COVID-19 Series: #15—Let us shout, “O COVID-19, where is your sting?”

19 Pastoral Thoughts On COVID-19

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25–26).

Why has COVID-19 become the terror that has gripped the whole globe? It is because of the number of deaths it has caused. It is now 100,000…and counting. That is like wiping out the entire population of the city of Livingstone in about 3 months and reducing it to a ghost town.

Death is the wages of sin. It is the king of terrors. It is the last enemy. When a loved one breathes his last, there is nothing anyone can ever do for him or her. We leave their remains 6 feet underground and try to proceed with life without that person. What a terrible enemy!

Then in comes Easter! It is the one foe that ultimately defeats death. It speaks of a hope that defies the grave. Our Saviour, the Lord Jesus, died. Death had him in its grips. But on Easter morning he burst asunder the bars of death and walked back into life—never to die again.

He announced on the day he raised Lazarus from the dead, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” Jesus was the first to rise from the dead and now all those who believe in him will do the same. It is the glorious Christian hope.

This morning, let us defiantly look COVID-19 in the face and say, “O COVID-19, where is your victory? O COVID-19, where is your sting? …Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Amen!

“Low in the grave he lay, Jesus my Saviour,

Waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!

Up from the grave he arose;

With a mighty triumph over his foes;

He arose a victor from the dark domain,

And he lives forever, with his saints to reign.

He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!”

—Robert Lowry (1826–1899)