David Quinn
'Be not afraid' The Lord provides us with the means to pass through the challenges that life provides, if we are willing to listen, writes David Quinn
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” These comforting words from the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy have perhaps never seemed more necessary.
The word Deuteronomy itself is derived from the Greek word meaning ‘repetition’ or ‘copy’, because the book consists of the farewell address by Moses to the Israelites and he repeats the requirements of the new law given to them by God reminding them that they must keep it if they are to survive in the Promised Land.
In precarious times, it is absolutely vital that we hold on to what can help us survive. In times of plenty, we can be more relaxed about rules, but in a time of threat, to cast them aside might literally be the difference between life and death.
Relevance
Leviticus, which also contains the law given to the Israelites, is extremely strict about what the Israelites can and cannot eat. One stipulation, extremely relevant to the present crisis, is that they cannot eat animal such as bats. There is a strong theory that Covid-19 emerged from the food markets of China which sell live animals in horribly unhygienic conditions, including bats.
The Old Testament and its many rules are often strongly criticised today in the entirely different world in which we now live and of course, Christians believe in the New Covenant, not the Old Covenant. Nonetheless, the present circumstances give us an insight into why many of these rules existed, and the deep, ancient wisdom that lies in them, which stands to reason, because they were given by God.
Christianity compels us to help in the here and now because we are told to ‘love our neighbour as ourselves’
In fact, T.H. Huxley, the Victoria-era critic of religion, was lavish in his praise of Deuteronomy: “Down to modern times, no state has had a constitution in which the interests of the people are so largely taken into account, in which the duties, so much more than privileges, of rulers are insisted upon, as that drawn up for Israel in Deuteronomy and in Leviticus; nowhere is the fundamental truth that the welfare of the State, in the long run, depends on the uprightness of the citizen so strongly laid down.”
The point of all this is that God provides us with the means to pass through the challenges that life provides, if we are willing to listen to them. He tells us the right way to live, and the right attitude to have.
In fact, cast your mind back to the election of Pope John Paul II in 1978 when he appeared to the world for the first time on the balcony of St Peter’s and said: “Be not afraid.”
This is not the same as saying we should not have a healthy fear of this virus. We must treat it with total respect, meaning we must take it extremely seriously because it is such a big threat. But we cannot be overcome by fear.
St John Paul II told the world to “be not afraid” because this phrase in various forms is the most common in all of the Bible. Again and again we can be overcome by fear of the challenges life presents us with, and this can be disabling. It can also be a sign of a lack of Faith that in the end, God is with us and in the end all things will be well, in the eternal reckoning of things even if not in the here and now.
Is this pie-in-the-sky? Obviously not, because even in purely secular terms, a disabling, despairing fear is disastrous.
Also, the Christian belief that in the final reckoning all will be well does not stop Christians in the here and now offering help to those in need. That is why, from the very earliest times, as recorded as far back as the Acts of the Apostles, Christians help those in distress. The Acts tell us of Christians in Antioch (modern-day Turkey) sending help to famine-stricken Judea in the Holy Land.
Christianity compels us to help in the here and now because we are told to ‘love our neighbour as ourselves’ and that we must ‘do unto others as we would have them do unto us’.
The temptation for some will be to offer a crude theodicy at a time like this, meaning they might say that somehow this is something God is inflicting on us as a punishment of some kind. This sort of crude suggestion is to be avoided at all costs.
On the other hand, God is plainly letting this happen, just as so many disease outbreaks have occurred right though history.
This confronts us with the mystery of suffering. Even Christ suffered. Frankly, there is no totally satisfactory explanation as to why God permits suffering. An atheist has no such dilemma, of course, since they deny the existence of God, but then they have to face even bigger mysteries, such as explaining how everything which exists can come from nothing.
We must continue to live faithfully and know that our ancestors…have come through much worse”
But God gives us the means to deal with suffering, to rise above it, to learn from it, to become better people as a result, to discover again what really matters in life.
In this present time, we must continue to live faithfully and know that our ancestors, including our spiritual ancestors out in the desert long ages ago have come through much worse. God led those spiritual ancestors of ours to the Promised Land and through many more tribulations, and he will do the same for us. Our job is to remain faithful to how he wants us to live.