Coronavirus Craziness
The Coronavirus pandemic has been a horrific and catastrophic blight on our existence for two years now. The damage it has done in terms of death toll alone is unspeakable, unthinkable, and unimaginable. What it has managed to do to the world economy is beyond comprehension. How it has ripped and torn otherwise loving and caring families apart over some of its medical and political dynamics is inconceivable. And while there are countless other areas it has infected and caused untold levels of chaos and destruction in, it seems that it has also caused some people to maybe even go a little bit crazy – who didn’t necessarily always even need to become infected with it in order for it to do so… Consider:
As my wife and I sat in our car outside a convenience store some months back, we watched a young man (who at least appeared to be in excellent health) don his mask just before entering the store – presumably because he did not want to contract such a lung-constricting and life destroying disease as the Coronavirus – only to emerge mere moments later with nothing more than a carton of cancer-causing and lung-destroying cigarettes… (?!?)
Sitting in a fast-food restaurant in the midst of the pandemic, we watched as a masked, middle-aged or so couple came in and placed their order. The lady then demanded that one of the staff go over and re-sanitize the already spotless (and most likely therefore, already diligently sanitized) table, before she and the man she was with would sit down and eat. Then (I kid you not), she reached down with her (ungloved by the way) hand; grabbed a hold of the back of the chair where every other customer would have also grasped it in order to move it in and out from the table; slid the chair out to sit down; and then proceeded to sit down herself, only to begin eating her burger and fries, hand to mouth, with the very same ungloved hand with which she had only mere moments earlier grasped the chair. All of this while her burger and fries actually sat on the paper wrapper and/or the cardboard container in which they had come, thereby fully insulated from the clean table she had just had to have re-sanitized… (?!?)
While other examples could surely be cited by most of us, perhaps the saddest and certainly the most deadly and costly Coronavirus craziness by far, would have to be when it comes to those who have incrementally surrendered their eternal souls on its all-too-easy-to-succumb-to altar. You see, there are some good, solid, faithful congregations of the Lord’s church, which have suffered an approximately 25-35% drop in their overall attendance from their pre-Covid numbers. I do not believe that those few I know of are necessarily unique in that, or that the problem is necessarily limited to only that certain and/or select few.
Now granted, in some cases there are those brethren whose physical health issues still do not allow them to assemble without fear or concern for their personal health and safety; those who have, perhaps, due to personal preferences and/or perceptions, possibly felt the need to change congregations and worship elsewhere within the body of Christ; as well as those who have since passed on to their eternal reward. However; it also seems that amongst that 25-35% group who are no longer in attendance, that there would additionally be those to whom the Coronavirus might have become the perfect excuse and/or cover, under which to drift, turn, walk, run, slip, or fall away from Christ and His church as well. This group would consist of many of those whose faith, commitment, and attendance, were only casual, occasional, and carried out only when they felt it convenient, at best, to begin with. It would include those who would finally find in Covid, the perfect excuse and/or mechanism under which to make their final, fatal, soul-forfeiting getaway. Weeks on end of attendance restrictions, service shutdowns, and livestreamed lessons which they could watch from home, would slowly become the norm – with apparently no sense of any personal return, responsibility, or accountability on their part. Plus, with so many saints having to miss services during certain phases of the pandemic, their absences would go virtually unnoticed by their brethren until it was too late anyway. Eventually, it would become easier and easier for them not to ever set foot into the church building to attend even the occasional worship service or Bible study ever again; until all of the sudden, that would sadly become the norm as well. And then, the third and final step in this tragically soul-damning and downward spiraling trajectory – if not stopped and turned around – should be blatantly and heartbreakingly obvious to all as well: The eventual outright lack and/or surrender of, any sort of a genuine faithfulness to, and relationship with, the Lord Jesus Christ and His people whatsoever – a lack of relationship and fellowship with God and His people, which will one day, therefore, cause Jesus to have to cast them off forever as well (Matthew 7:21-23).
Yes the Coronavirus has been the cause of many unbelievably painful losses and tragedies – and on a level heretofore completely unprecedented and unimaginable to today’s society. But above and aside from the constantly reported physical cases’ hard and fast numbers, Covid has also caused an intangible but obvious sort of insanity or craziness (or an absolute lack of any shred or semblance of common sense if you will) to set in as well. Surely the epitome of that kind of craziness would have to be: when one who has repented; has been baptized and hence washed in the blood for the forgiveness of their sins; has arisen to walk in newness of life with Jesus as Lord; and has subsequently been added by God to His Son’s church (Acts 2:38-47, 22:16; Romans 6:1-23), has simply walked or even slowly drifted away, from all that Christ has done in dying for them, just because of some Covidian-empowered and provided crutch.
If you are one who has either willingly, or even unintentionally: walked, limped, drifted, or increasingly distanced yourself away from the Lord and His church during this most difficult and trying of times, trial, and testing; if you are one whom, as you have been reading this, has perhaps seen yourself and your chosen lack of attendance reflected in its reasonings; then please, don’t let this Covidian craziness continue to consume you to the point that it eventually condemns your eternal soul to certain condemnation (Hebrews 10:23-31)! There is a cure! The cure is sure! Just choose to come back home! Don’t let the devil win! Your brothers and sisters in Christ stand ready, willing, able, and wanting to assist you in any and every way that we possibly can! We just need to know that you don’t want to become another eternal casualty and statistic, of today’s most costly and caustic, Coronavirus craziness!