How Will We Respond?

“Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” James 4:8

            We are in a global situation that none of us have ever experienced before. Okay, so I’m not the first to say that. And I’m not the first to suggest that the Bible had the answer to COVID-19 all along when it says to wash your hands. While I enjoy that joke, there’s something about our collective response to this pandemic that has me a little confused. We have been taking all kinds of precautions to prevent the spread of this disease, everything from hoarding supplies to sheltering-in-place. We’re more conscious of personal hygiene and more aware of our surroundings. We want to make sure we’re not in situations where we can be infected. What confuses me is that I wonder why we haven’t been doing those things all along.

            I’m not suggesting that we should have been taking these precautions before the disease even existed in humans. What I am suggesting is that there is a disease that is much deadlier than COVID-19. That’s the disease of sin. I have a question: why did you just breathe a sigh of relief when I said this deadly disease is sin? Why is our response to that, “Oh, it’s just sin. I knew about that one before. In fact, I’ve been living with that disease my whole life.” The problem is that we become desensitized to it. We think it’s not a big deal. But what if we were to respond to this disease with the same urgency and commitment of our responses to the pandemic? After all, the death that comes from sin is the death of our souls. That’s a pretty severe consequence!

            What should our response be to the disease of sin? As this verse says, we’re to wash our hands. In Biblical terminology, that means to repent of our sinful acts. But not just our hands. We’re also to purify our hearts. And that’s part of repentance. We don’t just cease doing sinful acts. We also turn our hearts back to God. We also need to be aware of our surroundings. Just as we don’t want to be around people who can infect us with germs, we also don’t want to put ourselves in situations that we know will be temptations for us. Let’s not leave out the first part of this verse, to come near to God. That’s the most important part. When we’re close to Him, He will be the One to purify us from all uncleanness.

            The one response that I think should be different is we are not to practice social distancing in a spiritual sense. I see Christians as the healthcare workers of the sin pandemic. I recently heard healthcare workers described as being like firefighters who pull people from a burning building as they themselves rush in. We are the ones God has sent into the world with the only cure for sin. How can we tell others about Christ if we remain in our holy huddles? But He also doesn’t call us to go out alone. We need to make sure we stay connected to a community, a body of believers who will help us and support us. People who will make sure that we are continually drawing close to God. As we change our lives to this new normal of society, let’s also think about the worst pandemic that has been ravaging all humankind since the Garden of Eden. Let’s ask God what He would have us do in response.