3 Ways God’s Peace Is Greater Than COVID-19

© LakshmiPrasad lucky

These are crazy, odd times. And quite honestly, the temptation in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic is to be uncertain and to learn, uncomfortably, how to live with the lack of capacity to plan for the future. Not knowing how people are, being cut off from family and friends. This happened to me most profoundly when my mother, my 96-year- old mother, was placed on hospice after contracting the coronavirus. The best I could do was to speak with her occasionally over the telephone. 

Of course, I wanted to be able to go up to Virginia, where she lived, and of course the restrictions kept me from doing so before she passed mercifully into the arms of her Savior. And a part of in essence, the call to discipleship for me in this very situation was to live, entrusting my mother into the care of God, knowing I could not be with her. I had to rely on the truth that God loves her far more than I do, and that she was and is ever in his care. 

Greater Than the Threat

I say all of that because the Gospel reading, John 20:19-31, has the disciples hiding behind locked doors for fear of the Jewish and Roman authorities. They are afraid that just as they went after Jesus, the next wave will bring these same authorities coming after the followers of Jesus: them. And therefore they are huddled together; and the door is closed; the door is locked. 

Jesus comes and appears right in the middle of them. He doesn’t need to worry about a lock on a door. And the word he speaks to them is “Peace be with you.” In fact, he does it twice. 

They’re amazed. They are speechless. They don’t know what to say. So he says that again. He’s trying to, in essence, establish for them a reality in their relationship with him that is more real and more powerful than the imminent threat they are feeling: “Could we be next?”

It doesn’t take much stretch of the imagination to feel the parallel, because many of us have been in the same position. We were behind locked doors for fear of COVID-19, and we are wondering that we might be next. And it is into that very same situation that Jesus comes and says the very same words, “Peace, be with you.” 

He is establishing something new for them, but reminding us as Christians of the deepest reality that is within us, and that is the presence of Jesus Christ speaking peace, which means “shalom.” It is well-being. It is a sense of “I am with you, and therefore you can trust me that my power is greater than any other.” And this is true whether it refers to the political and religious authority at the time of the Jews or the medical reality of what we live with right now. And he does it twice. Even in breathing on them and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he gives them what they need to be able to walk in a reality that is stronger than the threat they are feeling. 

It’s the same with us. Jesus can and will give us what we need to walk in a reality that is bigger and greater than any threat that we feel because of the impact of COVID. It does not mean that people will not die. My mother trusted in Jesus. She longed to go home. But COVID did not erase for her the greater reality, the reality that she belonged to Jesus and that he would never let her go, the reality that I felt as her son, knowing that she belonged to Jesus, knowing he would never let her go as she made this transition from life in the body into life eternal. I know he will continue to keep her safely in his arms. He protected her; he guided her home. In the end, he answered the deep prayer within her heart that she could go home and be with her Lord.  

Greater Than Our Fear

That’s what the power of Resurrection faith imparts to us. “Peace, be with you. … peace, be with you” (John 20:19b-21). That’s the word from the Gospel, and to live in that fulfills what we have just heard: that COVID is not more powerful than Jesus, that COVID does not erase the peace and the power Christ has put within us. And in fact, the call Christ gives us to, in fact, step up, to entrust to God the people that we care most deeply about, to pray for our family, our friends and our neighbors and to even be available when called upon serve, to pray, to be available for God to use us, even if we are kept within the confines of our own home. There’s plenty that we can do: We can give financially; we can pray deeply. Prayer does change things in a way that nothing else does. 

So that no matter what our physical limitation is, we can be available even today, to give. For service, to step into the presence of Christ, that is in fact meant to empower us to be available for God to use us wherever we are. In other words, we do not need – notice the word? – we do not need to be afraid, unless the fear is in fact, an indicator of our desire to master and the fear that we cannot. 

If that is the case, then God in fact will come against our fear. Because it displays the reality that we cannot control. And that’s what he wants to wipe away. He wants to build in us in a whole new way a capacity to be able to trust in him to turn against the fear that we feel and to say no to the fear, to say, “My God is greater. He has raised Jesus from the dead. He has given me the power that I need, and I choose to stand in that, even in the midst of this present, perhaps even life-threatening uncertainty.”

Greater Than Our Circumstances

That is the message of peace. That’s what peace imparts. That kind of resoluteness doesn’t necessarily change our outward circumstances. But what it does do is change us so that we are available even today, not just to fret in front of a television, but instead to say, “Lord, what would you have me do? I receive your peace today because you have triumphed over death. What would you have me do? I receive your peace today because your love and your grace and your peace and your power are far stronger than even the fear that I am feeling. I receive your peace today so that I can say no to my own desires, self-centered preoccupations, and that I might give.” That is the peace of Christ. That’s the peace that Jesus spoke to his disciples. 

Do not let COVID have the last word. Be available for the peace of Jesus and say, “Lord, I receive your peace. What would you have me do?”

How has God given you his perfect peace during the pandemic? Share this blog and your response on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer. 

(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon recorded for April 19, 2020, in the Bishop’s Oratory of the Diocesan Office, Orlando.) 

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.