There has been much comment on the recent 5th anniversary of the Covid outbreak; lockdown and all that followed. I totally underestimated the severity of the disease when it first broke. I remember the shock at hearing of the first death of someone I knew; a distinguished scientist only a few years older than me. In our area, we escaped fairly lightly; I only did one Covid funeral. But I had a sharp reminder of how potentially dangerous the disease was when, many months into the outbreak when it was clearly being controlled, a parishioner lost a relative who was much younger than myself. I still find that shocking.
So where was God? Living through the crisis was a sharp reminder that natural disasters happen; an unwelcome insight into the pain and bewilderment so many people have to face in what seem like far-away places. As I write, I think of Myanmar and Thailand. I am appalled at those who try and present these events as acts of punishment by a stern God. There are indeed places in the Bible where that view can be found, but Jesus seems to have rejected it. Crises like Covid pose problems for those who see God as a micromanager. The best I can do is to accept that if God choses to work through evolution by natural selection, it is inevitable that sometimes unpleasant viruses will appear. God sets up his rules, she must then work by them if we are truly to be free. But even in the depth of crisis God continues to work; the Holy Spirit will still move. In Covid, the self-help groups, the support that otherwise remote neighbours gave each other, the love that was shown, was all of God and from God, even if most people were not aware of it. Ubi caritas et amor, deus ibi est. Where there is charity and love, there God is.
Rev David Poyner