Confined in Montreal
By Ricardo Fortune
Like the rest of the nation, Quebecer’s lives have been on hold since the Covid-19 pandemic put the whole country on pause. I’d like to say our experience has been like everyone else’s, but I can’t, seeing that our capital city, Montreal, now boasts a higher death toll than any other Canadian city. My usually vibrant city feels deserted, a place where only desperation drives us to go out for groceries or walk the dog. As I write it has been 43 days of lock-down. You cannot find a traffic jam anywhere. No one is sitting in bars or restaurants talking about the NHL playoffs, and that, friends, is just not how it should be.
Our daily routine is “stay home and save lives.” Unless you are a nurse with a conscience. Then you go to work each day to fight the public’s callous indifference and your patients’ imminent deaths with inadequate equipment and totally inadequate compensation. Who would have thought even two months ago that our remaining nurses and other healthcare workers would be perceived as war heroes? They are our “guardian angels,” says Quebec Premier Francois Legault, agents of mercy who daily are sent into battle without masks or other proper equipment to protect themselves. Until this current crisis, the average nursing attendant made $14 per hour when working in the private sector. No wonder so many have decided to “stay home and save their own lives,” rather than risk losing everything for about $2 more than the minimum wage. Consequently, seniors’ long-term care centers have been hugely impacted. About 91% of the 1446 confirmed deaths (as of this writing) happened in the 70+ population bracket.
“If we Christians get discouraged, to whom will the world turn for hope?”
In the midst of chaos and confusion it is important for Christians in Quebec, and everywhere, to not lose sight of the blessed hope that is ours in Christ. We know that our “light momentary affliction” is small and brief when compared to the eternal glory that is to come, a glory “beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). If we Christians get discouraged, to whom will the world turn for hope? It is true that critics of Christianity are not making the crisis any easier for us to endure. I found numerous Facebook posts rejoicing that Christians had to stay home on Easter Sunday. The virus has made it easy to relate to the psalmist when he faced the scoffing of his enemies as they shouted their mocking question, “Where is your God? Is He also in confinement” (Ps. 42:3)? Liberal theologian and ardent critic of Christianity Dr. Jean Fils-Aimé even proclaimed the “death of God,” thinking perhaps his timely negativity would succeed where Nietzsche failed.
Critics like to take advantage of crises to try to undermine Christianity. Yet rarely do they admit any obligation to supply a positive defense for their position. They seem unwilling to admit that it is only because of the God who created us in His image are we willing to sacrifice an entire economy to save the lives of people we will never know. We almost universally acknowledge that a price tag cannot be put on a human life. That being the case I find myself asking the skeptics, “If life’s meaning does not come from Jesus, the eternal Son of God and Saviour of the world, then where do you find an alternative explanation for such widespread willingness to sacrifice for others?
“Just like us Christians, most skeptics continue against all logic to believe that even the weak have intrinsic worth. They remain blind to the paradox that without the God they deny, they cannot account for the significance they themselves grant to human life”
Skeptics love to argue that there is nothing special about human beings, that we are just another mammalian species with nothing to distinguish us from other lifeforms. They fail to notice the reality that stares them in the face. They cannot explain why even the skeptic prefers human life over his dog or bank account. They have no useful answer when asked why they get outraged at the number of seniors callously left to die in long-term care centers. After all, those seniors are the most vulnerable in our society, and since natural selection favors the survival of the fittest, should not their deaths be seen as the logical outcome long predicted by the Darwinian paradigm? But just like us Christians, most skeptics continue against all logic to believe that even the weak have intrinsic worth. They remain blind to the paradox that without the God they deny, they cannot account for the significance they themselves grant to human life.
So, where is God in this crisis? He is where He always has been, sitting on His throne in Heaven, still in control of His world. He is neither shaken nor surprised by current events. No one can say with certainty why He would let these things happen, especially when we consider that Christians are getting sick at the same rate as non-believers. As in every crisis the age-old question of the problem of evil has resurfaced. But that should not be. The Bible has never failed to provide satisfactory explanations. Nevertheless, national trials always cause people to ask where is our God? Space is lacking for a detailed response, but, in short, the Bible teaches plainly that the harsh realities of life, including the regular recurrence of pandemics and plague, stem from humankind’s rejection of God way back at the beginning.
This answer may seem cold and unfeeling to people who have lost loved ones or incomes in the current crisis. But I have not yet given the complete answer. The God whose justice met our rebellion in the Garden with a worldwide curse, also loved us so much he sent His Son to suffer and die to remove the curse. We do not have to die! Through faith in Jesus Christ we will live—forever! But there is one more thing to keep in mind. When you realize that God allowed even His own eternal Son to undergo suffering and death, that would constitute a sufficient reason for God to use pain to bring us to Himself, or to reveal to us the true sinfulness of sin. No one said it more beautifully than C. S. Lewis in his seminal work, The Problem of Pain: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Even if a lot of questions remain unanswered I take great comfort in knowing that the God I serve knows and understands suffering and has promised the world that He will someday bring it to an end.