What can we learn from Coronavirus?

G’day everyone, Dave Deane here, and our question for the week is: What can we learn from Coronavirus?

Coronavirus is changing the world. It may not be an unprecedented pandemic in terms of the loss of human life (at least not to date), but for you and I alive at this time, we have never seen a situation quite like this in terms of the speed, scale and transmissibility of a virus.

You know, in times of war the enemy is usually visible, confined to a certain location, which trained soldiers go off and fight. But Coronavirus is an invisible enemy waging war around the globe and every single one of us is a soldier in the fight whether we like it or not. And with the pain, the loss, and the disruption to our lives that Coronavirus has brought, there are lots of very sincere existential questions being asked: what is the meaning and purpose of my life? What if I get sick? What if I die? Where are my priorities? Who really matter to me the most and who do I want to be with? What are my rights and my responsibilities as a member in civil society? Where is God amid the suffering?

You see, what this pandemic is doing, amongst other things, is turning down the noise and slowing down the speed of our lives, forcing us to confront questions that we would normally want to avoid with all the ‘stuff’ going on in our lives.

So while there is nothing intrinsically good about this novel virus – which is killing hundreds of thousands of people and shutting down economies and disrupting civil infrastructures around the globe – there are nonetheless some valuable lessons that we can learn from it.

So what can we learn from Coronavirus? Well, there is a long list of learning opportunities, but I want to focus on what I think is the most obvious and important lesson for all of us to consider.

And that is that Coronavirus reminds us that we are not in control.

There is a famous 19^th century poem written by William Ernest Henely called “Invictus”, which means “undefeated” or “unconquerable” in Latin. Henely writes:

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

If Coronavirus has taught us anything, it is the delusion of that kind of thinking expressed by Henely. Whatever else our reaction may be to this pandemic, it has proven to be a universal mirror in the face of our mortality reflecting our humanness; our vulnerability and fragility. In the words of the Psalmist: “The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind [or Coronavirus] blows over it and it is gone and its place remembers it no more” (Psa. 103:15–16).

You see, death does not discriminate. And by the way that’s ironic because on the one hand our globe is presently gripped by this pandemic reminding us that all of us – regardless of our race, color, cast, creed – are all ultimately equal in our common mortality, and yet on the other hand at this time our world is also gripped by race demonstrations and race rioting which show the extent to which we have forgotten this reality. The lines of separation we draw between each other as human beings are like the lines we draw between countries on a map: they are ultimately artificial… and if nothing else, Coronavirus is teaching us that, because this is one virus without a passport.

Now, I don’t know about you but I have found it interesting to see how people have reacted to this lesson of Coronavirus, that we are not ultimately in control; that we aren’t the captains of our souls. The spectrum of response ranges from indifference through to irrational fear and anxiety; from people who don’t take this virus seriously and as a result put others at risk with their complacency regarding hygiene or social distancing, to those who scramble over each other in shopping centres in a bid to grab the last roll of toilet paper to add to their prepper supply for the impending apocalypse… I think both of those extremes show that people do not know how to ‘take in’ what Coronavirus is teaching us, because they both respond to the lesson that we are not in control by trying to take control…

In both extremes, what is missing is hope. Because hope presupposes a recognition and acceptance of the fact that we are not in control, and yet despite that we can press on in confidence and expectation that through it all there is purpose in the pain, there is triumph through the trial.

Psalm 90:12 says “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12) and Ecclesiastes 7:2-4 says, more pointedly, that it is “Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties. After all, everyone dies—so the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us. A wise person thinks a lot about death, while a fool thinks only about having a good time.” (Ecc. 7:2-4, NLT).

The Christian alternative to the indifference and anxiety of death is an attunement here below to that which is lasting and permanent. It is the affirmation of God and the annealing of our heart, head and hands to His Being in Christ Jesus. Because while there are questions we ask there are more profoundly questions that we are and the answer to this question – the question of death – is the answer to who we are, to our very being human.

The Bible’s answer is that, ultimately, Coronavirus is just the mutation of another spiritual virus – sin. I’m not saying that Coronavirus is a specific judgment of God upon humanity at this time for some particular reason, I think it is foolish to make such pronouncements. But the Christian story tells us that the reason why the world out there is broken is because the world in here is.

Coronavirus is like a stock-take on human mortality forcing us to confront the great irony of human life, namely that no one gets out alive. But where “… The wages of sin is death… the gift of God is eternal life” (Rom. 6:23). You see, this paradox of being human is so intensely baroque it could only be answered in another paradox: where Coronavirus reminds us of the reality of death in life, Jesus tells us of the hope that is new life in His death. The Bible tells of God who descended from heaven so that human beings might ascend from the grave. The God of the universe did not social distance – He came to earth, He came near to the sick, the poor and the marganalized, He willingly contracting the virus of sin Himself so that He might be in His being the antidote to sin and death.

Jesus

“was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

⁴ Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.”

(Isa 53:3-5)

Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” (John 11:25–26). In this hope we are saved… In this hope we are secure… we may not know what tomorrow will bring, but we can rest today in the hope that is found in Jesus Christ. Because inasmuch as Coronavirus teaches us that we aren’t in control, Christ tells us that He is.