On COVID-19 and Risk

I shared these words in my message on Sunday. You can listen to the audio here.

Well, unless you’ve been in bed the past couple of months - and haven’t been at all on social media - you’ve heard of this virus spreading across the world - coronavirus. We’ve seen it before. But it’s putting fear in lots of people. Flights are getting cancelled. Schools are not in session. Even some churches aren’t gathering, or they’re not taking communion. Now this is largely in places other than the U.S. But the time could be coming - when we start raising those questions here. 

Now my wife the nurse would remind us that regular old influenza should be far more of a concern. But the reality is that this virus doesn’t really have a cure at this point. It will probably be a couple of years - I’ve heard - until there is a vaccine. So I can certainly understand all the concern. Especially considering I’m a bit of a germaphobe. And have been diagnosed with hypochondriasis - by that same lovely spouse of mine.

But here’s the question I want to kick off with today. If this disease goes literally viral across America - if it hits our town here - how are we going to respond? Well, it originated in the Wuhan province of China. And Christians there are now on the frontlines. Serving their Lord boldly. Caring for the sick. Sharing Christ’s love. 

But you may not realize this. They’re just doing what the church has always done. Rodney Stark is a historian and sociologist. And he’s spent a lot of time studying the church. He talks in his book The Rise of Christianity about how the early church cared for those caught up in pandemics like this. 

“Christianity revitalized life in Greco-Roman cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent problems. To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services.” (Rodney Stark)

Stark tracked conversion rates during the times of most intense plagues. And he found they were much higher as the church cared for the sick with death all around. Apparently in the third century A.D., as many as 5,000 people were dying a day - just in Rome alone. This corresponded to a strong season of persecution against the church. And Christians - even though they were often blamed for the plague - served people in their darkest hours and often ended up dying right along with them. In a society where people ran from the plague, the church ran right into it. And God used it to spread the good news of Jesus. 

An early church leader named Dionysus put it this way:

“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; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains. Many, in nursing and caring for others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead.” (Dionysis of Alexandria)

But hear also what the general population did:

“The heathen behaved in the very opposite way. At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away, and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead and treating unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avert the spread and contagion of the fatal disease, but do what they might they found it difficult to escape.” (Dionysis of Alexandria)

Non-Christians ran from. Believers ran to. Therefore, as people were dying, the church was growing. They offered hope - and help. And people noticed. Most of all, their Lord noticed. Christians were giving it all, and looking like Him. The One who ran to lepers. When everyone else avoided them. He embraced risk. As He looked ahead to the reward.