Over
the past few weeks, I’ve heard from a number of people –either by mail or
on-line- that the talk and experience of the COVID-19 virus and all that is
going on around it is unsettling at least and actually terrifying to some. Will
I be infected? Will my family be infected? What about my job and livelihood?
What will become of all of us?
I imagine that there hasn’t been such a
health issue since the Spanish Flu epidemic in the early 1900s. (I could be
wrong. I do remember receiving the vaccine for the swine flu a number of years
back.) People are understandably upset, worried, and fearful. Some might feel
guilty for being so afraid, thinking that it means a failure or a lack of faith
on their part.
It is okay to be afraid. It’s a natural
human emotion and it is appropriate to the present situation. The fear,
uncertainty, and isolation are quite real. They do not mean a lack of faith on
anyone’s part. Take for example, the Hebrew prophet Elijah. He is a huge figure
in Israel’s history and in Jewish piety. He is the model of what it means to be
a prophet. And he was so scared that he wanted to run away and die. Here’s the
story of Elijah in fear:
1 Kings 19: 3-13
Then he (Elijah) was afraid;
he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to
Judah; he left his servant there.
But he himself went a day’s journey into the
wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he
might die: “It is enough; now,
O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” Then
he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him
and said to him, “Get up and eat.” He looked, and there at his head was a
cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down
again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him,
and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for
you.” He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that
food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that place
he came to a cave, and spent the night there.
God
did not get angry with Elijah and did not chew him out for lacking faith. Neither
did God do what Elijah asked; God did not take
away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors. Instead, God allowed
Elijah to sleep then provided a hearth cake and some water… twice! Following
that simple meal, Elijah travelled to Horeb,
the mount of God, where God revealed himself to Elijah. That’s a really
important point in Elijah’s prophetic ministry.
There’s another story in the Scripture of
someone in fear of what might happen and expressing it out loud:
Matthew 26: 36-39
Then Jesus went with them to
a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took with him
Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated. Then
he said to them, “I am deeply grieved,
even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.” And going a
little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass
from me; yet not what I want but what you want.”
This
time it’s Jesus who is grieved (“even
to death”) and agitated; the scene is not called the Agony in the Garden
for nothing! Jesus felt this fear and uncertainty deeply. His humanity wanted
out of the Crucifixion. Yet he surrendered all he was and is to the will of God
and emptied himself of his own will to do what was needed… for us.
If you are afraid (I know that I am),
please don’t feel your faith is gone. These are tough times and the uncertainty
and danger is real. Despite news reports and rumours to the contrary, I don’t
think we can deny that. To deny our own fears and our own uncertainty and
concern would be to deny who we are and create a false front. Let us then be
who we are – even if who we are is fearful, anxious, or confused. We can’t lie
to God and we really can’t lie to ourselves either; our stomach will tell us
the truth about ourselves.
God works with and saves us as we are, not
as we’d like to be or as we’d pretend to be. God’s grace comes to us as we are,
even scared and isolated. It’s been said that the grace of God finds us
where-ever we are… but it does not leave us there.
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| Jesus our Healer... have mercy on us! |
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