Does Jesus Care if You Catch Coronavirus?
A Messianic perspective
There are many moments in life when all is running smoothly and the circumstances are great. Don’t you love those times. Robert Browning perfectly captured this feeling when he penned the line, “God’s in His heaven— All’s right with the world.” But what about when life isn’t going so smoothly? What about when the news is full of scary updates on the latest country that has been infected by the coronavirus. Or that feeling of unease when you walk through your local supermarket and can’t help but notice the diminishing shelves of food. Does knowing God even make a difference? Is it possible to experience peace in the middle of such uncertainty?
Jesus’ first followers sometimes struggled with this question and the gospel of Mark records a time when He called them to experience radical peace in the middle of a literal storm.
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That day when evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side. ”Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious storm came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
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With the global pandemic never far from our thoughts, perhaps this story resonates with you today. Maybe you look back on what your life was a few short weeks ago and wonder why you didn’t notice and appreciate how simple it was. But how can you predict what is coming around the corner?
The disciples certainly couldn’t. After all, as they set off across the lake, they had no idea what they were about to experience. But as the sky darkened and the wind picked up, even the most experienced sailor among them began to feel uneasy. And as waves crashed over the boat threatening to sink it, each man felt sick with terror.
Surely, if anyone had a right to feel terrified, it was the disciples. No one would expect them to have felt anything other than fear. No one, that is except Jesus. After calming the storm, He turned to his followers and asked them why they were so afraid and had no faith. On the surface, Jesus’ question makes little sense. Only when we dig deeper, can we begin to understand why He may have asked them this.
Jesus told his followers they had no faith. But what were they meant to have faith in?
Not what, but who. The disciples had been with Jesus long enough to at least understand in part who he was. They had certainly seen him perform undeniable miracles. If they had truly grasped who he was, no matter how tall the waves were and how mighty the storm, they would not have feared. Why? Because Jesus was in the boat with them. And this fact alone should have been enough to fill them with peace in the midst of even the biggest storm.
Just as it was for Jesus' disciples, how easy it is for each of our peaceful lives to be thrown into turmoil in an instant. Everything that was so great days and even moments before, has been interrupted by circumstances outside our control. With carefully laid plans cancelled, the looming threat of disease and an uncertain future, suddenly peace is nowhere to be found. In its place is loss of control and the fear that follows that.
What is it about losing control that is so hard for us to handle? After all, we live in a world where many many things are beyond our control. From the very beginning, we have no say in who our parents are, what country we are born in, or even our own name! And yet a desire for control is something that every human possesses. And to a certain degree, we often can take control of our circumstances and manoeuvre them for our benefit. In fact many people spend their lives striving for this very thing, convinced that this is what will bring them peace.
But as Susan Perlman says in her article,* “Peace is oftentimes defined as the condition of life that should be. But who has the right to determine what should or shouldn’t be? If all of us could get the kind of peace we wanted, it would be an imposed peace. It would be peace at the expense of someone else’s dream of what peace should be. Peace cannot be determined by our own biased viewpoints or selfish needs. Nor can our standard for peace be set by the norms of our turbulent society. So where can we look, if not to ourselves or society? How do we set up criteria for defining “peace”?
If what we are looking for must be reliant on our circumstances, then the peace we experience will never be true or lasting. At any moment it can be taken away as life throws an unexpected hurdle our way.
Doesn’t it seem kind of strange and actually not very logical for God to call us to have peace in such an unpeaceful world? In a world where so often even the small bit of control we have is ripped from our grasp.
But isn’t this the way God has always operated. He has always called us into things that are outside our control. Think about Abraham. In the Hebrew Scriptures, it is recorded that God called him away from his home and family and did not tell him where he was going. That sounds like a complete recipe for sleepless nights to me! But we know that Abraham was able to find peace in the unknown. How do we know this? Well the Bible says that Abraham had great faith. In fact he is known as the Father of faith. He had faith in the goodness and promises of God, even in the middle of the complete unknown. And we can be sure that this led to peace.
Defining peace is not possible by looking to ourselves or society. Instead, those of us who are followers of Jesus, must look to His words to understand true peace.
In the gospel of John, Jesus said, “Peace I leave you, My peace I give to you; but not as the world gives! Do not let your heart be troubled or afraid.”
Here Jesus tells us that the peace He gives us, is different from what the world offers. The peace of the world is conditional to our circumstances. The peace Jesus offers transcends our circumstances. Jesus offers us to a peace that can weather even the mightiest storms that life throws at us.
* https://jewsforjesus.org/publications/issues/issues-v01-n10/the-shalom-of-god-issues-shalom
Written by Rebekah Bronn
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