Christians in the Era of COVID-19

(Exodus 3:1-12, Romans 12:9-18, Matthew 16:21-25)

Hello? Nice to meet you. On February 29th, I was able to close my three-year term as a senior pastor at Yonsei University Church on February 29th with the generous love and support of our university church members. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you. During my three-year term, I had to live on Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Fri, and Fri, but now I am enjoying a leisurely weekend with Saturday and Sunday. I am pleased and grateful to have the official opportunity to preach today. I pray that the amazing grace of God will be upon everyone who attended the online worship service.

Since the first confirmed patient of COVID-19 with Chinese nationality appeared in Korea on January 19, 2020, the era of COVID-19 hit Korea. The whole world is suffering from COVID-19, and Korea, which is doing well in quarantine, is no exception. With the recent spread of confirmed cases, we are living more tensely with the second phase of social distinctions. Corona 19 is now showing no signs of abating, and the number of confirmed and dead continues to rise.

The situation doesn't look good to us enough to say whether there is an end to COVID-19. According to scientists, COVID-19 is caused by infinite development caused by human greed. Since the industrial revolution, material civilization has grown rapidly, and humans around the world are emitting too much carbon for a convenient life. The environment is polluted, forests are disappearing, global temperatures are rising, glaciers are melting, seawater temperatures are rising, the climate that has been constant is changing to a jumble, and at the same time the habitats of animals and plants are shrinking. As a result, the COVID-19 is the result of the virus that used to live in animals and plants and maintain its own life in humans.

COVID-19 is the product of our human beings who have not properly managed nature. This is because nature, which God declared was good to see and entrusted to man who had built your figure to take good care of, has lost its self-purification ability due to human irresponsible development. COVID-19 is a result of what humans have sown, so it's a human self-serving. Some say that COVID-19 is God's judgment, and such understanding risks distorting or misleading God. This is because God does not judge and enjoy humanity suffering from COVID-19, but God sympathizes with the pain of mankind.

Now, every research institute related to new drug development around the world is working hard day and night to develop vaccines and treatments for COVID-19. This is also the reason bio-related stocks hit the upper limit in the stock market. However, even if a research institute developed a vaccine and treatment for COVID-19, it will not be easy for us humans to return to the situation before COVID-19. Coronavirus is as adaptable as human research, so it's bound to mutate into a new type of virus. The key is that we must change the way we live.

In that sense, we must recognize that we are in a period of great civilizational transformation caused by COVID-19 and live a life that has changed accordingly. Since Copernicus' scientific discovery, the celestial world view that looked at the universe centered on the earth has disappeared, and the world view of the earth is revolved around the sun. Now, the earth and the universe cannot be understood as the theory of heaven and earth. Likewise, we need to recognize the changes in the ecosystem caused by COVID-9 and know that we can survive by living our lives based on it. The COVID-19 era has already brought many changes to our place of life. Specialized jobs with a telecommuting environment and logistics and distribution such as courier services have become more popular.

Online contact rather than face-to-face contact is becoming more active. The process of formal education is expected to be reduced, and preference for university education in particular is expected to decrease. Rather than urbanization that prioritizes convenience, environmentally friendly localization is emerging as a new alternative. The food industry, where consumers produce directly on apartment verandas or small gardens, also has signs of prosperity. Even if many jobs disappear due to the advancement of AI, as we applaud the efforts and contributions of medical staff in the era of COVID-19, we believe that only medical jobs will be requested more. Nowadays, not only scholars who study futurology, but even ordinary people seem confused in the era of Corona 19, many things have already changed, and many will continue to change. Therefore, I am sure that responding appropriately to change will be the secret to human survival.

So, how can us Christians change in order to survive in the era of COVID-19?

Until now, Christianity has grown around the church represented by buildings. So Christians took it for granted to gather in the “Visible Church” building where worship services are held every week. Enthusiastic believers had to visit the “Visible Church” building to attend the Wednesday worship service and the more committed believers to attend the morning prayer meeting every day. As a result, Christians tended to think of the church as a central place in their religious life, or as a whole. But now, due to the COVID-19, it has become difficult to gather in the 'visible church' with social distancing. Our university conference recently partially participated in face-to-face worship by department, but it wasn't even possible due to the social distancing step 2, but no one can predict when the full-scale worship will resume.

If so, will Christians lose their identity of faith just because they offer online worship? no. It is true that Christians not gathering in the “visible church” poses a risk of weakening their faith, but that does not mean that Christians will give up their religious identity. Looking at the early church, the church did not refer to the visible building, but to the person who confessed Jesus as the Christ. At that time, ordinary people in the world gave the nickname of Christians to praise Christians who were distinguished from them, and their congregation, the church, was also understood as those who gave joy and hope to the weak. Therefore, we Christians in the era of COVID-19 must clearly recognize that we are the precious church as the body of Jesus, living by the teachings of Jesus as the head.

Building-centered churches tend to be misunderstood as if attending the “visible church” worship service every Sunday is all about worship to God. Korean churches have been continuing to have a very important church tradition to attend the Sunday worship service. It is a tradition that even if you give up on the other side of your faith, you must keep only the Sunday service held at the ‘Visible Church’ at 11:00 on Sunday. There is no doubt that this tradition is a precious tradition of our Korean church. This is because the energy of a religious life can be recharged through Sunday worship and fellowship of believers. But even more important than that is to live worshiping God in the place of your life.

One day, a Samaritan woman met Jesus (John 4:20-24). She said that her ancestors worshiped on Mount Gerizim, and the Jews should worship in Jerusalem, and she asked Jesus which one was right. At that time, Jesus said that a time will come when he will not say that we should worship on Mount Gerizim or Jerusalem. Then he said that those who truly worship can worship God anytime, anywhere with spirit and truth. Therefore, we Christians in the era of COVID-19 should not stay at the Sunday worship service offered at church, and should change our center of gravity to true worship offered by ourselves as ‘living sacrifices’ in specific places in life.

Now that the Korean church is obsessed with the church as a visible building and Sunday worship, it is misunderstood in the world as if the church is a group that has fallen into collective egoism as being 'for the church itself.' Even if it wasn't, Shincheonji concealed the list of believers, places of worship, and even the movement of confirmed patients in order to conceal the identity of the group when there were members of Shincheonji, a pseudo-cult group, and corona 19, the 31st confirmed patient. Because of this, ordinary citizens learned of the false identity and social dysfunction of the pseudo-Shincheonji, but Shincheonji did something ridiculous. However, when the authorities responsible for the quarantine of COVID- 19 stipulate that the church should also stop face-to-face worship due to social distancing, many pastors and churches are hostile to the quarantine authorities, accusing them of 'church repression.'

Then, ordinary citizens, who did not know the church very well, began to express their uncomfortable feelings, asking what was different between the pseudo-cult group and the orthodox church. It was that the church did not think about the life and safety of civil society as a whole, but focused on their own selfish interests. In the Bible, the church is not 'being for itself,' but 'being for the world.' In the words of Pastor Bonhoeffer, we can say that churches and Christians are 'being for others.' Moses did not stay for himself in the holy place of Horeb, where he met God, but went into Egypt, crying out from Pharaoh's oppression, and declared liberation for the Israelites, showing the archetype of existence for others (Exodus 3:1-12). Therefore, we Christians in the era of COVID-19 must clearly remember that the meaning of existence of the church and Christian is to satisfy the needs of others in the middle of the world.

As we experienced COVID-19, we learned how arrogant it is to think that I only need to be healthy. This is because if another person is infected with coronavirus and becomes a confirmed patient, that person can also infect me. This is because if, by any chance, I become infected with coronavirus and become a confirmed patient, the infection can spread exponentially to my family, friends and relatives due to me. As I am serving as the director of the Yonsei Medical Center and the director of the academia in the era of COVID-19, I am living with tremendous stress on my family. If I or someone in my family gets infected with COVID-19, it must be a problem in itself, but the bigger problem is that the infection of me or my family can make it difficult for Severance Hospital's normal care. So I told my family, "Don't wander anywhere, wear a mask, refrain from meetings, come in early." My daughter is especially uncomfortable because she is constantly nagging. Still, isn't it natural to take the inconvenience for the lives of you, me, and all of us?

Jesus taught us how to pray (Matthew 6:9-13). Jesus did not call God my Father, He called God the Father of all of us. He didn't tell us to get the food I need, but to get the food we all need. He did not ask to forgive only my sins, but to forgive all of us. He didn't ask God to deliver me from temptation, but to deliver us from temptation. As such, the core of Christian faith is not only that I need to be saved, but that we all need to be saved together. Therefore, in the age of COVID- 19, we Christians believe that our faith should not be faith only for themselves or for their own family, faith for the whole community, faith that realizes the universal good, and in particular, save the lives of all. You will always have to keep in mind that you must move on to an increasing faith.

In the age of COVID-19, we must pursue the “truth” of the Gospel and “freedom” of love, the foundation of Christian faith, and live by embodying the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ in our lives. God's truth cannot be fixed as a dogma within one frame. Conservation is part of the truth, and progress is part of the truth. Conservative and progressive complement each other to get closer to the whole truth. You shouldn't be a single-minded person by claiming that your way is the only truth. We must empty our hearts full of ego and prejudice before the infinite truth of God. Love, like Romans 12 says, is to hate the evil and hold fast to the good. There is no lies, it is affectionate to each other, and respect for others first. Love is willingness to provide for the needs of others and to welcome guests who are strangers. It is to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to cry with those who cry. If we have to force this love, we become slaves, but if we do it voluntarily, we become free.

When Jesus foretold that he would be crucified in Jerusalem, when Peter said no, Jesus relentlessly rebuked him against him. “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” (Matthew 16:23) Yes. The Christian Gospel is in the dialectic of the cross and resurrection. There is never a resurrection without the cross. However, it is also difficult to be willing to go to the place of the cross without the hope of resurrection. Because Jesus had the hope of resurrection, he could go confidently on the cross. Since Peter had no hope of resurrection, he had no choice but to turn away from the cross. In a way, the era of COVID-19 looks like despair to us.

However, if you hold on to God's promise of “I will be with you” (Exodus 3:12), hope for resurrection, and go to the place of the cross where you practice love, our Korean church still has an opportunity. Therefore, we Christians in the era of COVID-19 must be reborn as free men who defend the truth of the Gospel and voluntarily practice love. You will have to deny yourself in the hope of the resurrection, take up the cross of love that you have to endure here and now, and live by obeying the teachings of the Lord.

Dear brothers and sisters, the nature of our faith does not change in the era of COVID-19. Although many changes will occur to the circumstances and conditions of our outward life, our faith must start from what God expects of us and blossom as obedience to what Jesus teaches us. “Ad Fontes” is a Latin term that was often quoted when putting out the old days of the Middle Ages and developing the Church Reform Movement. This phrase has the meaning of "let's go back to the source." The theme of our university church retreat, which was held a while ago, was “Back to the Basic.” It means "let's go back to the basics", which can be said to be in the same context as "Ad Fontes."

Now, facing the era of COVID-19, we must try to return from me to the “word of God,” the source of truth, starting with love, which is the basis of faith from me. You must have the UBUNTU spirit of "I exist because of you, you exist because of me, without you I do not exist, without me you do not exist." Also, because you and I constitute one whole life, you must spread the consciousness that your life must be complete even in order for my life to be complete, and that my life must be made complete even in order for your life to be complete.

And we must not commit the foolishness of denying the community that includes ourselves because of our selfishness, but take the lead in establishing a community of love for the abundant life of all of us. Do not expect someone to return to the basics like this, and make an active decision to put it into practice first. In the name of the living Jesus Christ, we sincerely pray that we all become true Christians living healthy in the age of COVID-19. Amen.

Let us pray in silence meditating on the world of God