Corona Virus – Theological Perspective

Corona Virus  –  Theological Perspective

Annual Essay by H. Isaac

27^th May 2020, Chennai

1. Introduction

COrona VIrus Disease-19 (COVID-19) popularly known as Corona virus is a strange and dangerous virus which paused the happenings of 2020 in the whole world.  All of a sudden the world which we live changes drastically. Work from home, online services and online classes becomes common with people wearing masks, cloves and cleaning their hands with sanitizers becomes mandatory. Social distancing is the new term that is used during this severe pandemic COVID-19 which is threatening the lives of many all over the world. Measures and ideas of social distancing have been strictly practiced to prevent the spread of COVID-19 through community. A microscopic virus threatens our Life in this post modern world which has powerful weapons and high sophisticated technology.   It also makes people to raise various questions like, How did this virus emerge? What is the role of Government/Sarkar in this pandemic? What we should do now? Where is God? and so on. Here, we are going to look into a biblical passage (John-4:7-10, 19-20) and ponder upon those words in this chaotic context.

2. Biblical Passage : John-4:7-10, 19-20

7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”               8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)[a] 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you[a] say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”

2.1. The Bruised and Bleeding Pharisees

In these verses we see a Jew is talking to a Samaritan. Knowing the fact of their history of rivalry of more than 400 years, and here this Samaritan is a woman; even the Samaritan woman is surprised because Jesus is a Jew and a teacher. In the Jewish context Rabbi would not greet woman in public nor would he even speak to his own wife and daughter in public. Some Rabbis were called “The bruised and bleeding Pharisees” because they close their eyes when they sees woman in the streets and so walk to walls and house. Hence for a Rabbi to speak in public was the end of his reputation and here Jesus is speaking to a woman, a Samaritan, a woman of immoral character.

2.2. Taking the Word literally

We see the Verse 10- This conversation follows the same pattern as the conversation with Nicodemus. The woman took the word literally, when Jesus told her about the living water because in that context of Jews living water was the running water, the water of the running streams. And the Samaritan woman who was fetching water in the well was not even a spring well but a well into which water have been percolated from the subsoil. So the woman is asking, are you going to give me pure stream water? Where will you get it in this dry land (Desert).

2.3. Mocking Jesus

In verse 11 we see the women is taking the conversation in her own way, feels like she is taking Jesus as someone who is not in a very normal state of mind. On seeing that Jesus don’t have anything to fetch water with, she comment, the well is deep and you don’t even have a bucket to get the water from the well? And here see that she is trying to mock Jesus.

2.4. Failed to understand

And then in Verse 12 – She goes on to say Jacob our great ancestor, when he came to this land he dug this well and for generation, drank and took water for his family and cattle and till then we are being benefitting. Who are you to speak such foolishness? This is blasphemous talk to our great ancestor Jacob. Now she is taking it as an insult to her ancestor Jacob, hence we can feel the emotions of the woman getting annoyed and there she asked are you greater than our Father Jacob? As the woman failed to understand what Jesus is telling her, He took another step in the conversation. But the woman chooses to understand almost the crude literalism. But it was something, which was not to be misunderstood, because in the context of Jews, they also have another way of using the word water.

2.5. Living Water

            They often spoke of the thirst of the soul for God and often spoke of quenching that thirst with living water. It was a word which anyone with little spiritual insight will understand. Because all Jewish pictorial religious language was full of this idea of the thirst of the soul which could be quenched only with the living water that was the gift. We can see some of the Bible verses from the Old Testament that has this theme. (Isaiah 12:3; with joy you will draw water from the well of salvation.  Psalms 42:1; Isaiah 44:3, For I will pour water on the thirsty land,  and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,    and my blessing on your descendants.) However she choose to take it that way, and so in Verse13 -15 – When Jesus said to her whoever drinks of this well will thirst again but whoever drinks of the water I give will thirst no more.  The woman again missed the mark, of what Jesus was trying to tell her. As we see that she is taking Jesus as a crazy guy, someone who is mentally abnormal. She speaks with jest and in an insulting way, making fun of Him saying, “Give me this water, so that I will never be thirsty again and will not have to walk to the well day after day”.

2.6. Realizing the Reality

Jesus was compelled to take another step further in the conversation because, there are certain truths which a human being cannot accept but one must discover them for oneself. When she asked for the water that way Jesus asked her to go and bring her husband. The woman stiffened as if a sudden pain had caught her. She recalled about her life, as if hit by a sudden shock. She was awaken and as she had suddenly caught sight of herself and was forced to realized the life she was living.

3.  Revelation in Christianity can be understood in two ways.

3.1.  Revelation of God

3.2.  Revelation of oneself to self.

No human can ever really see oneself, until he/she see oneself in the presence of divine perfection of Christ. And when we awake to our self in His presence we wake up to the need of God in our hearts in humility. It was only in the presence of Christ she could realize who she was, and when she awoke to herself in the presence of Christ she woke to her need of God.

4. Fixing it in Today’s Context

4.1. Wake up call

Looking at this present scenario we can understand, how urgent it to wake up to ourselves in this chaotic situation. This pandemic in one way or the other have started to reveal our true identity of selfishness, and the spirit of exclusivist. Then where is it that we begin with our identity, to call ourselves as the children of God, when we try to keep away those people who are in need of us? God in the history had reveal Himself to the humanity, however the highest of God’s revelation was in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ reveals His will to the Humanity even today through the Holy Spirit. I believe until and unless we realize the revealed Christ to us, the second revelation is impossible.

4.2. Reflecting identity

By second revelation I mean revealing ourselves to ourselves. It happens only when we draw ourselves closer to Christ that we see His divine perfection and we cannot help ourselves but to realize who and how confused we are, as we reveal ourselves to self. In such a time like this we must constantly check ourselves, where do we stand with Christ? Is our identity in Christ reflected in our actions? Or do we need to realize ourselves more than ever before, in other words do we need to seek God more to know His will in us and His Church? If not, we would be ignorant and continue to mock God and God’s children, and even going to the extent of ill treating them and abusing them psychologically, emotionally, physically, and the philanthropic work done to them would be displayed in the chest of the Individuals, Organizations and Church as a MEDAL of HONOUR.

4. 3. With Spirit and Truth

When we look at the verse 20, we see that, she immediately asked Christ where do I find God? Where do I ought to worship? Is it, in the mountain or Jerusalem? But Jesus said, there is a time coming where you will not worship God in the mountain nor in Jerusalem but in Spirit and in Truth.

4.4. An Apostolic Witness

Elizabeth Schusller Fiorenza, a renowned theologian elucidates that  the theological argument from the mouth of the woman signifies the historical leadership women had opening up Jesus’ movement and community to non-Israelites. The woman is thus representative of an exemplary disciple: an apostolic witness. This reversal of social stigma and religion sponsored oppression of the Samaritan woman is a directive for us to unlearn and critically engage with scripture, ethics and science on every dominant ideology that is spread and shared in the name of glorifying and  propagating vice oppressive culture, religion and faith.

5. Conclusion

5.1. Christian Comfort

Anything that threatens the existence of life is the concern of a believer, and therefore, to participate, contribute, and extend any help in any form to emancipate the Children of God is the basic Christian vocation. Thinking through Christian hope in the face of the corona crisis is a very difficult task. I think that theology and the Church may and must keep their nerves in precisely this crisis. If the church no longer dares to expose itself to the accusation of empty promises, then she can no longer comfort others.

5.2. Christian Hope

When the power of human beings to keep and preserve life ends, God’s power does not. The Church also hopes “backward,” for Christian hope hopes against the timeline: It is a defiant hope that God, even in the face of Corona Crisis, will once again turn creatively to the countless victims who often remain nameless for us. The reason for this defiant hope lies in the promise that occurred in the Resurrection of the Crucified One.

5.3. Christian Vocation

To understand this Christian vocation, especially in the time of Corona one must stretch oneself to go beyond the mountains and the four walls of the Church, that Jesus Christ clearly address here in this verse. For which one must seek God in Spirit and in Truth to realize the true identity of Christ in us. The after math of which is the inevitable Christian Vocation.

So instead of asking, How did this virus emerge? What is the role of Government/Sarkar in this pandemic? What we should do now? Where is God? let us understand the reality, realize our identity and be prepared to face the real reality. The real challenge is ahead of us. Let us be prepared to face the Post-Pandemic situation as a Church, Society, family and individual.