Coronavirus and the fear of death
Jeremy Marshall writes: I know absolutely nothing well-nigh infectious diseases or how to stop Coronavirus. I accept no scientific or medical training.
But I do know quite a scrap about the fearfulness of dying. Seven years agone I felt fear when I was told I had cancer. Iv and a half years ago I felt intense, sickening, dizzying, overwhelming fear when I was told I had incurable cancer and probably had 18 months to alive. I have lived with that atrocious fear of dying and death since. Yes friends, I am agape of dying. Aren't we all?
What'south fear similar? Well, fright grew in me very of a sudden, a piffling similar manner that the threat of Coronavirus has grown. A small-scale cloud "the size of a man's hand" appears in the far altitude (1 Kings eighteen.44). It seems very small and insignificant. In my example this was a tiny lump on my ribs I found one day in the shower in 2012. In the example of Coronavirus information technology was a small news story about a strange disease in a place in Communist china none of us had ever heard of. And then, without much alert, suddenly in a few days the cloud has grown and darkened and fills the whole heaven, blotting out the lord's day, lowering over alee like some fell creature of prey. The tempest of fright is on us, fix to overwhelm usa.
Fear comes in many forms. It tin exist fear for ourselves or for our loved ones. Fright can be large or small, laughable or deadly. Fear of running out of toilet newspaper or fright of gasping for breath in a hospital corridor. Fearfulness is non wrong (and it is interesting that Jesus reproves his disciples for their lack of faith not for their fear). A small child has a "fearfulness deficit" which means they tin can run into a decorated route unless restrained by the parents hand.
But too much fearfulness tin can be equally problematic and fearfulness of death is a powerful emotion. What did fear of death expect like for me? In my book Beyond the Big C I describe it equally follows:
The railroad train of life is comfy…suddenly without warning at that place is a jolt…it is like being shoved into a parallel universe: once you are in it yous cant go dorsum…the Grim Reaper has joined the train and moved into your carriage and is sitting opposite you, regarding you with a cold eye.
What helped me deal with fear? Elementary. The presence of God. I have nothing to recommend about me and everything to recommend near someone else—someone who is available as the ultimate answer to fright to anyone who will inquire for help.
The all-time fashion to illustrate what this is like is in a story from the Bible which I found amazingly helpful in dealing with fearfulness.
That 24-hour interval when evening came, he (Jesus) said to his disciples, "Let united states go over to the other side." Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, only equally he was, in the gunkhole. There were too other boats with him.
A furious squall came upwards, and the waves bankrupt over the boat, and so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Instructor, don't you intendance if we drown?" He got upwardly, rebuked the air current and said to the waves, "Serenity! Be all the same!"
Then the wind died downwardly and it was completely calm.He said to his disciples, "Why are y'all so afraid? Exercise you lot still have no faith?" They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!" (Marker 4.35–41)
Jesus deliberately and with foreknowledge takes his disciples into fear and danger. He goes to sleep while a huge storm arises suddenly, out of nothing and threatens to sink the boat. Fearfulness tin ascend very suddenly as when the doctor said to me "I'yard sorry, but…"—or when we are on a crowded Tube train and someone starts coughing. The disciples are terrified that they are going to dice. Things are completely out of command. Water is pouring into the boat and they are sinking and they are drastic. Having exhausted all their homo efforts to go back in control, they ultimately also despair, for they finally doubt that fifty-fifty God cares. For united states of america in that location tin can be fear also just similar the disciples—who rudely say to Jesus "Don't you lot care if nosotros drown?"—and nosotros also in fear tin oft doubt God'due south graphic symbol or even his existence. But in fact God meets u.s.a. most of all in the storms of life when we have lost control and are afraid.
What tin can we exercise when we are agape? The respond to fear is this: to speak to God and seek to know him more and to seek to experience a much bigger fear, "the fear of the Lord". If we are afraid of something and then the arrival of something infinitely bigger drives out and makes us forget the first fear. Our problem is that nosotros come across one fear clearly enough—death—merely we don't see conspicuously the infinitely bigger God, whom we are told "will consume up death".
He volition swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe abroad the tears from all faces; he will remove his people'south disgrace from all the earth. The LORD has spoken. (Is 25.8)
When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O expiry, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" (ane Cor 15.54–55)
God invites us to fearfulness him, to be in awe of the fact that the Maker of the universe non merely knows united states but feels for the states.
Very comforting is that our Lord, Jesus, never asks united states to practise something he hasn't done himself or get through something he hasn't gone through. He is the trailblazer and we must follow him. In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus felt tremendous fear of decease. What he did with his fright shows united states what to practice with ours. He asked God for help and then must nosotros. We tread in his steps. Only his mode also diverges from ours. He was deserted by God and then that we will never be deserted. He lacked the presence of the Father: "My God my God why accept you forsaken me?" (Matt 27.46) so that we would never lack his presence.
Nearly of import for the states is that I am utterly convinced, if we however feebly nosotros but trust him, that Jesus is and will remain in your and my "boat." Sometimes our sense of his presence in our boat may be more or less powerful, just the reality of his sailing with the states, in one case he has boarded our vessel, doesn't alter i iota. Every bit the storm of life rages he may appear to be comatose, he may appear to be leaving us to our fears, simply in fact he is non. Never! Never!
Every bit we face our fears he gives u.s. help. He comforts us through his word. His word gives united states his presence, the personal feel of his reality. Hither is his promise:
From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of sky and globe. He volition non allow your foot to sideslip; your Protector will not sleep. Behold, the Protector of Israel will not slumber or sleep. The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is the shade on your right manus. The sun volition not strike you past day nor the moon by night. The LORD will guard you from all evil; He will preserve your soul.The LORD will spotter over your coming and going, both at present and forevermore. (Ps 121)
We might take accidents, our foot might slip and we often forget things. We might forget to wash our hands. Every day we sleep and pay no attention to anything during this time, for nosotros are oblivious. But happily God is not like us. He is not blow prone. He is watching over our comings and goings with fatherly and tender care "for the eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut 33.27). He promises the states that he will never carelessness u.s.a. in our boat for "I volition never leave you or abdicate you lot" (Deut 31.6, Heb xiii.five). He says "expect I am with you always" (Matt 28.20). His very name is Emmanuel which means of course "God with u.s." (Matt i.23). This is how we deal with fear: we take him in our boat and nosotros encounter where we are going. The story ends, does it not, with Jesus bringing the disciples to the other side? He volition do the same with united states. Eventually we will all dice and we might die next week of Coronavirus or we might live to 1 hundred years erstwhile and die peacefully in our bed. Nosotros do non know.
But, friends, with absolute certainty this we do know: that if Jesus is on our "gunkhole" then he will bring us all, fears and all, eventually to the other side, where we volition all encounter him confront to face. Then finally all fright volition end.
Beingness agape is normal. I'm afraid of illness and death. It's part of being homo. It's also part of being a Christian: God keeps over and over repeating this command to his children "Don't be agape" considering he precisely knows what we are like and he sympathises with our frailty and fears. "Begetter-like he tends and spares u.s./ well our feeble frame he knows". Amazingly, God in his give-and-take specifically promises to deliver us from our fear of death:
Since the children take flesh and claret, he (i.e. Jesus) besides shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of expiry—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of decease. (Heb 2.xiv–15)
For God not only tells us not to be afraid—he gives us the means to command (if not as we are man to wholly eliminate) our fears, for he gives us himself. He gives united states his presence because he loves us and by his perfect love he promises u.s.a. he will drive out our fearfulness. In this life this will always be a fractional driving out, every bit I know very well myself. What'south encouraging is that in the life to come fear and hurting and suffering and death (which is the ultimate fear) will themselves exist destroyed.
All that is fearful will one day exist utterly destroyed. Our storm wracked gunkhole (with the Lord of form yet in it) will at final glide into the encircling arms of the heavenly harbour, and then, finally, nosotros will know that we have come up aground, come domicile to our Father'due south house.
If anyone reading this thinks "I'd similar some of that: I'd like to know how to experience the presence of the God who drives out fear" and so delight contact me at [e-mail protected]
Jeremy Marshall was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in 2013. He was 49 years old, happily married with iii children. Afterward undergoing surgery and a grade of radiotherapy, Jeremy was declared cancer-free. Merely three years later he was diagnosed with cancer once more, this time in a different grade and was told it was incurable.
Across the Large C chronicles Jeremy's boggling human relationship with cancer and, more than than annihilation, his extraordinary human relationship with the person who promises life beyond the prognosis. The essence of Jeremy's story is that despite the sickness and illness present in the earth, a life lived in light of Christ's decease on the cross means at that place is hope for the future no matter what.
Jeremy Marshall is the former CEO of the UK'due south oldest individual bank, C. Hoare & Co. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2016.
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