A Vaccine for Our Virus

COVID-19 has hit us hard.  I’m writing this column from home where I am convalescing from the virus which I contracted over four weeks ago.  Fortunately, my symptoms are abating and I am regaining my energy.  Not everyone has been so fortunate.  A colleague our mine succumbed to the virus two days before Thanksgiving.  Even in my small world, I’m aware of loved ones who have passed and others who are in very serious trouble because of CV-19.  I don’t even want to imagine what the coming weeks and months might bring with the virus-friendly conditions of winter and the strong possibility of another surge because of holiday festivities. 

But hope is on the horizon.  Just this week, Britain approved the use of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.  Approval for the two vaccines that have been submitted to our own FDA seems immanent.  Within weeks, front-line health care workers and residents in long-term care should begin to receive the first of millions of life-saving vaccines in our country.  It has been a tough year – a long haul.  The vaccines can’t come too soon!

Throughout this pandemic, it has been my prayer that people would recognize just how vulnerable we are to the things we cannot control.  Even with the streamlined process of “Operation Warp Speed,” it has taken nine months to develop an effective vaccine against the virus.  It will take another six months to inoculate enough people to achieve “herd immunity” and a return to “normalcy.”  But, to date, we’ve already lost a quarter of a million people to COVID-19.  The established mantra throughout this nightmare has been “Trust the science.”  But science can’t address the massive surge of suicides born out of hopelessness during this pandemic.  Nor can science help the thousands of small business owners who have lost their livelihood.  Science has brought us a hopeful vaccine but it hasn’t addressed the deeper human needs that transcend the symptoms of a mysterious virus.  In the end, as always, only a transcendent Creator can satisfy the deepest need of the human race.

What we have suffered through this pandemic is a perfect metaphor of the sickness that has infected human beings since the beginning of time.  We are all afflicted with the “sin-virus” – the natural human tendency to rebel against God.  We’re all rebels.  We’re out for ourselves and the choices that we make condemn us to death.  The Bible speaks of our sickness throughout its pages.  “There is no one who does good, not even one” (Ps. 53:3).  And, “The wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23).  We are all infected with a mortal virus! 

In our churches, we have now embarked upon the Advent journey.  This wonderful season of the year reminds us that God has provided a “vaccine” for the “sin-virus” that infects us all.  At the first Christmas, Jesus became one of us.  He took our “sin-virus” upon himself and willingly suffered the death penalty that came with it – “a perfect sacrifice for the whole world” – the traditional Communion liturgy explains. 

Our world is sick.  And not just with the coronavirus.  The troubles of 2020 have shown us just how broken human beings are as a result of the even more deadly “sin-virus.”  “The wages of sin is death.”  Yes.  Still, the verse continues, “but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  We are sick.  But there is hope!  Nearly 3,000 years ago, a Jewish prophet wrote these words that seem so relevant to this day:

“Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces; now he will heal us.
He has injured us; now he will bandage our wounds.
In just a short time he will restore us, so that we may live in his presence.
Oh, that we might know the Lord!

Let us press on to know him." (Hos. 6:1-3)

A vaccine is available for your virus. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). This advent season, I pray you’ll receive it!