Unless You Repent

We are living in the midst of unprecedented and uncertain times. This has always been true to one degree or another, but the advent of COVID-19 has changed the math a little bit. In my own short lifetime, I have never seen the world quite like this (except for maybe a day or two following 9/11). Regardless of your thoughts on the actual nature of the virus itself, there’s no denying that most of the world is in a panic.

We’re panicked because the coronavirus has forced us to come to grips with our mortality and our frailty: we are not immortal, and the systems we trust in for security and comfort can fall out from underneath us in a heartbeat. There aren’t enough hospital beds for the sick, not enough masks for the medical workers, not enough money to keep everything afloat. A novel coronavirus that emerged in China has now made its presence felt all across the globe, with devastating effect. How is someone supposed to make sense out of all this?

In some ways, nobody will be able to make complete sense out of this -- not even Christians. The secret things belong to the Lord, Moses wrote (Deuteronomy 29:29), and I’d say that his reasons for allowing this virus qualify among the secret things.

And yet, we do know some things that might help us respond rightly to this strange hour. We know, for instance, that God has revealed to us the greatest mystery and secret of all: his plan to restore all things in heaven and on earth in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:7-10). The end of human history is not COVID-19; it is the people of God, healed and whole again, dwelling face-to-face with Christ in a renewed creation. So, even when viruses and diseases and panic spread across the earth, we have hope: Jesus is going to make all things new one day, no matter what may come in the meantime.

But the question still remains: how does something like COVID-19 fit into that plan?

DO YOU THINK THEY WERE WORSE?

It is impossible to say with 100% certainty what God’s plan is for using COVID-19, but we might get at least a clue in the words of Luke 13:1-5. 

In this brief passage, Jesus had just finished teaching about readiness: he told his followers that because we do not know the hour of the Son’s return, we ought always to be ready for him. We should live every day as if he might return today; we should live as if we might stand before God’s judgment seat today. 

Apparently, as some of the crowd listened to Jesus talk about readiness and judgment, they thought they could perhaps illustrate Jesus’ point by mentioning a recent scandal: some Galileans had made their way to Jerusalem to worship, and were executed by Pontius Pilate while they were in the middle of offering their sacrifices -- and this caused the blood of the men to mingle with the blood of the animals. It was a terrible ordeal all around. Most people evidently thought that this horrifying bloodbath was God’s swift judgment on the sins of the Galileans. But Jesus took an unexpected angle on this event. In fact, he supplied yet another appalling incident to reinforce his point.

“And he answered them, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish’” (Luke 13:1-5).

What Jesus drove home was the fact that we all must repent before we too suffer the pangs of death. His point was not that the people would literally die in the same ways, but that they would eventually die, and that their death could happen at any moment, and if they did not repent before death struck them like lightning, then their bodies wouldn’t be the only thing that perished. As Jesus once said, “Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).

You see, the Galileans were not worse sinners than all other Galileans; the people crushed by a tower in Jerusalem were no worse than any of the other people in Jerusalem. We are, all of us, guilty of sin; no one is better than anyone else in that category (Romans 3:23). So if we’ve not yet been run through with swords, or perished underneath fallen towers, or been wiped out by COVID-19, then at least one thing is clear: God is giving us time to turn from our sins and return to him.

This is a message that has been preached for thousands of years. “Repent of thy sin, and turn thy face to Christ,” is how the old preachers might’ve said it. Each individual man and woman must heed this call; no one can do it for you. 

But to leave the word of repentance at just the level of the individual is to miss an enormous swath of sin, because it is not just individuals who commit sins; entire communities, societies, and nations commit sins too. In other words, we might riff off Christ’s words and say: “Do you think China is worse than America or Italy? No, I tell you; but unless you all repent, you will likewise suffer and perish.” 

THE SINS OF THE NATIONS

Perhaps I can say it this way: COVID-19 has had a sort of awakening effect on the world. We’re beginning to realize once again that, as the poet once wrote, no man is an island. American individualism (or any kind of individualism, for that matter) is a mirage. The choices that I make as an individual have consequences in the real world; consequences that affect not just me as an individual, but that also affect my family, community, and nation -- extending all the way out to people whom I’ve never met. 

So, for instance, if I’m an asymptomatic carrier of the coronavirus, and I absent-mindedly sneeze into my hand instead of my elbow, and then go out to Food Lion and grab a shopping cart without washing my hands, well -- you can see where this could go. 

In that regard, COVID-19 and sin share some similarities. When our nation, for example, says, “You can do whatever you want sexually, and you can ignore those outdated ethics of the Bible without any real consequence,” they are propagating a lie that has had disastrous repercussions in the world: when someone continues to make sexually reckless and sinful choices, they contribute to the rise of STIs, fatherlessness, and homicidal jealousy, just to name a few. The sexual sins of one individual never just affect that individual; they affect countless others, too. The whole “Sex is intended for marriage between a man and a woman” thing is not a joke. With our sexual (and myriad other) sins, we have in effect become carriers of a deadly virus, and we go about sneezing into one another’s faces and patting ourselves on the back for doing it.

And seriously, that’s just one of our sins. I could write another dozen or so articles on our other grievous sins, but I’ll save that for some other time.

We, as a whole nation, have collectively spit in the face of Christ and asked him to show his mettle (Matthew 26:67-68). But one day, God won’t put up with our hardheartedness anymore, and those who have not repented will think the days of the coronavirus to be a tropical paradise in comparison to the judgment they’ll endure.

But America does not stand alone here. The United States and China and Italy and all the other nations in the world are on equal footing: guilty in the eyes of God. 

So my point is that COVID-19 is providing a much-needed wake-up call to people and nations to repent. Our idols have failed us. All it took was a new virus to show us just how flimsy our gods are. We have tried to draw water from empty wells, all the while Christ has been calling out, “Come to me, and out of you shall flow rivers of living water.” So will we turn from these broken cisterns and heed the word of Christ -- or will we instead throw ourselves headlong into the dry wells and suffer the inevitable consequences?

CRY OUT

So then, there are a few things to consider:

First, if you are a believer, drop to your knees and thank God that he has forgiven your sins through Christ. Because you belong to Jesus, God has not destined you for wrath (1 Thessalonians 5:9). You are safe and secure in the everlasting arms of the Lord.

Second, if you are not a believer, I plead with you to drop to your knees and ask God to forgive you your sins through Jesus Christ -- for unless you repent, your end will be far worse than anything that COVID-19 or economic depression could ever do to you.

Third, let us all consider with awe and dread that our choices affect more people than we will ever know. My carelessness about COVID-19 could ripple out and cause the death of an elderly man I’ll never meet; and my recklessness about sin could ripple out and cause the destruction of a neighbor who does not know Christ.

Fourth, if you are a believer, pray. Pray that God might give you his peace during this trial. Pray that God would keep your family in his love. Pray that God would give wisdom to our government. Pray for those who are sick and suffering. Pray for those who are grieving, for those who are afraid, for those who are indifferent. Pray, above all, that God would turn the hearts of many to the grace and hope found in Christ alone.