Bitsa K Sangtam
Longkhim Town Baptist Church
The layman view of God is typically an omnipresent supreme being that shuns any source of evil, the negativity of life, including pain and suffering, which most of the Mankind tries to elude from. Life is an embodiment of the proverbial package deal: a sandwich of good and evil; life and death; happiness and sorrow; joy and sadness and the interminable list go on. Many people believe and even retell oversimplified solution to certain problems: "A clear sky after a heavy rain", "A rainbow after a rainfall" and so on. I write this not to second them but to raise a dispute over the practical implications of such speeches that we often tend to resort to. Often, we question about the absurdity of this life and the suffering that we go through; suffering does exist and it's undeniably real but it remains poorly handled by many supposedly "religious thinkers" .We question God's presence in the course of our pandemic and groan. Is God punishing us? Is he forsaking us? Or is it something else?
Mankind has experienced a number of pandemics, at least in the recorded history. Franz Kafka once said, "There are some things which we can achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction.” Similarly with the advantages of the human adaptability, which can also be spoken in terms of neuro-plasticity, we have surpassed a chunk of struggles with time. We can consider the Fall of Man as the first pandemic of human race. The second, according to Bible, is the jealousy that emerged in the mind of Cain towards his brother and it eventually leads him to commit murder. As generations grew, pandemics grew in number.
The ongoing corona virus pandemic (or the COVID-19 pandemic) is one in many pandemics that challenged human race but it is fairly a new experience for the existing generation and it is indeed a life threatening one. The Grim Reaper has sharpened his sickle and is reaping the souls away. Despite being placed so high in development and advancement in intellectual capacity, productivity and ever improving technology, the world is trembling and shivering in this fight against Death. The pandemic caused by Covid-19 has reminded Man about his nakedness and vulnerability just as Adam, the first man, felt in the Garden of Eden after he ate the forbidden fruit: he became aware of good and evil.
Should we blame God for our vulnerability and nakedness? Should we blame God or the biblical "tempter”, the source of all evil, through whom hell was manifested in Cain's action when he murdered Abel? I find it less reasonable to blame God about such misfortune. On a similar note, Man curses Nature and the creator for the natural calamities that lead to loss of many lives. We question God for not being there to rescue whilst Man is almost fully responsible for the destruction of the creation of God or the environment. Before we blame a superior being, we should have the ability to check if the one responsible for the folly is amongst our own kind. But we tend to play the blame game because it's the easiest way to evade responsibility.
In our times of need, God reveals himself in different ways to different people. In the Fall of Man, God shows His gracious nature, where he went to the extent of hemming a cloth for Adam despite his rebellious act. Other acts of God in pandemic are visible to us through the Bible, such as the exodus of Israelites from the land of Egypt, the fight against The Giant Goliath by a little boy, God in the burning furnace with Daniel and his friends so the list goes on.
We see another nature of God, that is, the aggressive nature, to fight against the enemy and to protect His people. Sometimes we also see extreme conditions set between Him and His believers. One of these extremities in the biblical stories includes the demand of Isaac to Abraham to prove his loyalty. Another is Job, who lost all he had, for a time being, (which was seemingly eternal for Job) to prove his sainthood. God Himself has proven his loyalty to us with the sacrifice and endurance of suffering in the hands of his creation in the form of Christ. I believe that man should also prove our loyalty to God in our capacity through the idea of 'living sacrifice' which means total devotion of our whole being.
If God is an omnipresent being, as we believe, then he exists not just in our time of happiness but also in our times of troubles. Our inability of not being able to see him does not mean that he is not present. We may fail to see his presence in our troubled times because we are blinded by the suffering that we go through. 1st Peter 4:8 say "…love covers over a multitude of sins". Love is the ultimate source from God, from him and from his love, which overrules multitude of sins. He overrules not because the evil disappeared but because He won over the evil and it's no longer is in power. His rebellion towards us at certain point of time cannot be compared to His sacrifice. We should be reminded of the biggest pandemic that the world once faced: 'The Cost of Sin' which was paid by Him as it was too heavy for Man to pay back.
"Trials and tribulations are not an elective class in Christian life, but a required course.” says Steven Lawson. With realization of our nakedness, we realize the essence of clothing: The new clothing (a shelter against a force that make us vulnerable), same as Adam received the 'Garment of Skin' made by God. A parallel image is also seen in the New Testament, known to us in the phrase “The Armor of God ", improved clothing made available to the recreation through the blood of Christ. The pandemic that we are going through right now can be another form of a trial to qualify our faith and one's loyalty to God. Instead of rebelling against Him, we should reassemble our thoughts, cleanse it, offer it to the Grand Weaver and take the advantage to help others too, in full understanding of the workmanship's role offered to us.
(The writer is the winner of the State level Essay Competition during NBCC Youth Week July 1-5, 2020 organized by the Youth Department, Nagaland Baptist Church Council)
