Being tethered to home this week has felt alot like a snow day, just without the snow. But unlike a snow day, or a natural disaster, where only those in particular areas are affected, the global impact of the coronavirus is like nothing else. No matter where we live or who we are – male and female, young and old, rich and poor, American and foreigner, Christian and non-Christian – we are all in the same boat.
Reinforcing this universal connection are the staggering numbers of confirmed cases continuing to rapidly spread, AND the fact we can flat line these numbers by collectively social distancing. Individually though our quarantine levels vary, as does our disappointment over forfeited plans, and the coming financial impact on us, again not one of us is immune.
Being bound together by this pandemic brings to mind another universal reality. Something bigger even than the coronavirus. In fact, the coronavirus points to it.
After Adam and Eve took the fruit and ate of it, the world as God made it forever changed. No longer was life bliss in the garden. Instead Adam and Eve hid in their nakedness and shame. But their sinful disobedience did more than ban them from the garden, it brought a curse upon the entire world. The consequences of that curse we see personally through our own sin and universally in things like death and disease. Romans 5:12 puts it like this, “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Though man could no longer stand before a holy God, in Genesis 15 God set forth a plan to redeem all things.
Like the coronavirus, sin leaves none of us unaffected. We all are in need of redmpetion. But unlike adhering to social distancing to stop the spread of COVID-19, we largely ignore God’s warning that sin without the covering of Christ leads to eternal separation from God. The reason for our flippant, non-response and lack of urgency is similar to our initial response to the coronavirus. Until we knew how desperate the situation, we felt invincible. In the same manner when we don’t know how desperately needy we are of an eternal cure for our sin and our inability to save ourselves, we live as if we are invincible.
It makes me think of Jesus with the woman at the well. He asked her for a drink of water. But when she questioned him about a Jewish man asking a Samaritan woman for a drink, he responded by saying, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water (John 4:10).” By the end of the conversation, the woman knew him to be the Messiah and went to tell everyone she knew.
Like the lady, we must see that it is not water, or a vaccine in our case, that we need to survive. The only solution for flatlining sin comes not from distancing from the world, but from the One who deliberately entered into the world.
Christ came in the flesh and experienced everything we do, but without sin. It is in his perfect, sinless life for us that our hope rest. For at the cross he willingly exchanged his righteousness for our sin. To all who acknowledge their need for a Savior and trust in Jesus, the free gift of his righteousness and grace is ours. In turn, God does not hold our sin against us but accepts us as perfect, holy, and righteous, uniting himself to us for all eternity. This is amazing when we realize how undeserving we are!
Because of his grace, we have the inheritance of heaven before us and a security in him here now. This is why Paul said, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21).” When we view life through this lens something else is flat-lined – our fear. “Fear not, for I am with you (Isaiah 41:10),” and “I have overcome the world (John 16:33).”
May you know and rest in Christ who has come and conquered everything necessary for your safekeeping. And may your confidence in his covering lead you to share the hope of an eternal cure with a world in more desperate need than what a quarantine could ever offer or secure.
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On a related note: My husband and I aired a podcast conversation about the coronavirus earlier this week. You can read the show notes and find the link to listen HERE.
