If there’s one thing the COVID-19 pandemic has confronted us with it’s death. Over 200,000 people worldwide have died so far. But if you check the statistics, nearly that many people die EVERY DAY worldwide from all kinds of causes. Is it morbid to quip, “The death rate for humans is 100%”? I don’t think so. I think it’s a sobering reality. Romans 5:12 tells me that sin entered into the world through Adam and death came through his sin so that death spread through all people and afflicts all people because everyone has sinned. Psalm 116 tells the story of someone surrounded by the dangers of death and its distressful anguish (3). When faced with such danger, what did he do? He “called on the name of the LORD” (4). IOW, he prayed, “Deliver my soul” from death’s threat that gripped him so intensely. What was God’s response? He heard his “pleas for mercy” and answered his prayers (1-2). That’s why this poet loved Yahweh. He found Yahweh to be “gracious,” “righteous,” and “merciful” (5). He experienced God’s preservation and salvation from such anguish (6). He found rest for his soul, as Yahweh dealt bountifully with him (7). God literally delivered this man from death so he could continue to live (8-9). What was his secret? What motivated his prayers for deliverance? He BELIEVED, even when he said he was “greatly afflicted” (10). I ask myself today whether I have that same “spirit of faith” (2 Corinthians 4:13). When faced with the inevitability of death and the possibility of it happening today, do I understand and believe that for God’s servant-saints death is “precious in the sight of the LORD” (15)? Indeed I do! Because of God’s mercy and grace, I, too, have been loosed from the fear of death (16). I have drunk from the cup of salvation (13) and give God thanks and call on his name in grateful prayer and praise for such deliverance from death’s grip (17). I am not ashamed to declare my faith and confidence in God publicly, like the psalmist (14, 18-19).
However, my faith is not what gives me confidence in the face of death but rather the object of that faith. My faith is in Jesus Christ, who took on human nature, real “flesh & blood,” so that “through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:14-15). It was “our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” that I, too, am not ashamed to proclaim (2 Timothy 1:10). This is why I, too, love the LORD and praise him every day. In light of the current pandemic, I also commend to my readers John Piper’s insightful booklet Coronavirus and Christ that can be downloaded free here: https://www.desiringgod.org/books/coronavirus-and-christ.
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