For such a time as this – A Christian response to COVID-19
For such a time as this – A Christian response to COVID-19 or Coronovirus
St Paul’s Warragul, Sunday 15th March, 2020
Reverend Tracy Lauersen
Text: The Book of Esther, Chapter 4
What a moment, what a time we are living through!
Three weeks ago I watched the movie CONTAGION, now it feels like we are all living in a movie! Except it’s not a movie, its real- a desperate race to contain or to slow the spread of the Coronovirus virus and the race to create a vaccine against it.
COVID-19 the disease, and the Coronavirus is causing an unprecedented change to our lives.
At the moment, those changes are occurring almost hourly as borders close, as Governments lockdown cities and countries, as public meetings are deferred and as the statistics become more grim.
On 31 December, whilst Australia was focused on an emerging bushfire crisis, a pneumonia of unknown cause was first reported to the World Health Organisation by Wuhan, China. On 30 January 2020, the outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and on 11 March, the World Health Organisation Director-General said: "WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned …We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.” A pandemic is declared when a new disease for which people do not have immunity spreads around the world beyond expectations. It is becoming more likely that community spread will happen, and governments and health systems are preparing as much as they can for that reality.
There is growing fear and anxiety in our communities- evidenced by empty supermarket shelves, stockpiling of goods (including, funnily enough – all the toilet paper!) and by fast emptying streets. Our elderly are at high risk medically, but we are coming to understand too that economic and social impacts of this disease are equally concerning. Many people and small business owners are worried about the security of their jobs and businesses.
The behaviour of people in the street and at public gathering points is affected.
Our schools, our universities, our sports games are all starting to adapt to this dramatic and changed situation.
What is a Christian response to this pandemic that will shape our world for the months (perhaps years) to come and that is shaping our lives now?
As Christians, how ought we to respond? To feel? To think? To act?
One of the greatest stories of the Old Testament is the story of ESTHER, a Jewish orphan who lived in the fifth century in Persia. Her story is told in the book of ESTHER. The historic narrative has several key characters: the bombastic, ill-advised Persian King XERXES, Esther’s godly Uncle Mordecai, an evil plotter: Haman, a beautiful Queen who dared to answer back to the King: Vashti. But the book is named after ESTHER and not the other characters because, in the sovereignty of God, it was Esther who found herself in a position to save others and acted to use her position at great personal risk and ultimately at great advantage for her people.
Long story short- In the late 400’s BC in Persia - the world’s greatest empire at the time, with territory stretching from the middle east to India and with a population estimated to have been close to 50 million people– there lived some Jewish refugee’s in the empire’s capital of Susa. Two of those Jews were the orphan Esther and her uncle Mordecai.
The king XERXES was incredibly powerful, reigning over a vast militarised empire, and totally pagan! He had a beautiful Queen, VASHTI. The King threw his weight around, with displays of power, with unrestrained drinking and feasting. At one point, drunk, the king demands VASHTI to come and impress his guests. She says one word - “no”, and as a result of listening to some threatened men, he banishes her from the empire.
The King then creates a kind of “World’s richest Batchelor competition” that lasts for a year, whereby a lot of pretty young girls in the empire come to the palace and get beauty treatments and parade for him and at the end he chooses one of them to be his new Queen.
Beautiful ESTHER, the Jewish orphan is chosen, whilst all the time hiding her Jewish heritage.
Life goes on in the king’s harem.
Mordecai, a godly man, loyal to the king, saves the king from a plot to kill him at one point, (although this is then forgotten by the preoccupied XERXES).
Meanwhile, the hateful plotting Haman- whose murdered ancestors were responsible for the removal of Mordecai’s ancestor SAUL as King, ‘has it in’ for Mordecai and even convinces the King (who needs shamefully little persuading) to declare an edict to exterminate all the JEWS in the kingdom.
And now, we come to Chapter 4.
One of the themes of the book of ESTHER is the providence of God. God is the true hero of the book and it is discernible that God lines up circumstances such that ESTHER is so well placed to act to try to save her people. Ironically, God is never mentioned by name in the book- yet God seems everywhere present behind the events…
Mordecai calls on Esther to stand up for her people, to beg King XERXES to change his edict. She explains to Mordecai that such begging, even an approach to the King, may well cost her life. We read :
Then Mordecai messages Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” 15 Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, 16 “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, xand if I perish, I perish.” 17 Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.
ESTHER rises to the challenge before her. She steps out in faith. She succeeds in persuading the king, in saving her own life and that of Mordecai, and in saving all of God’s people…and in acting in ways that were consistent with her faith in a unique and threatening genocidal historic moment.
I want to suggest to you that in the midst of this CORONOVIRUS we find ourselves in a another threatening historic moment- it is not threatening genocide like it was for the Jewish people in Esther’s Persia, but nevertheless COVID-19 is life threatening- to some of us, our neighbours, to those in our towns, our nation and indeed to the whole world.
We find ourselves in a moment of high anxiety for the world, and a changing cultural moment. We find ourselves in a time of fear - where people fear each other- because each one might be carrying this awful invisible virus around on their hands or on their breath.
What is ‘such a time as this’ calling us to do, to be as God’s people?
Is God providentially backgrounding circumstances for you, for me, for us as a Church…so that we may find ourselves in a position where we, if we act, perhaps at personal risk, may influence the course of events in a way that saves people and brings glory to our God?
Can we discern ‘the time’ the moment’ that we are in in a spiritual way?
I want to make some observations about this CORONOVIRUS ‘time’ that we are living through and I want to make some suggestions for you to consider about how you respond to ‘this time’
1. Such a time as this requires the people of God to live by faith.
Firstly, we need to have faith in God’s continued sovereignty. It’s easy to see God at work in hindsight or in other people’s lives. We can see God working sovereignly in Esther’s life. God puts her in a position where she can do good. God is behind people’s perceptions of Esther such that we read repeatedly ‘Esther found favour’. God perfects the timing for the King, Mordecai and Haman’s lives to cross paths.(Esther 6:1ff). Then, God perfects the timing for justice to be served upon Haman. (Esther 6:11ff). Now all this could have been a massive coincidence…but this is where faith comes in. Faith allows us to trust that each of these things was brought about as a result of God’s sovereign activity in people’s lives. We need to see God at work between the lines of the events that are unfolding right now internationally as well as locally, and we need to see God’s sovereignty in our own little lives…because if our lives are like little orphan Jewish Esther…then they are not so little after all.
Secondly, we need to have faith in God’s goodwill towards us - as a world and to you and I personally. Be encouraged by scripture which repeatedly tell us of his love:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword 36…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom. 8:31ff
For I know the plansa I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosperb you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear. 1 John 4:18
When we are going through trouble- it is a great thing to know that God is for us, and that nothing can separate us from his love..not even death. As it is written in 1 Corinthians 15:55 Death has lost its sting for us. People around us are afraid of dying- but we do not need to be afraid. Of course, we want to live through this, we want to be spared from this virus. But even if we lose our lives to COVID-19…we still live. We already have eternity! We are God’s children- no matter what.
And let us not forget that we will all die a physical death one day – whether by a virus like this one or a cancer or another disease. But we will be raised again – imperishable.
Trust in God- you have him no matter what the future holds.
We can say, like ESTHER did “If I perish, I perish” – not fatalistically, not without sadness, not flippantly…No, we say it filled with certainty for our future, we say it with hope – for that is what hope is- certainty of what we cannot see. As real as this invisible coronavirus is, equally as real is God’s love for us.
And you and I may find that in this threatening moment- our faith becomes stronger not weaker, our relationship with God closer, our confidence in his love, greater. That is my hope for all of us who believe.
2. Such a time as this requires that God’s people be prepared to voice our hope – to point people to Jesus and to invite people into the hope that we have. Sometimes we find that it’s hard to get God into the conversation with our unbelieving loved ones, friends, colleagues and neighbours. The Coronovirus is giving us an opportunity, an open door to step through with the gospel. Normally, life is pretty good in the lucky country of Australia. But now life is not good. People will question life’s meaning. People will fear the future. Be there for them…share with them what casts out your fear. Offer to pray for them. Be ready to listen to them and to gently move them closer to Jesus.
3. Such a time as this for the people of God calls for us to become known for our love. This is our mission- to live by faith, to share our hope and to be known for our LOVE. I do not yet know what those acts of love may look like. Pray with me that God will guide us into knowledge of how you and I, individually and collectively might actually DO loving things for other people in this time.
John Calvin once said “Duty must not be neglected, no more in epidemic disease than in war or fire”. Our duty is to love others. Christ calls us to acts of loving service. In preparation for whatever those acts of love might look like, I want to suggest that we all speak to our neighbours. Ok, we should do this at a distance of 1.5metres! But don’t avoid them. Pop a note in their letterbox. Ask them how they are feeling. Give them your mobile number in case they need help of some kind (perhaps a dog walked, a prayer for health, a litre of milk). Can you take them a roll of toilet paper perhaps as a gift? It’s nice and practical! Or a bag of rice, or some tins of something nice- show them that you care, that you are thinking not just of yourself but of them…
Journalist Jenna Price wrote in the Canberra Times last Friday:
Make sure your friends and family are well-connected. That you've set up group chats on whatever mechanism you've got, for those who feel comfortable with WhatsApp, Messenger or whatever. Make times to check in. Ensure that anyone who has to stay home is well set-up. Books, music, the ABC Listen app.
I feel very sad for those new families who can no longer go to baby classes or playgroup because it's safer to keep away from the snotty and sneezy. But at least those of us who love the internet may find it easier to stay socially connected.
It's not so easy for those who can't or won't internet and we have a couple of generations of those. If we love and appreciate those people, the 97-year-old great aunt, the elderly neighbour who doesn't get too many visitors, we will need to ensure that the way we change our behaviours over the next weeks and months will take them into account. Love might include deliberate phone calls to people you mightn't otherwise ring. We know that older folks don't like to pick up their phones anymore for fear of scamming and spamming and some don't like the modern gadgetry of mobiles. But maybe visiting now to explain that if we are forced into something beyond social distancing onto the Roman model of get off the streets right now, you will have a system for contacting each other. Like the system we set up with our teenagers when mobile calls cost a fortune. Two rings, then another two rings, then we would ring them back. Some little smoke signal to make sure you can contact each other.[i]
Our Parish Council is having a meeting on Tuesday evening to discuss our response as a Church to the Coronovirus. We will be considering what implications this have for our meetings, for our new ‘community groups’ and for our pastoral care?
Renewing and creating new community groups was the next step in our 2025 vison as a Church. It may be that we speed up the process and form new groups sooner so that no matter what happens to our larger meetings, we will be able to gather for worship and prayer and encouragement in each others homes over the coming months.
We will also be discussing pastoral care. We have a pastoral care team, but our pastoral care needs will become greater than a small team can manage. Perhaps pairing up members of our congregation- the younger with the older, the single with the family is a way, going forward, that we can continue to enjoy the wonderfully diverse congregation that we have in our church and to love one another.
4. Such a time as this entreats us to be bold as God’s people. Bold in our own nervous way- just like Esther. One of the reasons to love ESTHER is because she’s so relatable. In contrast, we read the book of Daniel and he’s like…perfect! In every crisis he faces! But Esther was more like you and me. Her religion, even her race wasn’t something she had ever revealed. She wasn’t a risk taking child of God- until, until, God put her in a place where she could step out in faith and do something really worthwhile for God. What place has God put you in?
Charles Spurgeon put it this way:
Every child of God is where God has placed them for some purpose, and the practical use of this point is to lead you to inquire for what practical purpose has God placed each one of us where we now are? We may wish to be in another position where we could do something for Jesus: do not wish anything of the kind, but serve Him were you are. If you are sitting at the King’s gate there is something for you to do there, and if you were on the queen’s throne, there would be something for you to do there; do not ask to be either gate-keeper or queen, but whichever you are, serve God therein. Are you rich? God has made you a steward, take care that you are a good steward. Are you poor? God has thrown you into a position where you will be the better able to give a word of sympathy to poor saints. Are you doing your allotted work? Do you live in a godly family? God has a motive for placing you in so happy a position. Are you in an ungodly house? You are a lamp hung up in a dark place; mind you shine there.[ii]
God has placed us in our ‘palace’ and in a time of Cornovirus- what practical purpose can we serve in it? We are the hands and feet of Jesus- what bold things can these hands and feets do in such a time as this?
Remember our vision
Our Vision is of a church that invites people and families into a transforming relationship with God, that serves them by meeting their needs wherever we can and strengthens them through their growing faith so that we see people, families and our whole community truly flourishing as God intends. Through genuine friendship, through outreach and community service, through welcoming people into the ‘blended family’of the Church and pointing them to Jesus we will build our community and through its people, the world beyond.
Is this Coronovirus moment, is such a time as this– actually flinging open some doorways for us to do good?
We pray that life will be on earth as it is in heaven- what is god calling us to boldly do to make ourselves an answer to that prayer?
5. Such a time as this demands that God’s people pray and do the things that Christians do – sing, meet, pray together,
Esther calls for a fast…we know that prayer and fasting always go together in scripture.
On Tuesday night we will also discuss how we might set up opportunities for prayer – probably in small groups …For such a time as this- we need to pray and fast..and sing – all those things that mark us out, equip us and strengthen us for this time.
6. Such a time as this entreats us to remember the unchanging nature of the gospel. Whilst culture and the world may change, whilst the way we do church in the coming months may change, the gospel does not. God is still calling us to new life in Christ, to forgiveness and renewal,
God is the God of times such as this Romans 5:6-8 New International Version (NIV)
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us
2 Corinthians 6:2
2 For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.”I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.
Psalm 90:12
12 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom
Join with me as I close by praying the Collect, so apt for us
Prayer of the Day
Third Sunday in Lent
O God, the fountain of life,
to a humanity parched with thirst
you offer the living water that springs from the Rock,
our Saviour Jesus Christ:
stir up within your people the gift of your Spirit,
that we may profess our faith with freshness
and announce with joy the wonder of your love.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen
[i] https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6676122/love-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/ Accessed 14032020.
[ii] Charles Spurgeon, Selections of the best. At The Masters Feet, Zondervan: Michigan: 2005
