Life in the pandemic XXII: Easter Reflections - Singing in the darkness..

Last year at Easter we were just getting used to lockdown – working from home, one hour’s exercise a day and the rest. It made for an interesting Good Friday reflection on self-isolation. It’s sobering to think that was “Life in the pandemic III” – this is XXII!. There was lot’s we didn’t know then, that we do know now. And yet big questions remain unanswered. Perhaps they are not the same big questions for everyone, although there is likely to be an overlap. We would all like to know things like where the virus came from, how it crossed into the human population, and whether the right things were done at the appropriate time to prevent its spread (although the answer to the last of these seems clear enough). In the meantime, we’ve done what we had to do. Lockdowns, shielding, masks and of course vaccines. We’ve been right to do all we can to protect ourselves, our families and our communities. But at least for me there is that deeper, somewhat nagging question as to what the pandemic “means”. One year on from arguing that such a question is legitimate, I confess that I still have no definitive answer.

Some would argue that this is because such a question is misconceived. That was essentially N.T. Wright’s take on the situation from an avowedly Christian (if probably provocative) perspective. Others might argue that because there’s no one to address such a question of meaning or purpose to, there’s no point posing it at all. If there can be no answer, then there can be no question. And yet it still lurks. And it has struck me throughout the pandemic that even among Christians there has been relatively little discussion of the pandemic’s meaning. Perhaps no one wants to be seen to exploiting a catastrophe and tragedy for polemical purposes. Certainly, I accept that the tone of any such discussion is important. So much suffering should not be met with flip or glib statements that gloss over complexities. Even if legitimate answers can be given, it’s important they’re not given in a hubristic, superior, “told you so” tone. My view, for what it’s worth, remains that there is meaning to be found in these dark months. As answers go, it may not be particularly comforting, and it will still leave lots of subsidiary answers to be ferreted out. But answer, and meaning, there is.

Before coming to what it is, it should be noted that Wright had a wider point to make in his article that is worth pondering. For while he thought looking for the “big” answer to the “big” question, looking for an explanation, was folly, there was a distinctive Christian response to the pandemic. Particularly in the midst of global disaster, surrounded by uncertainty and fear, there is a key response and resource available to the believer. It is found in the concept and practice of lament. Lament is in part an articulation of the confusion and pain we are suffering individually and collectively. Even if at the moment we feel that things are improving with the vaccine roll-out and easing of restrictions, many continue to struggle with long-COVID, and grieving continues for the 120 000 plus who have lost their lives. So there’s lots to lament about. And lament may have undertones of complaint and anger. But it’s more than that. All of us cry, and all of us can complain. But for the Christian who relies on the Living God who is sovereign and loving, there is something else that is the a feature of lament – an active choosing to trust.

By some accounts about a third of the Psalms in the Old Testament are laments. And there is a whole OT book that is a lament, called (not surprisingly) Lamentations. It is no accident that many of the Psalms of lament, almost regardless of where they begin, end with an affirmation of hope in, or praise for, the God to whom they are directed. It is also no accident that right in the middle of Lamentations, in the middle of the third chapter of a five chapter book, the writer tells us that he has hope, and why he has hope (Lam 3:22-27). What he says is neither glib nor vague. His hope is grounded, precise and active. “The Lord is my portion…therefore I will hope in Him” (Lam 3:24). It's not that his questions have been answered now. But he also tells us that even in the midst of confusion, and questions, and pain “It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (Lam 3: 26).

Jesus was no stranger to the laments. And of course, we remember that in the midst of the darkness (figurative and literal) of the cross, he took on His lips those words of lament from Psalm 22 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. There’s a question. It must have hung heavily in the air, apparently unanswered. But Peter tells us that Jesus “..continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly” (1 Pet 2:23). Trusting, even in the absence of an answer.

I take Wright’s point. Part of our response to the pandemic is not to forget the suffering of the last year, but to lament, to sing even in the darkness. That said I think, as with the cross, so with the pandemic. There is meaning and there is an answer to the big question. Both involve a curse. The pandemic is a reminder that this is a cursed world, despite our best efforts to insulate ourselves from said curse. Because it is cursed, although there are flashes of beauty, grace, happiness and peace to be found, these tend to be fleeting. But it will not always be so. There will be a reckoning and there needs to be rescue. And that’s why we sing in the darkness of “Good” Friday. Jesus, by taking that very curse on Himself, provides the basis for our rescue. And He laments, so that one day we won’t have to. We will hear an echo, a hint, of the new song that one day will replace all of our laments, when the darkness is displaced by the sunrise. We sing in the darkness of Friday. But Sunday’s coming.  

Christmas 2020: In the pandemic………

Twists and turns. Just a few days ago the exciting news of the roll out of COVID19 vaccinations had us all thinking that things were on the turn. Then came the twist: the virus has mutated in a way that makes it more transmissible, if not necessary more deadly. This has led to a tightening of restrictions in the UK around what we can and cannot do this Christmas. Arrangements made after the previous loosening of restrictions will have to be broken. We had one son in transit when the tightened restrictions were announced and a daughter north of the “closed” Scottish border in a quandary. I can think of worse places to be stuck, but it is an unwelcome and unpleasant quandary none-the-less. But all of this should remind us once again; life is fragile and we’re not entirely in control – any of us.

It should also prompt the asking of those big questions, what is going on and why? There are a whole load of different ways you could answer the first of those questions, depending on what you think is being asked. In recent months it has had, at least publicly for the politicians, a narrow focus. A pandemic has happened (as has frequently been predicted), but we are going to be fine eventually because science, technology and good logistics will come to our aid. There is a problem, but we can fix it, and most of us are going to return to some sort of  fairly acceptable “normality”. On this reading of the situation, the other question – why – also has a narrow focus. It distils down to a set of factual questions about what sparked the pandemic and how it developed. It can be answered with reference to wet markets in China (or even dodgy virology labs), and government inaction or incompetence. It can be padded out with reference to the proportion of the population infected and the number of lives lost. Economic damage can be quantified in the currency of your choice or in terms of the proportion of GDP lost. The methods used and the time taken to develop and deploy vaccines can be described and measured. In some ways this narrow approach has a lot to recommend it. At a time of stress and anxiety, it restores some sense of understanding and control. We have recovered from catastrophes before and life has gone on; it always does and it always has to.

Of course these narrow questions and their answers have the disadvantage that for most of us, even if we are comforted by them, we are also likely to be slightly disconcerted. They leave nagging doubts lurking in the recesses of our minds and imaginations. The narrow approach leaves out of the account other questions and answers, those that pertain to motives and values, deeper causes and their more troubling effects. This is where, as I’ve pointed out before, science is of limited help. Even before we get to what might be called questions of deep causation, we already have the questions raised by the crippling inequalities revealed by the pandemic. While some may fret because their Christmas skiing trip has had to be abandoned, there are parents wondering whether there will be food for both them and their children tomorrow lunchtime, or will they have to fast while their children eat? This is before we get to big cross-continent and cross planet issues like who gets which vaccine when and for how much. Are such inequalities inevitable? And even if they are, why are they? Why, in this world will the poor always be with us? It is easy to understand why the narrow approach is the more comforting one, even if the comfort it supplies is cold and tinged with guilt.

And yet, even this level of discourse still seems to miss something. Perhaps an outside perspective is needed. But where might we obtain a perspective which is outside all of humanity? The starting point is the realisation that we are not all there is, and we are not all that matters. To this end, it is this time of year that supplies some of the necessary resources. We should regard the appearance of the pandemic as a global signpost. But I’ve been obsessing about the signpost and not what it points to: precisely that humanity is in trouble and cannot fix itself. The world at all levels is neither what it could be, but beyond that is not as it should be. And of course there is somewhere I can turn that will explain this. The opening chapters of Genesis in the Bible are clear: this is a cursed world. In such a world, bad things happen. This implicates all of us, and we can do little but suffer the effects if we depend on out own resources. And yet into this cursed world, someone voluntarily comes who is Himself not cursed. That is what is going on in Bethlehem. But to stop at Bethlehem is to suffer from perpetual baby syndrome. Bethlehem was only a prelude to the main event in which Jesus, the man the baby became, was Himself cursed. That did not immediately remove the curse and its effects from the rest of us; pandemics obviously still happen. But it was the fulfilment of a long made promise that the curse would be dealt with and an escape provided. And at a time still future to us, it will be entirely removed in the establishment of a new (uncursed) heaven and earth. It is here that we find both the deeper questions, but also the answers to them.

Of course I know that my way of framing these issues is now somewhat counter-cultural (to say the least). In polite and educated circles, only "natural" questions and answers are allowed. Well, you can stick with the narrow, technical, natural approach if you wish. But in the promise delivered in Bethlehem is to be found the answer to both what and why whatever twists and turns lie ahead.