The Terrible Truth About This Time of Pandemic
By Rev. Dr. Melinda Contreras-Byrd, Contributing Writer
COVID-19 has hit the world like a comet falling to earth with powerful reverberations. All over the world, people have hunkered down in their houses terrorized by a real-life death threat that no one saw coming.
While the physical and psychological ramifications of our attempts to counter this deadly attack on humanity are bad enough, the terrible truth is that there is an even more deadly threat bubbling just below the surface. We have lost sleep, peace of mind, energy, and lives utilizing our arsenal of weapons that have only served to keep it at bay. We have tried to wish it away, educate it away, and even pray it away. Yet, it has continued to live and grow and sprout up from time to time in different places and with greater or lesser magnitude. This cunning shapeshifter is insidious!
Somewhere under the earth, a mammoth stirs. The noise can be heard in Black communities but only if one is listening. Elderly Jewish people can hear the sound. The Latinx communities can hear the sound above the rhythm of congas and timbales. Elders in indigenous communities have been listening for the sound.
I now understand that what we are fighting for during this time of COVID-19 is our lives but even more frightening is that we are also fighting for the souls of our people. The deadliest threat is not just a virus. It is the enemy that we have for so long tried to hope and pray away but has been empowered to rise from the underground caves of darkness and stand upright in the center of the United States of America. We are not fighting Republicans, presidential ignorance, or mental disability. We are not even fighting white supremacists. This fight is a war that can only be won by spiritual warfare.
God has permitted a situation that has forced us out of our comfort zones. We can no longer run to our churches for refuge. We can no longer find our security in the hugs and touches of love that we have allowed to be the thing that is truly what sustains us. We are forced to rely on God.
The increasing displays of violence against Black people and the violence and evil leveled against those who would dare to affirm the statement that “Black Lives Matter” have awakened us to the terrible truth. This is a critical turning point in the history of the world. There are no more safe places to hide from the backlash from taking a stand against the evil of racism and bigotry.
God set up a world in which love would be the center of our thinking, feeling, and behavior. This love would give rise to selfless sharing and deep heartfelt concern for the welfare of each person. There would be no need to lie or steal and no one would be hungry or without because everyone would want what was good and best for themselves and everyone else. However, we got lost in the shuffle and what was mine was mine and the “smart” person learned how to take what was yours as well. Humanity ceased to be one family, choosing instead to form deadly hierarchical groups.
Matthew 11:12 says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” The kingdom is suffering violence. God’s kingdom principles of love, justice, and peace are suffering violence; and because evil cannot win over the kingdom, it seeks to destroy it by neutralizing, weakening, or killing all that is of God.
It is 2020 and the world and country that we once knew are gone. Esther 4:14 says, “For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” Right now, heaven is waiting for each one of us to make our move –and that is a terrible truth!
