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When Will They Ever Learn?
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
If you're old enough to remember the 1960s, you are probably familiar with Pete Seeger's song "When Will They Ever Learn?" It's a plaintive cry about the craziness and futility of life, love and war - "Where have all the young men gone? Gone to soldiers every one! When Will They Ever Learn? When Will They Ever Learn?"
We see repeated examples of this in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament: the Lord told Moses to make a covenant with the Israelites to forsake their idolatry, so they swore an oath that they will forsake idolatry and worship only the Lord... then in the very next chapter, they're back worshiping idols and sacrificing their babies to those false gods. A little later, the Lord revealed Himself to the young Samuel and said that the wicked sons of Eli the priest, Hophni and Phineas, would be killed because of their sins and their father Eli would die. This in fact came about. You would think that the new prophet Samuel would have learned a serious lesson from this and he would be careful to raise his own sons to obey the Lord. But Samuel's sons commited just about the same wicked acts as Eli's sons and came to a bitter death. When Will They Ever Learn?
A little later again, Saul is annointed by Samuel as king of Israel and is commanded to worship only the Lord and forsake idolatry and witchcraft, but he disobeys and comes to a bitter end. David replaces Saul as king but falls into the grave sins of adultery with Bathsheba, a non-Israelite woman, and murder of her husband Uriah. David sincerely repents and the Lord forgives him, but even though the guilt is removed, the baby he fathered by adultery dies. Then David tells his son Solomon to stay away from non-Israelite women and Solomon promises to obey, but when he becomes rich and famous, he marries dozens of foreign women. When Will They Ever Learn?
The stories of the kings of Israel and Judah who came along after Solomon are more often than not the same sad tales of sexual sins and idolatry (these two evils are intrinsically linked together). Then along would come a king like Asa; "Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father. He put away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made" (1 Kings 15:11-12). The Lord would restore the prosperity and security for the short time these good kings reigned, but when their descendants fell into sin and ruined the economy, foreign enemies would invade and conquer, carrying the Israelites off into captivity.
When we come into the New Testament times, we frequently find the same cycle of sin and punishment, repentance and restoration. We've just celebrated Easter, Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, when with great braggadocio Peter declared that even unto death he would never deny Christ. Then right afterward, he denied Christ three times! Judas also pretended to be a loyal follower of Christ while secretly stealing money and finally selling out Christ for thirty silver coins, betraying Him with a kiss. Peter repented and was restored, but Judas only felt sorry for himself without repenting... and was driven to suicide.
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In all of these stories, the Bible doesn't gloss over human frailties and sinfulness. It doesn't paint a "happy-clappy, hugsy-wugsy, glory-hallelujah" false picture of humanity that you likely have seen in many modern churches or in lots of the superficially-Christian social media memes. The Bible tells it like it is: sin has its consequences, even if we repent. The sins of the fathers are often passed on by example to their children or grandchildren. Perhaps one generation repents and straightens out, but then the next generation goes to "Helena Handbasket" (that's the name of the restaurant my wife and I have thought about opening out in Montana).
For the past few months, the whole world has experienced the Wuhan Virus pandemic spreading from one city in China to the whole country and from there all over the globe. It is an especially nasty bug that spreads easily through the air and silently infects people for up to two weeks before they show any symptoms, so meanwhile, they spread the virus to other people by shaking hands, touching doorknobs, sneezing, or simply breathing near them. The rate of spread was about 1-to-2.5 which caused the virus to spread exponentially.
We're finally learning that it has infected far more people than those going to hospitals or doctors with serious symptoms: 1 in 5 New Yorkers are now estimated to have antibodies to the Wuhan Virus. This means that the fatality rate is less than 1%, which is far less than the SARS or MERS epidemics of recent years. Social distancing and wearing face masks should and will continue for a few more months until the rate of spread drops down below 1-to-1, which means it will soon die out as more and more people develop antibodies to this virus: "herd immunity."
Was the shutdown of the world economy necessary? The whole world didn't shut down for the far more fatal SARS or MERS epidemics, we just took precautions. Sweden chose not to shut down its economy at this time, and the Swedish economy is thriving although their mortality rate from this virus is slightly higher than in nearby Nordic countries. When Will We Ever Learn? Will Sweden get bit with this bad bug in the winter, or will we? Will some people continue to flaunt their disregard for others' safety by not wearing face masks or keeping their social distance? Britain's P.M. kept on shaking hands... and got bit by the bug. I've seen people on the streets and in front of the grocery store hug each other - that's hardly keeping social distance! When Will They Ever Learn?
Perhaps most importantly of all, when will we learn to stop finger-pointing at "them" ...the "other"... "those Chinese" or "those New Yorkers"? We're just beginning to learn that not only was a virology lab in Wuhan involved in artificially developing recombinant viruses from bats - see How COVID-19 may have been deliberately engineered in a China biolab, but that our very own U.S. National Institute of Health was funding that same recombinant bat virus research at that same virology lab in Wuhan - listen to minutes 10 to 15 of this podcast: https://podbay.fm/podcast/1495601614/e/1587163440.
It's time to take responsibility for our own actions: we must not shift the blame onto our ancestors or shift the burden onto our children and grandchildren by issuing trillions of light-weight digital dollars in debt that they will have to pay. We need to stop finger-pointing, and instead say - "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" We need to get back to work while taking appropriate precautions. We need to allow drive-up churches to serve communion just like drive-up restaurants can serve food. Which is more "essential" - our temporal physical existence or our eternal spiritual existence? When Will We Ever Learn?
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!
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I'm not the first to come up with the phrase "Born to Die" - there's a popular music album by that name and a book by the title From the Womb to the Tomb - He Was Born to Die by Pamela Wright, the cover of which is shown here. The Nicene Creed, the Apostles' Creed, and many Protestant statements of faith all emphasize Jesus Christ's miraculous birth, His death on the Cross that amazingly coincided with a solar eclipse on that very day, and His Resurrection from the dead so that we can share in His transfigured and transforming life.