Lent: Faith in Uncertainty

We are all familiar with Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam where the man dares to reach toward the extended finger of God. Michelangelo freezes the frame with just a tiny space between the two fingers making us wonder at the eternity that exists in the space between the fingers. Is there any analogy more appropriate for the space between last Friday and now? As the pathogen known as COVID-19 reshapes the entire world – halting the world economic engine, stretching and breaking national healthcare systems, and altering and ending human life at catastrophic rates – we sit in relative uncertainty of what the world will look like tomorrow let alone what it will look like when this finally ends.

Speaking for myself, my chest hurts from the anxiety of adjusting to new life at home, worrying about every trip I make into public space, figuring out what daycare looks like, and trying not to think of the economic impact this will have as it draws on. This past week has been the most stressful week of my life in recent memory. Beyond my own circle, there are many worse than I am – they have no job or maybe they are one of the currently 200,000+ people who are sick with the virus. In weeks like this, the only certainty is that the worst is yet to come. Every good outlook is beyond our vision. As we float aimlessly through the open ocean with nothing but a piece of driftwood holding us above the surface, we can only hope that the next wave that breaks on us doesn’t drown us.

I had planned to write about uncertainty and faith prior to the world crisis, but I was going to focus on the modern obsession with certainty. Human certainty is elusive – we could always raise some philosophical question to cast doubt on anything we hold certain. We live in a world where morality is relative, scientific consensus on many issues shifts regularly (as it should), God is basically unknowable, and we can’t even know for sure if our senses are geared towards discovering truth or just tell us what it takes to survive another day. Yet, most of us act each day as if there are certain laws in the universe that govern what we do. We do without knowing but not merely as a matter of pragmatism. We believe that there is good and bad. We believe in gravity. We trust our senses enough to act according to what we perceive.  I think we do this because there are laws built into the universe that we recognize almost by instinct that causes humanity to act this way. I think we’re designed this way.

Christians are not immune to uncertainty. Every believer goes through the wilderness of doubt with some regularity. Abraham had Hagar. Moses had stammering lips. David had Bathsheeba. Thomas, disciple known for his doubt, refused to believe his friend’s witness of the resurrected Jesus. When Jesus appeared to Thomas, he rebuked him for his idolization of certainty: “blessed are those who don’t see and believe.” Faith never completely squelches doubt until it is made sight.

COVID-19 introduces a different kind of doubt. The things we thought we controlled slipped beyond grasp in only a couple days. We don’t know when we will be safe. We don’t will happen to our money. We don’t know when this will end. We don’t know what normal will look like when this is over. Uncertainty is our horizon. Jesus teaches us that none of the “guarantees” of this present life are worth our worry. We can’t change anything by worry. The security that we gain in this world is limited to this world and is vulnerable to all invisible threat. The security Jesus offers through faith is eternally protected, and our Father knows what we need (better than we do).

In Lenten season, we choose to fast earthly pleasures in order to relate to Christ who gave up everything when he came to earth. The current crisis brings Christ’s willing deprivation into sharper focus and brings us westerners who don’t often struggle with uncertainty of material well-being into closer relationship with many Christians presently and historically who experienced regular deprivation. Many of them are persecuted. Many of them are ostracized. Many of them are destitute. They all, however, share a common faith that God holds onto them. We can learn from them. This world is fleeting, but God doesn’t change. As we continue to worry over this global crisis, certainty eludes us, but faith doesn’t depend on our certainty. Our faith depends on our Father who gladly supplies it. Our faith doesn’t have to be big; it just has to be present. And faith is present because God is present. Michelangelo’s God – a finger outstretched without touching man – is not our God. He holds us. Though we worry and doubt, he is bigger than both. The world will almost certainly be different after this crisis, but God will not be. He is our guarantee. So let us with feeble faith trust him.