Plague Journal (5)

Monday morning and the start of the "workweek."

Yesterday it felt like this enforced retreat, this physical distancing, was beginning to grate. A minor sense of tedium, the realization that this may grow gradually more wearisome as the days go by.

We go for walks each day when the weather permits. Many people are out and about, smiling and waving to one another. It actually feels like a friendlier time, a more neighborly time, than before this crisis began.

In truth I am less worried about the virus itself than I am about its economic reverberations. I don't even want to think about what's happened to my 401K. I feel pretty safe in my job, as does my wife, and I think my children will be fine, but you can only paper over your anxiety with goofy memes on Facebook for so long. The future suddenly seems less predictable, my normal optimism less reliable than ever before.

I continue to watch the numbers like a kid pouring over the baseball boxscores in the morning paper. I see for example that the number of deaths in the U.S. doubled in just 2 days, between the 20th and the 22nd. This is faster than the world pace, which has doubled over the past 5 days. What we have seen in China and South Korea, among other places, is a peak and then a decline in the number of cases reported daily and the number of deaths. We want to see that pattern here, both nationally and in hotspots like New York City.

In the meantime, we have the relatively minor frustration of waiting for a cable installation in our home, which was supposed to happen yesterday morning. This is necessary for work-from-home to be anything but a pleasing idyll of the mind.

I'll finish with this. When Jesus began his ministry in Galilee, his message was, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." People might not accept such an outlandish message from just anyone, but from Jesus it was believable, not least because along with this message Jesus was healing people by the thousands. That got folks to take notice, and to take his message seriously.

OK, Jesus, was about this kingdom? If what you say is true, how then should we respond?

Jesus' most comprehensive answer is in the Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5-7. It is an answer specifically for those who, having heard the startling message of a kingdom from this startling preacher in Galilee, believe him, repent of their sin, the lives they have been living, and look to the Teacher now for guidance going forward. This is the position of every believer in the Lord Jesus.

We have heard his message, we have sincerely repented, and now we sit at his feet on the hillside, eager for guidance.

That guidance applies in situations of prosperity and situations of dearth, in health and in sickness, when the wagon is steeped with grain from the harvest, and when we're down to our last meal. Jesus, savior, be my guide.