Yesterday was certainly a different day for us. The streets were fairly quiet, the parking lots were fairly empty, businesses were quiet, and a spirit of anxiety seemed to waft over our end of the world like a low fog. The scent of hand sanitizer persisted in my nostrils.
I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, studied about weapons of mass destruction in elementary school, witnessed wars and rumors of war, joined the military during war, and risked my life through footless halls of air so that we as a nation could be gripped in fear of . . . wait for it . . . an unknown disease from a foreign land. It seems like how long this will last rests with the generations of people we have born and raised, who just happen to struggle with taking personal responsibility for anything. I’ve seen pictures of full Florida spring break beaches. Great.
I wasn’t feeling well either, which didn’t help things, until a Facetime call with my granddaughters cheered me greatly. And after some moments of reflection (I mean, what else are we doing these days) it occurred to me that this pandemic is really close to us. It happens to be close to my granddaughters and my family, friends, and circles of influence. It’s likely closer to you than you think.
I’ve read where they’ve discovered the cure for this pandemic and it is found in an extremely rare and particularly specific blood type. And, they found someone in another country who has that specific type. Unfortunately for this guy, they needed all of his blood and that foreign country has required of this man his life so that all of his blood can be applied for the cure to this pandemic. Turns out he’s a thirty-something guy and his dad looked the other way as this young man slipped into eternity. I have thirty-something children and I would have had to be restrained to the point of exhaustion before giving up one of them, even if they did have the cure to the pandemic. I just can’t understand what that father went through.
Now that they’ve found the cure, people are going back to being the people they once were—hitting the beaches, even mocking the guy and blaming him for the disease in the first place. A government official in this country even cursed at him and his father. The very people for whom this young man bled to death, have turned their backs on what he did for them. His father likely knew this was going to happen, and still allowed it. Why?
Because He loves us that much. And by now you’ve figured out that the pandemic to which I’m referring is not COVID-19, but rather is sin. What afflicts us more as individuals and as a nation, than our sinful standing before the Master of the Universe? While the pandemic is near to us, the cure is as well. Why not accept the free gift of the Father’s only Son and be cured of the sinful life that leads to death? The mortality rate for COVID-19 is likely in the 2 – 4% range. The spiritual mortality rate for those who turn their backs on the thirty-something Son of the Father is 100%.
As I reflected a bit on the unprecedented images I saw yesterday, I thought that perhaps this is what it looks like at the start of a great revival for which we’ve been praying. You know, it really could be. And you can emerge victorious on the other side of this national calamity by accepting the free gift of salvation from our Lord. You need only profess that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and you will be released from the shackles of slavery to sin. Then, don’t be anxious about what happens next.
Just remember this. God doesn’t love us because Christ died for us. Christ died for us because God loves us.
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