A Christian’s response to the Coronavirus.

 The Christian and Coronavirus

We have a heavy topic today. How should a Christian respond to the Corona Virus? Perhaps this topic is on your mind to one extent or another today or perhaps you have been asked what is your response to the way this has spread in the world.

I would like to answer that question by looking at the example of Jesus and through the view of a young lady named Francis. We could summarize Jesus’ response with two words. Jesus showed compassion, and confidence. Jesus showed compassion toward the hurting and confidence in God.

An Epidemic

In this video, we visit a mass grave in Queens where many people died with smallpox. This type of thing happens very often in world history in larger or smaller ways; pandemics devastate cities and countries.

Consider young Francis when Cholera came to NYC. There were several waves of Cholera in the 1800’s. In her account described in her autobiography, it was the late 1840’s. Even in her day, there would be constant reports and news of the dead in other countries around the world, and how far the Pandemic had traveled. First one country, then the next, and then the next.

Although Francis became a world-renown poet, at this point she is a teacher in her 20’s living in lower Manhattan as a teacher at a boarding school in what is now the Chelsea area near 9th Ave. She describes vividly waiting for the epidemic to reach them.

“It is needless to say that all these facts were watched with breathless anxiety, by the people in New York. . . The little town in India where it first began may be termed merely the place where the terrible disease gathered its hosts, before starting out to overrun the world on this particular campaign.”[i]

Before it left England, it had taken 70,000 lives. You can imagine the panic. They wait, and then it came to New Orleans. In that city alone 3,500 died. She mentions that in NYC alone it took 5,000 in one six month period.

“I shall never forget the terrors of that summer. The harsh cry of the truckman, ‘Bring out your dead!’ sometimes rings in my head to this day.” Here is this young teacher, living in NYC. What will be her response?

Well, before we look into that response. Let’s look at more of this Young Francis.

As I mentioned, she became a world-renowned poet, even speaking before Congress. And she read her poems in front of the most illustrious people of her day. Also, she was an extremely gifted hum writer. In fact, her hymns are sung around the world every Sunday to this day. This year is the 200th anniversary of her birth.

And she was a New Yorker! She wasn’t born here but lived most of her life in Manhattan and Brooklyn and her husband is buried her in Queens.

One other factor that perhaps you know already, she was blind. Due to a doctor’s error when she was an infant, she lost her eyesight. And yet this did not cause her to lose her spirit or her faith in God.

As a child she wrote:

Oh, what a happy child I am,

Although I cannot see!

I am resolved that in this world

Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy

That other People don’t!

So weep or sigh because I’m blind, 

I cannot, nor I won’t!

She saw more spiritually than most, perhaps because of her physical blindness. She would write thousands and thousands of poems - Hymns like, “Blessed Assurance Jesus is Mine,” “Safe in the Arms of Jesus.” She was a beautiful testimony of trust in God no matter what the circumstances… Even a world-wide plague!

First Response – Confidence in God

We learn our first response to this type of outbreak from Fanny. In her case a Pandemic that was devastating city after city, Country after Country, even her own city and her own school. Even still, she responded to this disease with confidence, with Trust in God.

“We of course had our fears. But we were taught that the same Friend above, that had been so merciful thus far, would not desert us now. That He would do all things best for us, both in this world and the next. We rested secure in His promise that we should all be held in the hollow of His hand. And so we prayed - and waited.”

We too should not weep as those who have no hope. You too can trust in a God who is strong and able. And you can face this life and the next life with confidence and hope. Not hope in your circumstances but hope in your God.

So, we should face it with confidence - not in the medical community that once again, is back to the drawing board and again seemingly without solutions… same as the 1800’s. But we can face it with trust in God.

Be careful, and trust in God. Be confident in God. Jesus tells us - be anxious for nothing. That includes diseases like this. You don’t need to fear! You should not be anxious.

You recognize that God loves you in Christ. God knows all things. And God is all powerful.

Second Response - Care

There also is compassion; there is care. We don’t think unfeelingly at other’s pain. We pray, and where possible, we help. This was what amazed me of young Fanny Crosby.

She says: “On the following Monday we had our first case. One of the youngest girls was taken; she called me to her and asked me to hold her in my lap, as I had been accustomed to do. ‘Miss Crosby, I am going home. And I just wanted to bid you good-bye and tell you I love you. Now lay me down again.’ The next morning we carried her to Trinity Cemetery.”[ii]

Beyond this, she worked to help these in the middle of the sickness. Can you imagine the young blind teacher, Fanny Crosby, kneeling over the sick comforting, helping? She said, “If we could get our patient into a state of perspiration, there was hope; and we used to rub them vigorously with salt in order to accomplish this.” Eventually they made Fanny leave to Brooklyn to get a few days rest. And then she was called back. What an amazing example of confidence in God and care for the sick.

Jesus too, of course had the power to heal! And He still does. But we find that He had compassion. He touched the leper, in that day that was the untouchable, when He could have just spoken. The man that probably had not been touched for years felt the touch of the human hand.

He wept at the graveside of Lazarus. He mourned for the spiritual condition of the people of Jerusalem. This is our Lord’s caring heart.

We too should pray, and as much as possible comfort those we can, praying that God will do what only He can.

Do Global Pandemics Arise from Unusual Seasons of Global Sin?

One more question to answer before we are done. You might ask, “Is this something that is happening because God is angry with earth, or with those who are taken ill with this disease.

Perhaps China’s persecution of Christians caused this?”

When people succumbed to unusual deaths by natural disaster or tragedy, people asked Jesus a similar question. What Jesus answered was very interesting. In summary, He said; that’s the wrong question. The question is will he forgive you for your sin. To those who asked that He said, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”[iii]

And so we should consider that too in light of any disease. We all should be right with God through Jesus Christ. Whether by a disease with many others or one little thing. We all need to be ready for death through repentance and faith.

Repentance - a change of mind about our sin. I don’t want it. I leave it on the table and forsake it turning to God.

Faith - Trust that Jesus is the sin solution. Trust that Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for all my sinful actions. 

All my law breaking against God does deserve the penalty for death - the wages of sin is death. But I trust that Jesus offers the free gift of eternal life.

If you have that, that forgiveness through Jesus, then you do not need to fear any pain or any death, you do His will in poverty, in wealth, in sickness, in health. In all things we watch wait and continue to enjoy life with our Heavenly Father.

As His child today, don’t fear this virus, nor any other thing. Trust and rest in God.

If you have not trusted in Jesus in this way - with your eternal future, then do that now. Trust in Jesus.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. That salvation is an eternally, lasting spiritual salvation.

And then with Fanny Crosby you can sing - Safe in the Arms of Jesus.

Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast;
There by His love o’ershaded,
Sweetly my soul shall rest.
Hark! ’tis the voice of angels
Borne in a song to me,
Over the fields of glory,
Over the jasper sea.

Refrain:
Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast;
There by His love o’ershaded,
Sweetly my soul shall rest.

Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe from corroding care,
Safe from the world’s temptations;
Sin cannot harm me there.
Free from the blight of sorrow,
Free from my doubts and fears;
Only a few more trials,
Only a few more tears!

Jesus, my heart’s dear Refuge,
Jesus has died for me;
Firm on the Rock of Ages
Ever my trust shall be.
Here let me wait with patience,
Wait till the night is o’er;
Wait till I see the morning
Break on the golden shore.

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[i] Fanny Crosby’s Life Story, Autobiography of a Christian Poet, Lyricist and Missionary Worker Blind from Infancy, Pantianos Classics, first published in 1903, Pgs 36-38.

[ii] Fanny Crosby’s Memories of Eighty Years by Fanny J. Crosby, The story of her life, told by herself, ancestry, childhood, womanhood, friendships, incidents and history of her songs and hymns, Pg. 92.

[iii]  Luke 13:1-5, New American Standard “Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. ² And Jesus said to them, ‘Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate? ³ I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. ⁴ Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? ⁵ I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.’”