Ceuti67's Blog

While wisdom, solidarity, and love of neighbour lead us to obediently follow along with government ordered efforts at containing the current pandemic as far as possible, I am reminded of the many times in history where the light of Christian charity has shone with dazzling brightness amidst dark times of infectious disease and societal upheaval. In fact, there are many examples in the past where Christians overcame the impulse to flee to safety and isolate themselves from the suffering of others.

“In 165 a plague swept through the mighty Roman Empire, wiping out one in three of the population. It happened again in 251 when 5,000 people per day were dying in the city of Rome alone. Those infected were abandoned by their families to die in the streets. The government was helpless and the Emperor himself succumbed to the plague. Pagan priests fled their temples where people had flocked for comfort and explanation. People were too weak to help themselves. If the smallpox did not kill you, hunger, thirst and loneliness would. The effect on wider society was catastrophic. Yet following the plagues the good reputation of Christianity was confirmed, and its population grew exponentially. Why is this? Christians did not come armed with intellectual answers to the problem of evil. They did not enjoy a supernatural ability to avoid pain and suffering. What they did have was water and food and their presence. In short, if you knew a Christian you were statistically more likely to survive, and if you survived it was the church that offered you the most loving, stable and social environment. It was not clever apologetics, strategic political organisation or the witness of martyrdom which converted an Empire, so much as it was the simple conviction of normal women and men that what they did for the least of their neighbours they did for Christ.”^[1]

Uncertain times, societal upheaval, the threat of poverty, sickness and death–all this naturally leads to fear. In situations like these, one of the best things we can do is remember just how great, how good, how strong and mighty, how faithful our God truly is. Through Jesus Christ, each one of us can know Him as our heavenly Father. Personally, I find it most helpful in such situations to meditate on verses of Scripture that I know by heart, that I think through, pray through, feel through, chew through, carry in my heart, and digest inwardly. Of course it is eminently human to experience worry and fear, but as Christians what do we do with that? Does our fear individually or collectively as the church grant us a free pass as it relates to our mission – the Great Commission we as believers were charged to fulfill by Jesus in Matthew 28:16-20. Today’s current mantra is that we should all just “Stay Home” and this appears to be lauded above all else in the age of COVID-19.

Even though to many of us it may feel like the restrictions of life in a pandemic will never end – I am reminded that nothing ever stays the same and that “this too shall pass”. When it does what will the world say about the church and the Christians that will happily flock back to their places in the pews – that have been sitting empty throughout the pandemic. Unless the church is busy praying earnestly but acting purposefully to do for the least of their neighbours – I fear the legacy of COVID-19 and the church will be that the church “turtled” and ran to their living rooms to watch their ministers preach to them in the comfort now of their own homes, comfortably while the government, other charities, and do-gooders took up the mantle that we – the CHURCH must occupy but all too often abdicate. How can the church offer Jesus without first offereing help – help that sometimes is messy, sometimes costly, almost always uncomfortalbe, but always powerful in putting forward the life changing gospel to a world so desperately in need of it.

May we always have hearts that break with the things that break the heart of Jesus as we seek to follow faithfully what we are exhorted to do in Hebrews 13:16 “And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”

Christian……Church…..it’s time to get off the couch, switch off the TV and instead start walking into the world with the hope and help that we have received. Are you up for it?

FOOTNOTE: ^[1]Stephen Backhouse quoted in Simon Ponsonby’s Loving Mercy: How to Serve a Tender-Hearted Saviour (Oxford: Monarch Books, 2012), 155.