Last week, I had to go to the Post Office. Because I was sending an international parcel, I was directed to a table over to the side to fill out an online customs form, which would generate a QR code that I then had to show to the posties (what do you call a postal worker?) to scan.
I was informed this had been implemented a year ago. Due to covid, no doubt, as everything is these days, in some mysterious way. Covid is the Great Explainer of every upheaval in our lives. Is it part of an effort to soften us up to the idea of scanning QR codes for everything? Conspiracy theory? Who knows?
Anyway, the table was in front of the pharmacy (this Post Office is in a Shoppers Drug Mart). While I endured the frustration of trying to enter a Romanian address into Canada Post’s online form, I overheard the pharmacists fielding several desperate inquiries from terrified people trying to get their covid-19 booster shots. Apparently they were out, but they’d receive some again in the near future. In the meantime, the pharmacists assured people “their antibodies would last till then” and directed them to vaccination centres which still had some of the Magic Potion.
“It’s because the government put adults on hold to do the children,” the pharmacist explained. I got a chill of horror. “Don’t worry, we’ll get everyone eventually!” he cackled gleefully. I couldn’t believe my ears. The atmosphere of fear was palpable. I just wanted to get out of there.
A few days later, I sent a message to a distant friend to wish him a happy birthday. In the course of catching up, he revealed that he would like to do things such as go to the movies or a show, or to Florida for Bike Week, but everything seemed “too dangerous”. He can’t wait till covid “becomes endemic”. He’s fully vaccinated, of course, but like most, appears to not really believe his vaccines work.
It’s sad because BC (before covid) this friend was an extremely adventurous person who despite being paraplegic travelled widely and had a large circle of friends. Since covid, he seems to have gone into hiding in his home. At one point he was afraid to go to physiotherapy for a shoulder problem, and it doesn’t look like the fear is going to let up soon.
This mindset is very strange to me. Even when covid first hit the news, I wasn’t afraid of it, simply curious. I have had at most a bit of apprehension when I thought I may have caught it over how serious it might be.
This isn’t a new fear, it’s an old one brought to the forefront and amplified a thousand times by incessant government and media propaganda. It’s the fear of death. This is a fear as old as humanity, we’ve simply managed to stave it off in modernity by not thinking about it and distracting ourselves with a thousand entertainments.
Covid is by no means the only or worst mortal threat we have to fear. On average, 99.97 or thereabouts of those who catch it survive it. It’s a danger to the very elderly and very sick, who are in danger from just about everything, including the seasonal flu.
It’s simply that the never-ending panic porn of media and government messaging over the last two years has put it front and centre in people’s minds. Instead of a societal conspiracy to ignore death, which we’ve had over perhaps the last century or so, we have a concerted effort to amplify the perceived threat of it - and not all types of death, only the small risk of death from a respiratory virus. Surveys have shown that those who consume mainstream American media vastly overestimate the risks of dying of covid.
It might seem silly, but in reality it’s very serious. It has exposed the emptiness of our strategy of ignoring death and living as if it will never come for us. In the end, all it took was a shadow magnified on the wall to scare us out of all reason and cause us to stop living.
Past generations with robust hope in God endured far greater threats and lived with the ever-present reality of death. We decided that with our advanced medical care and antibiotics and vaccines and societal ignoring of death that we’d overcome it, or at least that a long and healthy life was virtually guaranteed us and that we’d put off thinking about our end till much later. Because we were basically immortal, we could forget about God entirely. Covid has exposed the brittleness and fragility of that strategy.
How much better it is to live with the confidence of having eternal life guaranteed by faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that comes down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6:47-51)
As I witness the terror all around me of people with no hope, such that the miniscule threat of covid has them cowering in fear, I feel sorry. And deeply thankful that I don’t have to fear death. For me, death will be a release into true life, life that never ends, life with Jesus.
Since therefore the children [humanity] share in flesh and blood, he himself [Jesus] likewise partook of the same things [became human], that through death [on the cross] he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. (Hebrews 2:14-15)
This Christmas season, we remember the fact that Jesus, the eternal Son of God, took on human flesh and blood as a baby in order to one day by dying destroy the devil and death forever, for those who believe in him. This Christmas you can receive the gift of eternal life through him and lose the fear of death forever, whether from covid or anything else. Sound good? It sure does to me.
The church has been corrupted by this mass formation. Here in the UK, the Archbishop of Canterbury is telling us to love our neighbours by getting a covid jab 😒 https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-vaccine-refusal-a-matter-for-Justin-Welby