While I’m perfectly willing to affirm that various and sundry state agencies have well exceeded the bounds of their authority in the wake of COVID, it has been for some time my contention that Christians would do well to spend less time accusing the heathen and more time pleading with our Father for forgiveness. Every bit of government overreach is wrong, wicked, presumptuous, provocative, idolatrous and iniquitous. What they meant for evil, however, God has meant for good. It is certainly possible to object to the one while giving thanks for the other. It is, however, more probable that when we are grumbling against God’s ministers of justice we are also grumbling against God. When the Babylonians invade you unsheathe your sword. But you also get on your knees in prayer, repenting.
If the closing/dividing/masking/cyber-izing of our churches is a judgment from God, what is it He is judging? Chances are, given the long history we have recorded for us in His Word, that our problems are the same problems our fathers had before us. We, and by we I don’t mean we Americans but we Christians, are inveterate syncretists. We blend together the worship of the living God with the worship of the gods of our neighbors. We reshape Yahweh into the image of Baal.
God-to-me is the name of the god of the broader culture. He, or she, is loving, tender, kind, encouraging and wants us to be happy. His law can safely be reduced down to two great commandments- Do what thou wilt and You gotta be nice. Which is why it shouldn’t surprise us that the God who is preached, at the bleating demand of the sheep, from our pulpits is much the same. Either we speak not of sin at all, or, if we’re bold and heroic we do speak about sin, the sins the church down the street is guilty of.
So what do we repent of? Worldliness. Seeking to serve the living God and the god of personal peace and affluence. Spiritual pride. Our inability to blush. Our refusal to feel His hand of judgment on us, no matter how obvious He makes it. Indifference to the plight of the most marginalized demographic in the world, the unborn. A prideful unwillingness to identify with our brothers and sisters when their shame is made public. An arrogance that presumes to know the state of the souls of others who profess the name of Christ, if they aren’t as politically astute as we are, or as boldly defiant as we are, aren’t as alert to Gramsci’s game plan as we are.
We repent of our lack of faith. First, we fail to believe that He is at work in the here and the now, looking at pandemics and power grabs as mere human plots rather than our God working out His plan. Second, for failing to thank Him for these hardships, because we fail to recognize that when He brings hardship to His people He does so out of love, to drive us deeper into His arms. Our Father loves us. He holds the heart of the king in his hand, and of the governor, and of the mayor. He holds the outcome of the election in His hand. How can we doubt the one who took the one true tragedy, the one great horror of an innocent man coming under judgment, and revealed it not just to be good news, but to have been His plan all along? Forgive us O Lord, our lack of faith. Hear our cry, and deliver us from us.