‘Put us not to the test’

By RENATO TIBON.

“There is an appointed time for everything; a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them; a time to embrace and a time to be far from embraces.” – (Quotes from Ecclesiastes 3:1;5)

THIS too shall come to pass. Humanity has always been at the receiving end of nature’s wrath although, at a higher plane, the occurrence is understood as an essential dichotomy between purposes, one to renew and the other to extinguish, giving way for another rebirth in a never-ending cycle. This evolutionary dance is less understood in the context of a monotheistic religion where basically everything is thought to be willed by an immutable, stern Creator necessitating obedience and faith on the part of his subjects. Any virulent sickness, epidemic or natural catastrophe is seen as punishment for disloyalty and in appeasement, man must express genuine repentance and metanoia, a change of heart and attitude or risk his God’s wrath and eternal perdition.

As a Christian, I consciously desire to follow the Way, the Truth, and Life exemplified by a redeemer I came to know and love as Jesus, the healer, my saving God. It is not so much as fear of everlasting damnation that I choose to follow the Crucified Christ as it is love for a living God in whose name the Father Almighty reposed his divine authority so that followers like me, may have life and live it to the full.

This Jesus, the second person in a Triune God, taught, among the exhortations and commandments recorded in the Scriptures, to entreaty the Father to “put us not to the test but deliver us from evil”. In the face of the current widespread pandemic, afflicting no race in particular yet changing the way people behave towards one another, I pray as I struggle to pray for my family and others who have ears to hear, to put our trust in an all-knowing and benevolent God and seek deliverance and healing as in the days of the Passover when God’s wrath visited his people. As in many pestilences and disasters of the past, this too will soon come to pass at least in our own generation.

As the Book of Ecclesiastes succinctly puts it, “To everything, there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” To every worker and his toil, God “has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts, without men’s ever discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done”. It would be futility thus arguing with God the why and wherefore we are alive while others have gone to sleep, why others are mourning while we rejoice, why there is an appointed time to cast away stones and a time to gather them and build, why there’s a time to embrace and a time to be far from embraces.

In the biblical sense, to throw away stones and pebbles is to prepare and get a clearing so that the soil can be readied for planting. God must have found earth as we know it today to be so cluttered with sin, apathy and so much irrationality that He has to clear away the stones and intervene in the affairs of men sending the calamity upon calamities, disasters and tragedies with varying degrees just so we are jolted to our senses, come to know an Omniscient God and care for his creation. But no, these weren’t enough, so He allowed a pandemic to ravage His people and at the present rate that the coronavirus has spread on a global scale with no end in sight, mankind may have to fall on its knees, accept the futility of its ways and pray in earnest that God be merciful, relent and spare the people from destruction. This must be God’s way to allow us to know Him better, that the works of God might be displayed through healing and death albeit all conforming to His divine will. If we deem our souls to be possible vineyards and gardens, wherein may be grown the fruits of a good life, we must cast away every obstacle, clear away anything which stands in the way and hinders us from truly serving God.

There is a time to embrace and come to love our fellowmen as much as loving our own but the Good Book advises us, for now, to refrain getting close to anyone much less to express our love by embracing, even those we loved to arrest the spread of the virus now threatening our extinction. Social distancing is also a scriptural exhortation and it pays to heed the instructions and mandate from authorities who have the welfare of everyone in the community and the country as a whole in mind. Our prayers thus extend from asking God not to lead us to temptation, not to put as to the test, but especially of the test which would determine whether we have the dreaded virus or not.

May the good Lord spare us from the ultimate test that would separate us from Him.