Greetings everyone, I trust you are surviving your various forms of house arrest.
Below is a link to an article by N.T. Wright regarding the current COVID-19 pandemic recently published in Time Magazine
https://time.com/5808495/coronavirus-christianity/
I sent this article with some endorsement to the Board. However, one of the Board members rightly pointed out that the title and article could be read as if we as Christians had little or nothing to say. So, here is my considered response.
N.T. Wright has used a deliberately provocative and attention getting title that is ironic in nature. However, the very fact that he is writing the article indicates he has not abandoned the field of argument. However, my fellow Board member had some important points to make so this is my argument.
Wright is correct in suggesting that the Christian faith does not protect us from life or from the virus. Further, the question ‘Why God allows something’ remains a mystery that God only knows unless it is revealed. we can provide no easy answer or magic bullet solution. It is true, that we know the God who knows why, by it is not true that we know the answer to the ‘why’ itself. This is the meaning of the book of Job.
Wright is also correct in outlining the importance of understanding the biblical response to suffering. Not only does God permit us to lament and even be angry with him (the psalms are full of such emotion rich prayers) but the bible makes clear that God himself laments. The Old Testament is rich in words that express God’s anger, God’s grief, God’s compassion, but in Jesus especially we see God lamenting over Jerusalem, weeping at the tomb of Lazarus and in the Garden of Gethsemane, experiencing betrayal, desolation and death. We believe in a God who walks the dark valleys with us.
Suffering is also a sign that Christ will one day return to make all things new. The virus is yet another humbling reminder that we need to trust in God seeking to live this life is such a way that he is honoured, praying that one day his will be done on earth as in heaven.
Crisis are time when who believe remember that we are called to love and to serve even if that involves risk. We should, of all people, be those with the courage and faith to do what needs to be done. With this in mind we should also pray for our Prime Minister who, as a Christian man, must lead the way.
None of this diminishes the truth that God is sovereign and nothing happens without his permission. God can bring good things out of bad things, life out of death and our prayer should be that God would bring good things out of this crisis. The bad always reminds bad, but as this season reminds us God can take a crucifixion and make a resurrection; he can from an apparent and terrible defeat bring a mighty victory; he can from great darkness bring the greatest light into the world.
The Lord be with you during this crisis.
Revd Dr Hugh Begbie
Chair, Mathew Hale Public Library.