2020's Favorite Soap Pump
Who knew back in December that I was the lucky winner of 2020’s favorite hand soap dispenser? I battled for it at our small group Christmas party, securing it after two steals. It felt like the right thing to have in the guest bathroom of a pastor’s house.
And here I am three months later realizing this soap pump sums up well our current reality, “Wash your hands and say your prayers, because Jesus and germs are everywhere.”
The soap pump doesn’t lie: coronavirus germs are indeed everywhere. We personally know two families who have come down with Covid-19 (one in Europe and one in California). We have friends across Italy and France who are enduring tremendous loss and anxiety. We have friends in Asia and South America who are quarantined in countries with little hope of good intervention if they get sick. Friends in the Eastern Bloc are aware that there are only four ventilators in their entire region.
The burdens are getting heavier here in Colorado too. In our own church we grieve with those who are lonely, those who have lost jobs, those who have had to lay off their own employees, and those who have chronic health issues and fear the worst. As a pastor’s family—like other professional and lay ministers, and really just active members of the body of Christ—we are spending long days processing news from near and far, seeking to provide care and connection to everyone, and making too many decisions a day to count in this uncharted territory.
We fall into bed late at night and know we are no match for the germs that are everywhere.
Like nothing else in our lifetime this pandemic reminds us all that we are frail and our lives are brief. Though we humans have conquered much—we landed on the moon and we discovered DNA—a teeny tiny germ is causing us great harm.
But like I said, the soap pump doesn’t lie: Jesus is also everywhere.
Though we are frail and our lives are brief, Jesus is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). So for you and I who are in Christ, we too have resurrection and life. For us, sickness does not lead to death—at least, not in the ultimate sense. For us, sickness that leads to physical death leads to resurrection. We who put our hope and faith in Jesus Christ will live again and reign with him. We have eternity in the New Heavens and New Earth to look forward to in the days, months, and millennia ahead.
This present life is not all there is. Not by far.
Between now and then and forevermore, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? … Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? … No…For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:31-39).
Take heart, brothers and sisters. Nothing—truly, nothing—can separate us from the love of God who gave his own Son for us. The germs are everywhere, but they are no match for the risen Jesus. Do not fear what can kill the body, but not the soul (Matthew 10:28).
But oh, for the reader who is not in Christ, my heart aches and my stomach hurts. That verse, which comforts his followers, brings condemnation to his rejecters. Jesus says you should “fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell … everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33). Heaven awaits only those who have received Jesus’s free gift of salvation. These are his words, not mine.
If you remain dead in your sin—that is, if you haven’t acknowledged your transgressions and turned to our holy God with sorrow and repentance—know this: God is rich in mercy, and because of the great love with which he loves you, even though you are dead in your trespasses, he will make you alive together with Christ… by grace you can be saved (Ephesians 2:4-6). By grace, through faith, salvation is a free gift of God. He stands ready to give it, if you would cry out to Jesus who is indeed everywhere.
So yes, let’s wash our hands and say our prayers.
Washing is wisdom in the midst of a pandemic. And our prayers rise to a King who is powerful beyond comprehension. We can unroll our white knuckles and remember that this life is not all there is. We may endure great loss in the days ahead, but this is just the pre-life to eternal life. Our troubles here are light and momentary when compared to eternal glory (2 Corinthians 4:17).
Jesus says to us who trust him, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27).
Wash your hands and say your prayers, and do not be afraid. Though the germs are everywhere, so is Jesus. And he, from whom we can never be separated, has given us himself, his peace, eternal life.
