The ‘whys’ and the ‘why nots’ surrounding Covid-19 seems to be increasing daily, as the country hobbles from lockdown to lockdown. Looking at the world around us we as Christians also struggle with our own set of questions. Here are three questions we may all be battling with in some shape or form, and clear Biblical truths for us to deal with the same.
1. Why would God create a world with viruses?
This question targets bad viruses, and in our context, Covid-19. How often we feel that if the situation was different, things would have been favorable? In simple words, this view assumes that the circumstance is the problem. Not just that, it tends to surrender itself to the vagaries of the situation.
So, in a worldview that sees God as Sovereign, this issue is directed to God. If only God had made a world that was different, we would have flourished.
Why do we see hostility in the created order? Primarily, the Bible holds that we live in a ‘fallen’ world. This current situation wasn’t God’s original intent for us. When our forefathers Adam and Eve, and we in them, rebelled against God, ‘thorns and thistles’ (Gen 3:18) showed up in God’s good garden. Death and decay became a part of our existence. The whole world came under a curse.
But, is there hope? Rather than abandoning us to death and damnation, the Sovereign Lord redeemed us and not just us, but the created world as well. (Romans 8: 19-21).
You and I have a part to play. As God’s representatives, we need to remember our significant role in the upkeep and care of the natural world. Many an earthquake threat could be mitigated by responsible town planning and meticulous care of vulnerable citizens. Thanks to the medical fraternity, we are on the verge of cracking an anti-virus – a vaccine that could decimate Covid-19. While we question God’s stewardship of this natural world, this objection might boomerang onto us. Hopefully, this pandemic would make our governments, businesses, scientists, and citizens more responsible in doing our bit in dealing with harmful viruses and more.
A world with no more pain. However, the biblical solution to this fallen world looks beyond a mere fix-up. The culmination of God’s redemption is a new heaven and a new earth with a redeemed ecology (including virology) – (Isaiah 65, Revelation 21).
Logically speaking, ‘if only this world was made different’ is a position that does not survive closer scrutiny. RZIM Speaker, Vince Vitale argues that if the world had been different, chances are that you and I as individuals may not have arrived. He illustrated how a whimsical desire of a kid to have a superstar as a father – with all the privileges associated with it – fails to realize that if the superstar was the husband of his mother, the child raising the point would be non-existent.
In the biblical understanding, circumstance is never sovereign. God is.
2. How do we come to terms with death and the purposes of God?
With lakhs of people succumbing to Covid-19, we are faced every day with death which is humanity’s greatest enemy. The statistic is unsympathetic – one out of every one of us will die. It is still the greatest leveler and Covid-19, in particular, does not discriminate between the developed world and developing countries, rich or marginalized, prophet or criminal. While death is a hard-enough challenge for upholding divine purpose in this world, a harder objection would be – if there was only this life and nothing to look to, beyond death.
The Bible is uncompromising in its affirmation about life after death. More than a mere statement of belief, at the heart of the gospel message, is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Not only does the Bible present life after death as a concrete reality, it also proclaims the future as the climax of history (John 14-17). We also read: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined the things that God has prepared for those who love him”. (Isaiah 64:4; 1 Corinthians 2:9).
No wonder, the disciples of Jesus gladly underwent torture and martyrdom in the Name of their Lord. Church history is replete with followers of Christ who treated humanity’s greatest enemy – death, with remarkable peace and joy. Paul who experienced the resurrected Christ boldly announced: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15: 55).
19th century American evangelist D.L. Moody famously said, “Someday you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody, of East Northfield, is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I shall have gone up higher, that is all; out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal—a body that death cannot touch; that sin cannot taint; a body fashioned like unto His glorious body. “For the Christian, the future is far better than the past, even if it means, going through the threshold of death. A gospel truth I tweeted a few years ago reads: ‘Death was our destiny, until Jesus’ resurrection made it a door’.
Nonetheless, death is painful and certain scars might be healed completely only when we reach the other shore. Ravi Zacharias poignantly observed: ‘Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead was a great miracle, but a greater miracle was that although Jesus knew He would raise Lazarus, He still wept’.
We have a God who identifies in our pain and bereavement.
3. Why doesn’t God answer the prayers of so many people to end this pandemic?
In the wake of a tragedy, it often is puzzling that God seems distant to the prayers of His loved ones. I recall a conversation with an acquaintance who asked a tricky question: ‘When I pray, can I change the mind of God?’ If we answer affirmatively, it appears that we are in control, and we could pull the divine strings, as it were, to get things done our way. On the other hand, if we respond negatively to that question, we run into the problem of – ‘then why pray’? I therefore asked this gentleman – ‘Why in the first place do you want to change the mind of God? Are you not feeling secure in His provision?’
Scripture records answered prayers, like Hannah’s (I Samuel 1:2), along with unanswered prayers like Paul’s. (II Corinthians 12: 8,9) We find David acknowledging, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want… Even though I walk through the valley of shadow of death, I shall fear no evil”. (Psalm 23: 1, 4) On the other hand, our Lord Himself in a very intense moment of agony prayed – ‘Remove this cup from me’… and added, ‘yet not my will, but yours be done’. (Matthew 26: 38-44).
The Bible presents God as Sovereign and kind. He knows what is best for us and that might mean that He turns down a request from us. Parents who truly love their children do not always give assent to the child’s demands. On certain occasions, a parent might put a child through hardship knowing that is the best option for his/her ward. When God negates a prayer request, it is not because of a lack of love, but the presence of it. One might in retrospect say,
‘Thank God, for unanswered prayer’.
And so, as we answer these and other questions which press us in on every side, we may not be able to find all the answers today. Looking at the catastrophic damage around us, it is easy to miss the positive influence it has wrought. But one day when Covid-19 becomes nothing more than a chapter in a history book, we will marvel at the divine plan of God through it all. As an Anon poet put it,
The Hands that hold the ocean’s depths,
Hold our small affairs.
The Hands that guide the universe
Carry all our cares.
-Neil Vimalkumar, Speaker, RZIM Life Focus Society
