Why is there a coronavirus? The straightforward answer is that humans came into too close of contact with wildlife that carried the virus. Others have proposed more sinister plots: the virus was engineered; there is no virus, just 5G radiation; that Bill Gates is the mastermind, who plans to implant a microchip in human bodies through the vaccination.
There are bigger questions: Why do we live in a world in which there are diseases at all? The skeptic says, If there is a God, why would he allow such suffering? The believer wonders, Is the coronavirus a judgment from God? Is it a lesson? A test? The questions of both skeptics and believers find their answer in the same place, but it’s not the answer we were hoping to find.
To start, could the coronavirus be a judgment from God? There are examples of God causing disasters as judgments on evil: Sodom and Gomorrah, the ten plagues sent on the Pharaoh and his people, and later on the exile of the people God had rescued from slavery in Egypt.
But is every disaster a punishment from God? Not according to Jesus. Some people mentioned a terrible tragedy, apparently expecting him to agree that the victims must have deserved what happened. Jesus responded, “Those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will perish” (Luke 13:4-5). So not every disaster can be identified as a judgment from God.
The book of Job makes the point at great length that suffering is not always a punishment; Job is a truly good man who suffers terrible tragedy. His suffering was explicitly not a judgment from God. But God did allow it. In the story of Job, it is Satan who inflicts the suffering, not God. This provides an interesting angle on suffering, disease, and evil, apart from just the coronavirus. But if COVID is the work of Satan, like Job’s suffering, that still doesn’t answer the basic question: why does God allow it? That is the question that Job never gets an answer to, even though he does eventually speak directly with God.
In addition to the individual cases of Job and others, the Bible recounts widespread disasters more like the current pandemic. In the time of Joseph, the Pharaoh had a dream which revealed a piece of the future. Joseph interpreted the meaning of the dream (seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine), but he did not interpret the cause of the coming disaster. It was apparently not a judgment of God because Joseph later said that God sent him to Egypt in order to save many lives.
In the time of the Apostle Paul, another famine was foretold by a Christian prophet, Agabus. “Through the Spirit” Agabus predicted a severe famine, but he did not interpret the famine. He did not say why it was coming, simply that it was coming. God’s purposes in allowing (or causing) such a crisis and revealing it to a prophet are mysterious. Why didn’t God stop the famine, rather than just giving a warning? Some would say that cycles of abundance and shortage are natural occurrences, like the predictable seasons of weather. Maybe God wasn’t willing to change the patterns of weather he established in the world, but he did want people to be prepared for them. But a virus isn’t a natural part of the world that we must accept like the weather, is it? Viruses simply cause disease, right? I remember hearing a caller to a radio show press the well-know scientist and Christian Francis Collins on this point. “Your God,” he said with disdain, “is responsible for every virus and disease on this planet.”
A recent BBC article asked what would happen if we could wave a magic wand and remove all viruses from the world. The answer is surprising. An epidemiologist responded, “If all viruses disappeared, the world would be a wonderful place for about a day and a half, and then we’d all die – that’s the bottom line. All the essential things they do in the world far outweigh the bad things.” We can’t live without viruses, just like we can’t live without the sun and rain. Sometimes all of them are destructive. Scientists are just discovering that viruses regulate the microbes and bacteria in the ocean. Without this mechanism, the earth’s oxygen levels would plummet. Life on earth is a most delicate equilibrium. When one aspect gets out of balance, such as bacteria or viruses, there is death and destruction. But without bacteria or viruses at all, life as we know it would not be possible.
Still there is the question why. Why is the world like this? Why does the delicate balance that makes life possible sometimes make life impossible? Surely God could restrain the most destructive patterns of weather and keep the balance of viruses and bacteria in line? The atheist can only conclude that it is all just random. There is no purpose or meaning. There is therefore no point in complaining or even asking why. Your desires, emotions, sense of morality, the way you are deeply moved by music, art, and acts of kindness – it’s just chemicals and electrical impulses in your brain. It doesn’t mean anything. Life exists by chance. Disease and death also. That’s just the way the world is. If there is no God, there is no why.
Only a person who in some way already believes in a higher purpose or a higher being can ask why is the world this way? Why does God allow such a world? Why not a world that always stays in balance? Why is there a world in which people die of COVID-19? Why a world in which people are killed because they are black? Why a world in which children die from cancer? These questions about suffering and evil are the key objections to from belief in God, but the questions only make sense if you do believe in God. I had thought about these questions a lot already, but after my son died from cancer they occupied the deepest place of my soul. I didn’t just think about the questions, I agonized over them. I did find some help in scientific explorations, like the insight about viruses above. But in the end everything comes back to the same thing: God, why do you run the world this way?
There is no tidy answer. How could there be? This is THE question, after all. But the Apostle Paul offers a counter-question: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” After quoting a Psalm of lament about suffering for God, he answers his own question, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:35, 37).
The Bible grapples with the questions of suffering and evil all the way through, but never gives a simple answer. What the Bible does do is change the question we ask. Instead of answering exactly why something like the coronavirus comes, the Bible asks us if the coronavirus can separate us from the love of God.
Paul follows the above question by saying “I am convinced” that nothing can separate us from the love of God. What made Paul so convinced? All the things mentioned earlier – trouble, hardship, persecution, etc – Paul had personally experienced. After each experience Paul could evaluate, Does this remove me from the love of Christ? The answer was always no; the love of Christ remains. Paul even writes about the joy he had in the midst of his suffering, as his great desire in all of life was to know Christ, even sharing in his sufferings.
In the middle of his list of things that cannot separate us from the love of God are two surprising ones – famine and nakedness. I have been preaching through the Sermon on the Mount. We recently covered the passage where Jesus instructs us not to worry about food or clothing because God will take care of us. If we end up facing famine or nakedness – without food or clothing – wouldn’t that mean that we are separated from God’s love? Or that Jesus didn’t speak the truth? Paul says no, not even death from starvation or exposure to the cold can separate us from God’s love.
Besides his own experience, Paul would point to Christ himself as the proof of God’s love. We are more than conquerors not by our strength or even by our faith; we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. The verb here is in the past tense: he loved us. He loved us in a specific way in a specific point in time – at the cross. How strange and amazing that the love of God was displayed in the very thing that most troubles us – suffering and death. If God’s love was demonstrated through suffering and death, then of course our own suffering and death could not separate us from God’s love.
This world is not designed for happiness. This world is designed for love. Of course we are looking forward to a happiness that is beyond happiness. Earlier in Romans 8, Paul emphasized that all creation is groaning in pain. And so are we. Even the Spirit of God within us is groaning. The Spirit of God himself longs for the new creation. Paul is convinced that even while we suffer, nothing can separate us from God’s love. The love of God is the most powerful force in the universe, stronger than death.
With this kind of confidence in the love of God, we know what to do when there is a tragedy even if we don’t know why. Pandemics are nothing new. Plagues often swept through the ancient world. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, wrote about the terrible suffering experienced by Christians and pagans alike in the years around 260AD. He says that people commonly abandoned their sick and dying family members on the roadside as they fled the pandemic. But not the Christians.
“Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy.” (This quote is found in Rodney Stark’s book The Rise of Christianity). What motivated such sacrifice? These people were standing in the stream of God’s love. They were convinced, like Paul, that nothing could separate them from the love of God. In fact, their whole life’s purpose was to imitate the sacrificial, suffering love that God had shown them.
A primary Christian response to suffering has always been to serve, even at the risk of one’s own life. Societies have been so impressed with this that they have copied and even taken over the responsibility of caring for the sick. In the coronacrisis it is the nurses, doctors, janitors, and nursing home workers who are risking their lives to care for the sick. The rest of us have been told that the best way to help is to stay home. That’s hard to do.
If we end up facing famine or nakedness, we are still not separated from God’s love. But if we encounter people who are hungry or lacking clothes, what should we do? Feed them. Clothe them. Jesus taught that the righteous would be rewarded for clothing him when he was naked and feeding him when he was hungry. How? By caring for the poor and needy (Matthew 25:31-46).
There is another typical Christian response to tragedies. The prophet Agabus announced a coming famine, but didn’t give any reason for its coming. Whatever the reason, the people knew what to do about it. “The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul” (Acts 11:29-30). People who know the love of God give. We all are affected by the coronavirus in some way, from loss of freedom, to loss of work, to loss of life. As each one is able, we give to help those in need. Some suffering takes place too far away for us to physically do anything about it. Or sometimes what is needed is simply the cash to pay for something. In those cases, we serve by giving.
Christians serve, they give, and they pray. When the coronavirus was just hitting the news, a pastor in Wuhan, China published an open letter. He asked the world for prayer and gave this advice, “If you do not feel a responsibility to pray, ask the Lord for a loving soul, an earnestly prayerful heart; if you are not crying, ask the Lord for tears.” When is the last time you asked to feel the pain of others so that you could pray for them? Earnest prayer is a characteristic Christian response to tragedy.
We may not have the answer as to why the coronavirus is sweeping the world. We are already being warned of other pandemics. But we do know what to do: serve, give, pray. These responses flow from our confidence in the love of God.
Paul was convinced. Are you convinced that there is nothing that can separate you from God’s love? My son Peter was convinced. He did not have COVID-19; he had cancer. After some months of treatment it was clear that Peter was going to die. We didn’t hide anything from him. He knew he was going to die. He was discharged from the hospital after his last treatment. We spent a few days at the coast. Our other three kids played in the sand and waves as usual. You can see them in the far distance in the photo below. Peter didn’t have the energy, so he sat between me and Rebecca on a towel in the sand. He was so happy. So peaceful. And so talkative, as usual.
As we sat there I told him I had been thinking about this passage in Romans 8, which says that “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons…nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I said, “I think you could include cancer in that list of things. Peter said, “Of course! It says nothing in all creation.” After a pause Peter added, “And why would anyone think that death could take you away from God’s love? Death is how you get to God.”
After Peter’s death, I wanted to be convinced that nothing could separate us from the love of God. But I often didn’t feel it. Now, after three years of wrestling with God and grief, I am more convinced than ever that the whole point of life is the love of God. And I am now more convinced than ever that nothing can separate me from God’s love.
Do we really need to know all the why’s? What we really need to know is the love of God. My eleven-year-old son knew it better than I.