The Bible doesn’t have a plan to deal with a 21st Century global pandemic. Thankfully God’s Word does have something to say to us about those times when everything that is familiar to people is taken away from them. God’s people have often found themselves in situations where they had to become accustomed to a “new normal”. Take God’s people, the Israelites, 2600 years ago – they learned precisely what it meant to have their homes and businesses, their cities, their loved-ones and even their beloved Temple wrenched away from them. Torn from everything that was known to them; the Babylonian army frog-marched them 1600 miles; and put God’s people into internment camps… in a strange land… In Jewish/Biblical history this is simply called The Exile. They were forced (against their will) to live in exile in a foreign land with a foreign language and a foreign culture. God’s people would have to start all over again. Not a prospect they relished. How would they survive, let alone thrive in this alien and frightening world? Doubtless they wanted to go back to their land, to everything they knew, to all that was familiar and predictable; they were taken out of their comfort-zone…
Because of a global pandemic (a plague) we, like our forebears, have also been living in a kind of exile. Circumstances have forced us to close the doors to the place where we gather to worship – to close the doors on the life we knew together – perhaps the life we took for granted, a life in which we felt settled…
There are some comparisons to be drawn and there are some helps for us in our own lockdown-exile…
The first thing is God…the first help…always… is God… It was the LORD ALMIGHTY who carried his people into exile (Verse 4; 7; 14). It was soldiers, yes, who ransacked the city and marched God’s people hundreds of miles but it was God who allowed it…who caused it…who sent them…who purposed the exile. I’m not going to propose that the same LORD sent Covid-19 as a punishment per se, but I can say that He is The Sovereign, all-powerful GOD…I can say that nothing (good or bad) can or does or will happen outside of His permissive-will.
This is the God-of-the-Bible who speaks, 7 I make light and I make darkness. I bring good and I make trouble. I am the Lord who does all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, NLT)
When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it? (Amos 3:6)
If the LORD could use Babylon to bring his children out of the familiarity they knew into the unfamiliarity of Exile to bring His plans to fruition, then it is certain, surely, that He can use a virus to put his people where He wants them…to relocate us…and it seems, for the most part, He has wanted us to stay at home! He knows what He is doing… And that is great comfort. God knows the plans He has for us…
We know something about the mood in the camp because the Psalmist tells us: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept…when we remembered Zion…Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our harps. For there our captors demanded of us songs, and our tormentor’s mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
Remembering how things used to be…longing…looking back nostalgically…through rose-tinted specs… angry at God and their dilemma, believing that the LORD had abandoned them to their fate. No! He instructed Jeremiah to send the people a letter…telling them how He wanted them to live.
The LORD had not carried them all that way for no reason. (There is always a reason with the LORD). No, the LORD had carried them into exile so they would be His people there…in that place. 5 ‘Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce…
What you’ve left behind you can’t go back to. You can’t do things the way you are used to doing them…business as usual. As much as they would have baulked at it, He wanted them to put down roots…to start to live again…to be His people in the corner where you’ll live…live your lives and honor God where you are…
Why are we here? They would have asked: God exiled them because He was sick of their offerings – the way they lived and worshipped Him was token (lip-service), careless and perfunctory.
They lived as if God was stuck inside the Temple…confined…and domesticated… as if He had nothing to do with the rest of their lives.
Maybe they lived a lot like us…they would need time (in lockdown) to consider their ways…they will have to learn that the LORD is LORD wherever you live and worship. No, if they were trying to lock Him down, God would lock them down for their own good.
But the big question God’s people asked, in Exile, was: How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land? IE how can we live victorious, joyous and worshipful lives when everything has changed? When we’re in foreign climes? When we’re like fish out of water? Well, the LORD commands them, 6 Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters. And take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, that they may give birth to sons and daughters. Become many there, and do not let your number become less.
Don’t decrease…don’t die out! That’s the same message to us in lockdown. (Not that He needs us to start procreating!) Don’t just eke out an existence of survival while you’re here: live, thrive, flourish, grow…use your time, find new ways to meet up, to connect – as many have during the pandemic…new ways to worship God…new ways to bring the church (and the love of God) to the people and to your neighbours, new ways to give your time, your help, your gifts. You might have to wear a mask…but - Don’t decrease…don’t die out! Wherever you are I AM. Your identity is the same. Your Mission is the same. Remember the vows you took when you were baptised. Sing songs and hymns at home or in the car. Have bible study at home. How can we live in a strange land or in strange times? Make the best of it. Embrace it.
7Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare.’
Martin Luther sought the peace and prosperity of his community during another pandemic, the Black Death. I quote him here, as if to remind us there is nothing new under the sun. “I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where I am not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death by my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for my death or that of others. If my neighbour needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person, but will go freely…”
What great sage advice! It could have been written for today. Do what we should. If someone needs help, then we’re not afraid to help. As the old song goes, “brighten the corner where you are.”
Seek the peace and prosperity of the place where you are. Pray. Pray on the cities behalf. Prayer is the single greatest (yet least-employed) weapon the church has. If we become a praying people as a result of not being able to meet in our building…good! Prayer brings with it spiritual prosperity…for all. This is what the church is for. When no-one else knows there is an all-powerful God to rescue them, then pray for them. We have perhaps never had such an opportunity as that afforded by the lockdown…to pray…to seek the welfare of the world and cry out to God to save it. Church history will tell us that the church has only ever really flourished during times of disrupted plans and suffering. Some of the brightest of God’s work is done in the darkest times…
8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Do not let your prophets who are in your midst and your diviners deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams which they dream. 9 For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them,’ declares the Lord.
Over the months a lot of people have been saying Coronavirus is a hoax or is a trifling matter. They have been telling us we should get back to business as usual now; some of the pulpiteers and modern-day prophets – who claim to speak for God - are saying Covid is over. They’re wrong! They said 2020 would be boom-time! How wrong they were! Just as in Jeremiah’s day they were wrong when they predicted God would restore them to their homeland any day now, not in 70 years; just as they had been wrong when they said the city would be safe and the Temple would remain. God said, “You’re not camping…unpack!” The people of God were always told they must go forward, not back…
We know how hard this time has been for many. But, where the church is concerned, it has always been living in exile. It’s living Head, Jesus Christ, lived in exile…he was an outsider…he specially loved outsiders and strangers…there was no racism or xenophobia about Him! He had nowhere to lay his head…everywhere was His home. The early (New Testament) church met in people’s houses as it does in many parts of the world now because of persecution. There were no buildings, or liturgies or worship bands or computers. It fed off the letters of Paul and others and used these…where they were… to worship God. The church has always been at the margins, in the world (Babylon) but not of it…separate from it. Baptist Churches have always been separate from the state
We need to remind ourselves that we too are exiles…from Abraham to Jesus…to John-the-beloved. We may, until recently, have felt contented here, but our true citizenship is in Heaven (Phil 3:20). Children of Zion can never settle down too comfortably. Hebrews 11 tells of restless people, longing for a better country--a heavenly one. God has prepared a city for them, not Babylon… but a New Jerusalem! When we feel restless and alienated or fearful, we remember: we’re not home yet. C.S. Lewis put it, “If nothing in this world satisfies me, perhaps it is because I was made for another world.” We need to be homesick for our true home.
And here is a promise to all who are locked-down… then as now…11 For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Here is a promise that – in the fullness of time – leads straight to Jesus…who brought us out of the exile of sin and death and who is our future and our hope of eternal life!
Hallelujah! (MFR 02/08/20)
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