As a child, there was one movie that oddly caused me many nightmares: E.T. – the Extra-Terrestrial. Now I know E.T. wasn’t meant to be a scary movie, but I only made it through the first few minutes of the film when Elliott first encounters E.T. in the cornfield and they both run off screaming. Well, I did the same thing and was afraid of him for the next 10 years of my life.

Fear (even of E.T) can be a very harmful emotion. It causes us to panic, and act irrationally (why was I afraid of a make-believe friendly alien?). But fear can also be used for good. As I consider our current crisis with COVID-19 and the fear it has brought with it, I see an opportunity for faith in God to take root and grow in people’s lives. See, as children, we knew that we could not handle the world apart from someone bigger than us guiding the way. Whether we were afraid of a made-up character or something a bit more serious, hopefully you had an adult you could turn to who would come to your aid, and as they came through for you, again and again, your trust – or faith – in them grew. But somewhere along the line (probably our teenage years), we started believing that we could handle the world on our own, and for the most part, we were right. As we grew, we learned to pay our own bills, cook our own food, and make our own friends. But a disaster like we are experiencing now reminds us that we aren’t as big as we thought we once were – and our faith in ourselves is put into question. Rather than being able to just rely on ourselves, like little children, we are in need of someone bigger than ourselves coming to our aid.

Of course, this is where the message of Jesus Christ enters into the picture. You see Jesus faced our greatest fear – death itself – and won! And he offers that same victory to anyone who will follow after him. He doesn’t promise that we will be free from ever experiencing death, or be infected with the coronavirus. But he does promise that none of these things will have the last word. Scripture tells us that in the end, we will be raised to new life with Christ and never experience pain or sadness or death again. This is why Paul can say in the Book of Romans, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39). COVID-19 is an evil that we alone cannot control, and behind this virus is another evil that is even more powerful – Satan himself. Yet praise God that in the midst of such a terrifying enemy, we can trust in our God who has saved us from death and promised us everlasting life.

If you would like to talk more about faith in a time of crisis like this, please email me at [email protected] I also invite you to our Sunday service. Service begins at 10:30 am and will be live-streamed on our Facebook page and on YouTube. Please consider this time as an opportunity to turn to someone bigger than yourself and find comfort in God during this troubling time.

In Christ,

Pastor Danny