Lament for this Pandemic World
POST BY MATT MCCOY
12 minute read
Note: This Sunday is the third of four lament services for Lent, where we’ll gather together and write and pray a lament about a specific aspect of being alive today that is really hard. To get the most out of this, consider reviewing the blog where we introduced The Big Idea for the Easter season.
If you were God, what kind of God would you be? {1}
On a playful level: If I was God, strawberry season would last longer, the sun would appear in the Pacific Northwest a little more often in February, and I would finally be able to fly. What sort of joys and annoyances would you amplify or suppress?
On a more serious level: If you were God, how much freedom would you allow people to have? Would people have enough freedom to harm and oppress each other? Would you allow illnesses, accidents, and tragedy?
Go ahead and spend thirty seconds and think about this question: If you were God, what kind of God would you be?
Now that you’ve spent a bit of time with that question, let’s apply your answer to a very real modern day example:
If you were God, would you have prevented the pandemic from ever happening? If you were God, and you allowed the pandemic to happen, would you fix the pandemic now?
Would there be enough vaccines for everyone, or would you just make the disease go away? Would you allow people to gather together again? Would you bring back hugs and singing and eating together and all the ways we walk through life with the people we care about?
Now that we’ve thought about how we might run this place if we were God, let’s shift our attention. Let’s pause on thinking about what kind of God we would be, and let’s reflect a bit on the God we do have. Let’s name three things we know to be true about Jesus, who is running this place:
Jesus has the power to heal all of us from the coronavirus. Right now.
Jesus had the ability to stop the coronavirus from spreading in the first place.
Jesus loves us more than we can possibly imagine and wants what is best for us.
“Theodicy” is the way we describe this very hard aspect of the Christian faith…
If God is all-good and all-powerful, then where does evil come from and why does it exist?
While our lament raises this question, this blog cannot possibly engage fully with it {2}, but we can remember a few important things as we wade into the waters of theodicy and this pandemic:
Martin Luther concluded that reason alone cannot help us to enter into theodicy, we must embrace the mystery of how God is revealed through our suffering. We can know that Jesus is revealing his kingdom in the midst of what is happening today.
I’ve noticed how our suffering lays waste to our false views of God. Our culture is prone to creating images of God as a cosmic Santa Claus, a harmless Grandfather, a cruel critic, or a deadbeat dad. We can know that Jesus is revealing his kingdom, and not our skewed version of it, in the midst of what is happening today.
While this pandemic is new to us, massive tragic events are not new to God. Throughout human history, and throughout the Bible, God has used plagues, pestilence, and pandemic to bring to the light what we keep in darkness and to reveal what we would rather overlook. We can know that Jesus is revealing his kingdom, even the parts we don’t want to look at, in the midst of what is happening today.
And so, with all this in mind, let’s return to the story of Palm Sunday. As we read the story this time, let’s read it through the lens of analogy. What if we read this story, and we compared the Roman occupation of ancient Israel to the coronavirus pandemic? I realize how one nation oppressing another nation is totally different than a virus, in all sorts of important ways, but what if we focused our analogy based on the question at the beginning of this blog:
If you were God, what kind of God would you be?
he ancient Israelites were powerless to stop the Roman occupation, but God could do it. Just as we ask how a loving, powerful Jesus could allow a virus to cause so much harm, I would imagine the ancient Israelites would ask how a loving, powerful God could allow them to suffer so much harm. And, hey, we know from the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures how they did ask that question, all the time, when other nations were oppressing them.
Just imagine for a moment how we would respond if Jesus, who could end the coronavirus, physically walked around in our neighborhoods?
Look, if Dr. Anthony Faucci showed up in Bellingham today, I think most of the town would treat him like a rock star, and I think lots of people would go totally berserk, and he’s using vaccines to bring healing.
What if Jesus, who could heal it all in an instant without having to use vaccines, rode into town AND we all believed Jesus could heal all of us? As we read this story again, try to hold on to this analogy of Dr. Faucci coming to Bellingham as we imagine Jesus riding into Jerusalem.
The Story of Palm Sunday in Mark 11:1-10
And when they approached Jerusalem, just on the outskirts at Bethpage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent out two of his disciples. And he said to them, “Go into the village that is in front of you, and immediately as you enter, you will find a colt tied, one that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it. And if anyone should ask you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ Reply with, ‘The Master needs it, and will return him back here right away.’”
So they departed and discovered the colt tied to a door out on the street, and they untied him. And some of the villagers standing there said to them, “Why are you untying that colt?” They told the people exactly what Jesus said, so the people let them go. They brought the colt to Jesus, spread their cloaks on it, and he mounted up.
And many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others brought branches they had cut in the fields. Crowds went ahead and crowds followed, chanting:
“Save us now!
It’s our hero, the One who comes in God’s name!
Hooray for the coming kingdom of our father David!
Save us now, bring us heaven!”
The processional took him into Jerusalem, then into the temple. He looked around, taking it all in.
And, as we know, Jesus doesn’t end the Roman occupation. And, as we know, Jesus hasn't miraculously healed us from the effects of the coronavirus.
If you were God, what kind of God would you be? I would be the kind of God that would end the Roman occupation, and I would be the kind of God that would heal us from the coronavirus, and I’m not God. The coronavirus continues.
I don’t like this, but what I like isn’t necessary for truth.
And so we lament together. We lament all the things that have been lost, from lives to relationships to jobs to happiness. We lament broken marriages and broken promises and broken societies. Together we lay all this at the feet of Jesus, and as Jesus reveals his kingdom in the midst of this broken mess, we pray for his strength to be able to walk in the direction he’s walking.
I can grow weary of small prayers that don’t risk anything, and praying a lament for this pandemic world allows us the space and the freedom to pray honestly about our disappointments and our heartbreaks over the last year. Jesus can bear our anger and sadness, and I pray for his strength for our community to be able to do so together when we lament on Sunday.
Footnotes
1 - This question comes from Bradley Jersak's book “A More Christlike God,” published in 2015 by Plain Truth Ministries in Pasadena, California. Much of the content of this blog was influenced by this book and by Jersak’s writings, and I would recommend this book to anyone who struggles with the strangeness of a God who is all good, all powerful, and allows evil to exist.
2- So much has been written on this topic, and picking the top five books to read is kinda like picking the best five rock songs of all time: fun to try to do, but really impossible. So I’ll put five down, with the full recognition that I’ve probably forgotten some that have been very influential for me, and there have been some great books out there I’ve never read. Let me know what your top five would be!
Bradley Jersak “A More Christlike God”
Soong-Chan Rah “Prophetic Lament”
Robert Farrar Capon “The Third Peacock”
John Swinton “Raging with compassion” note: If you or a loved one are struggling with profound mental illness, read this one first!
C.S. Lewis “A Grief Observed”
Bob Ekblad “Reading the Bible with the Damned” Note: I know this is #6 on a 5 book list. This book has less to do with theodicy and more how to be present to people in the midst of intense tragedy, and so I just had to include it. I told you, trying to come up with 5 books is fun but ridiculous…
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