Guest Post: Don't Forget to Repent

The Book of Common Prayer contains the following prayer, labelled as being appropriate, ‘In the time of any common Plague of Sickness’:

“O Almighty God, who in thy wrath didst send a plague upon thine own people in the wilderness, for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron; and also, in the time of king David, didst slay with the plague of pestilence threescore and ten thousand, and yet remembering thy mercy didst save the rest: Have pity upon us miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality; that like as thou didst then accept of an atonement, and didst command the destroying Angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

The incidents the prayer refers to are found in Numbers 16 and 2 Samuel 24 respectively. Now, in those biblical cases we know why God sent a plague: it was punishment for specific sins. We are able to know, in those cases, the ultimate cause of the plague because it has been revealed by God through the prophets. When we ask the ‘why?’ question of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic and of its grave effects in our nation, we don’t have the same ‘inside track.’ I’m not an infallibly inspired prophet whose pronouncements are guaranteed by the Holy Spirit, to be written down and believed by all people – and nor is anyone living. We cannot, therefore, presume to interpret this or any other major event with certitude and authority.

And yet the Bible does teach us enough to be able to (indeed, to ought to) pray the kind of prayer that the Prayer Book prescribes ‘in the time of any common Plague or Sickness’. The prayer acknowledges that God is in sovereign control of all things, plagues included: he alone, therefore, has the power to withdraw it – so we should ask him to. The prayer admits that God has sent a plague in the past upon his own people, so we should not interpret a plague afflicting us as evidence that God has forsaken us: he had not forsaken Israel when he sent a plague upon them. And the prayer confesses that we are sinners who deserve punishment. Note carefully, however, that nothing in the prayer assumes that we are being directly punished for sin by the plague: it does not make the argument, ‘God punished Israel for sin by a plague, we are suffering a plague, therefore God is punishing us for sin.’ Instead, it simply admits the undeniable fact that we are all ‘miserable sinners,’ who do deserve God’s anger and chastisement, while silent on the question of whether that is in fact what we are experiencing. In light of this, the prayer invokes God’s pity and mercy – rather than our deserving nature or the extent of our pain – as the reason why he might withdraw the sickness.

This prayer captures the lesson that Jesus gave in Luke 13. In that chatper, Jesus made mention of two recent tragedies: Pilate’s wanton slaughter of some Galilean Jews, and the collapse of a tower in Siloam which killed 18 inhabitants or bystanders. About each incident he asked the rhetorical question, ‘Do you think the victims were more guilty than those who weren’t killed?’ (verses 2 and 4, paraphrased). He answered both questions emphatically: ‘I tell you, no!’ So that’s that then: we must never say that a victim of coronavirus (or, for that matter, of a car crash, earthquake, or any other disaster) ‘deserved it’ any more than you or I (who have been spared it) do. But that isn’t the last thing Jesus said on the matter. Twice he drew from the tragedies this implication: ‘But unless you repent, you too will all perish.’ In other words, while a tragedy is not related to sin and guilt by a one-to-one cause-and-effect correlation, the fact of such tragedies should be occasion to remind us of our state: we are ‘miserable sinners’ who deserve God’s wrath and judgment. Our only hope is in God’s sovereignty, pity, mercy, and goodness. The appropriate spiritual response to a ‘plague and grievous sickness,’ is always, therefore, humility and repentance.

As we respond to COVID-19, therefore, let’s do all those good things that society rightly lauds.

Let’s support one another practically.

Let’s continue to ‘stay home, protect the NHS, save lives.’

Let’s express our gratitude to the keyworkers we have previously taken for granted.

And as we pray, let’s ask for God to sustain the medical professionals, to grant wisdom to the government, breakthrough to the researchers, patience to the populace… but let’s also examine our hearts and lives by the light of Scripture, confess and feel sorrow over our sin, acknowledge our dependence upon God’s mercy, and turn back to him in humility and faith, seeking the strength of the Spirit to walk in his ways. In the midst of all our other reactions to the pandemic, let’s not forget to repent.

Tom Woolford is a curate and tutor in doctrine at the All Saints Centre for Mission and Ministry. He is a member of the council of Church Society, a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Young Priest Theologian's Network, and editor of a forthcoming book of essays by evangelical Anglicans for IVP.

Below are some resources that you may find helpful at this time, including John Stott's The Living Church which includes some helpful reflection on the riches of Anglicanism.