The Covid-19 pandemic has not only spread a virus throughout the world, but has also spread fear and uncertainty. Infection and death rates are exponentially increasing. The stock market has seen some of the most significant declines in history. Economists fear that we are possibly on the verge of a Great Depression. Professional sporting events, conferences, concerts have cancelled, and schools have shifted their teaching online. Travel bans and social distancing have become a part of life. Grocery stores have long lines of people panic-buying. Hospitals don’t have sufficient protective gear and medical equipment to manage the influx of patients. Healthcare workers are facing exhaustion as they risk their lives to treat the sick. Over a million people and counting worldwide are infected with the virus, and tens of thousands have died. Families are grieving the loss of their loved ones.

It appears that things are getting out of control. There are a lot of questions and few answers. In these unprecedented times, navigating through a pandemic like this is difficult for elected officials, community leaders, and parents. So, what do we do? What can we do? 

It is often in times of crisis that people turn to God for answers and intervention. We ask, “God, where are you? Will you do something to stop this disease?”

Especially when things don’t get better, we wonder if God is doing anything about this problem. In our rationalistic world, we try to figure out what God ought to do. We may even presume to know God’s part in this pandemic. Our primitive assumptions must certainly amuse God. We undoubtedly anticipate a future when a vaccine develops, and the virus loses its deadly potency. 

It is fair to ponder God’s involvement or lack of involvement in this pandemic. Yet, when we look back in history, we realize that God has done something, and God is doing something to fix our broken world filled with sin, sickness and death. 

Sin that leads to death and death that comes from sickness is a fist in the face of God, saying to him, “your creation hasn’t worked and will not work.” 

In response to this challenge, God so loved the world that he gave his son Jesus to redeem, restore and renew his creation (John 3:16). Through the resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit, God has launched his kingdom on earth. That is why we pray, “thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:14).

When God created heaven and earth, he designed them to work together. Earth is not a training ground for people to prepare to enter heaven. Instead, God made a combined world of two different types of space and place. God’s space and our space were designed to work together. God, the creator, desired to come and live with his people in this combined heaven-earth space. Unfortunately, sin fractured not only humanity but also disjointed heaven and earth. The effects of sin rippled into every aspect of life. Our relationship with God was severed. Sin distorted creation and disrupted its purpose to allow diseases, sickness, pandemics like Covid-19 and spiritual death to affect humanity. What God purposed within the creation process to maintain life was disrupted and allowed natural evils to be in disorder. For example, earthquakes, tornadoes, bacteria, and viruses are all necessary for the earth to function. Without these and other natural entities, sustaining life would seem impossible. 

Let me illustrate the point of viruses and bacteria using a portion from an article written by Dr. Jim Stump titled, Coronavirus and the Problem of Evil. He writes, 

“The population of viruses on Earth is estimated to be 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That’s a really big number (1031—ten billion times more stars than there are in the universe! What are they all doing? The vast, vast majority of them are not infecting humans, but rather they are infecting bacteria and keeping them in check.

There are about the same number of bacteria on Earth as there are viruses. In our bodies alone, each of us has about 100,000,000,000,000 individual bacteria. That’s about ten times more bacterial cells than human cells in our bodies! They provide all kinds of useful functions for us, particularly for our immune system and in digestion. It’s safe to say that life as we know it wouldn’t work without them. But they have a tendency to take over, if left unchecked.

For example, E. coli bacteria reproduce every 20 minutes under ideal conditions. So if you start with one bacterium, in 20 minutes there will be two, and in forty minutes there will be four, and at one hour there will be eight. If that went on unchecked, by the end of one twenty-four hour day, the population would double 72 times, which is close to 5 x 1021, and if you let that go on for a year, it’s a number so big I’m pretty sure that is more bacteria than the mass of the Earth.

So, it is very good that the overwhelming majority of viruses on Earth are infecting bacteria and slowing down their reproduction. And in order to keep doing that effectively, viruses have to keep mutating. So every once in a while, a virus will appear that can infect and do harm to humans. Taking away that possibility, though, would make it impossible for us to live.”[1]

The same friction that brakes your car wears out the joints. The same gravity that keeps water in your glass creates pain when you fall. The earth has both benefits and ramifications within its functions. Unfortunately, these necessary entities and processes may cause untold human tragedy.

The post-enlightenment rationale is to think that since we have technology, medicine and education, everything will be ok. While science has assisted in the betterment of our society and the world, it does not have all the answers, nor can it fix the underlying problem of sin and death.  

God has promised to put the world right. Jesus’ royal vocation is to put things right, to put heaven and earth back together.  In the present, he puts people (us) right by His grace and love so that we can be part of his plan to put the world right. We become a model of his handiwork, and an agent called to act on his behalf to the world. Through Christ, God puts us right by forgiving and reconciling us to himself and restores our brokenness to become a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). As new creatures (persons) in Christ, we are to reflect God’s love and grace to the world. 

Jesus came to redeem creation, and you can’t redeem something by abolishing or destroying it. He redeemed it through a strange and unusual narrative. God, the creator, became incarnate, suffered, died and rose again. This profound and beautiful story is witnessed in the prophecies of Isaiah. The new creation in Isaiah 55 is dependent on the new covenant in Isaiah 54, which is dependent on the work of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53, who fulfills the promise found in Isaiah 52 that God will come back and be King.   

During Easter, we celebrate with confidence the beginning of God’s work of new creation. The new creation is not a return back to the original creation, but completion of it. It will be the fulfilment of God’s design for humanity and the world. The death and resurrection of Jesus have begun the process of renewal, and as we place our faith in him, we not only experience the process but become part of the process.

So, is God absent? No. Has God done something to deal with sin, sickness and death that continues to ravage our world? Yes! It is only a matter of time before the King returns to establish his kingdom. 

John’s vision of the new creation in Revelation 21 describes God coming down to earth and making all things new. 

“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’” (Rev. 21:2-4). 

What was disjointed through the fall in Genesis, is now united through Christ. Heaven and earth are together. God does this by reconciling, healing, restoring and renewing. Paul writes, “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Rom. 8:18-22). Natural disasters, pandemics, death and decay are “frustrations” creation has had to endure. Although they have been part of the development and sustenance of life in the universe, they have also produced havoc and pain. Both creation and ourselves groan, yearn and await God’s complete renewal and liberation from the bondage of decay.

As we navigate through the uncertainty of the Covid-19 pandemic, let us continue to hope in a God that is working all things out to his desired completion. Our hope is not evacuation, that God will suddenly come and sweep us up out of this world. Our hope is not purely optimism, a feeling or mental state that everything is going to be ok one day. Our hope is not in human progress, that our technological and medical advancements will rescue us and create the perfect life.

Our hope is a confident expectation rooted in God’s promises and faithfulness, that the suffering saviour’s death and resurrection have inaugurated the new creation where God will dwell with us forever.    

“He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Rev. 21:5)

God asks us today, “will you trust my words?” Will you trust me that one day I will make everything new? Will you trust me that one day sin, sickness and death will be eradicated? 

So, each day, trust God that he will make all things new. Will our hope and trust in Christ exempt us from pain and suffering or even death? No. Yet, we have a God who has suffered and lives within our suffering (Heb. 2:18). He promises to be with us and live in us and work through us. 

Christ-followers do not live by explanations; they live by promises. Even when life doesn’t make sense, trust in these promises: 1. God is good 2. God is just (fair) 3. God will make everything right one day.  

In the coming weeks and months, let us hope and trust in the God who loves us. Live wisely with all the necessary precautions encouraged by medical professionals and the government. And finally, be agents of God’s good grace and love to your community.

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References:

[1] Jim Stump, “Coronavirus and the Problem of Evil,” Biologos, March 23, 2020. 

N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, HarperCollins Publishers, CA, 2009.