Reflection A.5 / Coronavirus - First Response / We Ask Why. But We’re Cautious In Forming An Opinion

There are many ways to ‘see’ things, not with our physical eyes, but with the eyes of understanding. In the previous 'Reflection' I reflected on Jesus’ sensitivity to different people he met: a leper, someone who was deaf, someone who was blind. Jesus ‘saw’ each person as an individual and treated each one accordingly. A hard act to follow. But Jesus also ‘saw’ the big picture. He told a group of Pharisees and Sadducees, ‘You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.’ Jesus, however, ‘saw’ what was coming.

This is similar to how we ‘see’ coronavirus. We ‘see’ how our family and friends are dealing with it. We ‘see’ something of the bigger picture in the news: hundreds of thousands of lives at risk, businesses closed, the global economy at a standstill. But is there an even bigger picture to ‘see’? Is God behind coronavirus?

Yesterday the Daily Express ran an article with the headline ‘What does the Bible say about COVID-19?’ They put the article under ‘news’, but in a sub-category for ‘weird’. OK, so the Bible doesn’t mention COVID-19. But it mentions plagues and pestilence. It’s a perfectly sensible question. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Washington Post ran an article last Friday about a White House adviser who suggested that coronavirus is due to God’s wrath. Clearly, some people are wondering: is God behind coronavirus? After Easter, I plan to tackle the question the Daily Express asked. It’s a good question! But I’d like to say something brief now.

The Bible consistently says that God blesses the righteous and brings distress to the unrighteous. A famous statement of this principle is in Deuteronomy 28. In most Bibles the first part of the chapter has the heading, ‘Blessings for Obedience’. The second part of the chapter has the heading, ‘Curses for Disobedience’. The message is simple: obedience brings blessing; disobedience brings curses. Jesus said much the same. Responding to a woman in a crowd who called his mother blessed, Jesus said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!’ That’s Luke 14:28.

However. There is a big and important ‘however’. The Bible also has a ‘Minority Report’. The ‘Minority Report’ is that things don’t always work that way. Job, though righteous, suffered. In Psalm 73, the arrogant and wicked prosper, for a time at least. Some people told Jesus that Pilate had had some Galileans killed. In the Jewish way of thinking they must have been particularly bad sinners. But Jesus said that wasn’t so.

The Minority Report warns us against forming a hasty opinion about what we ‘see’.

May God guard us and guide us.

Simon