Jesus and the Time of Pandemic

JESUS IN THE TIME OF PANDEMIC

"OH FREEDOM"

ART OF DR. DAVID DRISKELL,  (1931-2020)  VICTIM OF COVID-19  

AFRICAN-AMERICAN ARTIST AND FACULTY MEMBER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND 

“There are truths that can be discovered only through suffering or from the critical vantage point of extreme situations.”    

 Ignacio Martin-Baro, S.J., martyr at the UCA, El Salvador, 1989

The voracious presence of COVID-19 stuns the world.   We who believe that God always helps us in our works of love are numb.  How can God allow this destructive virus?   But, truly, to make it worse such extreme situations present themselves often.    We remind ourselves of our struggle to learn what God teaches us in the Shoah, in our history of slavery or in frequent natural disasters.  These situations take place in the world our God creates and each challenges our understanding.

We want our God to exercise what we think of as control over His creation.  And when He does not do what we think best, we experience sorrow and distrust.   In our confusion there is nowhere to go but to turn to the suffering Jesus who speaks to his Father and to us from his cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  But Jesus will not save himself and call on a display of his Father’s power.  Within this question he trusts in the promise of resurrected life.

Crises of every kind cause us to echo Christ’s words.  We look at Him carrying out his love for us.    He teaches us sinners the kind of life to which His Father’s creation calls us.   We react and He must endure the price of our stubborn refusal to hear him.   But if we listen we come to know a God of love who will not force Himself on us or put us under a spell of power.   Rather this God creates a world where we in turn, without coercion but freely and with hope, can imitate His love for us and return it in our love for others.   

God calls us in this age of the pandemic to acknowledge our shared dignity as His family and extend ourselves in care for one another.   We give God thanks and praise that so many are answering that call.