As Pastor John wrote last week, “we are in unusual times”.  At least they appear unusual to us in our modern world of health care, vaccines and internet.  We are connected around the world in ways we have never been before.  The digital world has allowed information to travel globally within seconds while the development of international travel has allowed us to be anywhere in the world within hours.  This means that plagues and viruses can spread globally faster than ever before.  We travel faster than viral symptoms emerge!  This is amazing and challenging at the same time. 

We must remember that facing plagues is nothing new to the Church.  For centuries the Church has been on the front line of major epidemics.  In response to the spread of the Antonine and Cyprian Plagues the Church was defined by the way that they were unafraid of the disease and willing to care for the sick and dying.  Hospice care developed in the 11^th Century by Christians who were compelled to care for the dying, as well as the sick, as well as the strangers who were traveling and in need.  These responses all came from a love for Jesus and a submission to His Lordship.

In these modern times we are more aware of how viruses spread.  The term “social distancing” may appear to be a new concept however it isn’t a new practice.  In 1918 the United States government enforced social distancing by banning all gatherings to prevent the spread of the Spanish Flu.  This was met with frustration on behalf of pastors and churches who sought to fulfill their call to love the sick and dying.  Yet even today we are more knowledgeable of how immune systems work. 

How is the Church called to respond to COVID-19?  The answer is complicated but there is an easy response.  Now more than ever we must not be afraid of COVID-19 and we must seek ways of caring for the sick, including those with weakened immune systems.  This speaks to our motivations as well as our actions.  We must not be dismissively haughty and brazenly ignore the instructions of medical professionals and yet we must also not be panicked and alarmists. 

We can learn a healthy response from Pastor Martin Rinkart who didn’t live through a plague but served a church in Eilenburg, Germany during the Thirty Years’ War.  Eilenburg was a fortified city that received refugees during the war and quickly became overcrowded.  Pestilence and famine spread through the city and led to thousands of deaths.  Rinkart was actively holding between 40-50 funeral services a day!  He buried his first wife, spent his wealth on trying to remediate a famine and even harassed by the civil officials for his work! It was through such hardship, weariness and grief that Rinkart would write the hymn Now Thank We All Our God.  Rinkart kept his gaze on Jesus.  As we lament the hardships, impact and deaths from the Coronavirus let us also remember to give thanks to a merciful God “who wondrous things has done, in whom his world rejoices.”