Ezamo Murry,
5th Mile, Model Village, Dimapur
As I pen down these lines I trembled a bit knowing not why, perhaps for the fear that I misrepresent Christ my Lord. Earlier I had also put in media on disability that at times ‘non-healing is in the agenda of the Wounded Healer, Christ’. How much more will the disciples of Christ today understand the following few words I wonder.
I consider the lockdown to prevent the spread of this killer virus is by providence. Many preachers have supplied their recorded messages to homes, assured the families and individuals that the church leaders are constantly remembering them in prayers. Few of the two scores recorded sermons I listened in both English and in my dialect did quite well. But many of them preached what the believers know already and but (the latter) seeking to reinforce their neurotic anxiety by the insensitive preachers. These later preachers did not take the believer ahead but stayed with the believers in great fear shouting, ‘God is able to save you, God promised to save you even if thousands die in your eyes, God saved His people when He destroyed the unbelievers in the wilderness...the readers may add more such slogans.
What did the human Christ do for the humanity for whom he was working out a victory? Whoever told Him he should not suffer as the Son of God, Christ told him to get behind Him as He did to Peter. Jesus did not want Peter to tell Him, ‘don’t worry, you will not suffer or die because you have a Loving Father’. He rather told Peter and the others that the Son of God had to suffer and whoever would follow Him had to face the same destiny. The severest pain Christ bore for us was on the cross. He knew He had to suffer and die as the humanity that follow Him had to suffer and die when time calls for. Christ was raised from the death and is alive today as the champion of the believers and a successful child of God. That way Christ worked out our victory as His disciples. The cost in bearing the destiny of human was high. Except the words of dereliction on the cross Christ did not pray, ‘O Father, you are an Almighty God, remove this suffering from me’. It is because suffering and death are adumbrated in humanity from the beginning’.
When we take the Words of the Bible like Psalm 23 we do well to reassure the presence of God with us even in the midst of death. We should experience the presence of God even in times of death and bereavement without questioning why the Loving God had done so. The most scratched verses of the Bible at this pandemic appear to be Psalm 91. We can imagine how many of the thousands across the globe facing the virus and even dying must have read this Psalm. We wonder how they and their families interpreted the message as they died. This text certainly is a very strong assurance of God’s care for the believers. Some have experienced literal fulfilment of this in their lives but others have died reading this but keeping the faith. What we have to tell the common people is that the God of Abraham who continues to love and care for us today may also allow some sufferings and even death! There are times in the believers’ lives to expect the worst, not only taking God by His promises. Why did the God of Moses not remove Moses’ disability instantly and send Moses to that urgent mission of saving the suffering Israelites. God wanted Moses to bear the infirmity and took Aaron to be his helper to accomplish the mission. God allows pain and suffering when required.
Coming to Jesus’ approaches to facing dangers in life He was very careful not to show the humanity that God is so cheap to be manipulated in meeting human needs, suffering and death. God is not to be used as a spare tire or a life boat who can be invoked only in times of danger. Jesus rather stood beside the mourning sisters of Lazarus and wept with them. Saint Paul, often called the first Christian, had such unbearable infirmity for which he prayed to God so much. God would tell him His grace was sufficient as Paul bore the pain. God’s grace is free and eternal. We invoke God’s grace anytime we are faced with needs and dangers. But we have to understand how God’s grace works in us, sometimes even by the severest pain and death.
Thank God we say the virus has not come to our place. But if it had come and had taken away some lives what could have been our message to such situations? Just ‘God will save us, do not worry’ alone? We have to prepare our congregations to face the pandemic in its various clutches. We have been feeding them with a cheap gospel, rather a cheap Christ devoid of pain and suffering. Don’t we also say we should not preach the crown without the cross? Before the pandemic arrives visibly let us prepare our congregations to be able to face pain and death in great faith even if comes, and not preach an escapist gospel. Let us not just say ‘don’t worry, God will take care of you’. Let us teach our congregations again that the Loving God has also a purpose in our suffering and death. Let us teach them to do their part on earth to avoid the worst as far as humanly possible. Let us teach them to have a strong faith in God, faith enough even to face death. I was surprised when a friend told me that God will not kill us when we are gathered in worship together. I was thinking also about a report in social media that a bishop claimed he would not die of the virus because God is greater than the virus. Allegedly he died of the virus later. Such may be fake news but it can happen. Let us expect the best from God but also prepare for the worst if God so designs.
