Matthew 8:17, “…He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.
On the cross, Jesus bears the fullness of sin and its effects in the place of any and all who will hope in Him. This means not only that He bears His people’s sin and the hell it is due, but also that He bears the entirety of sin’s fallout….the brokenness, the sickness, the sorrow, the fear. Every fracture of sin in humanity is borne in the experience of the True Human—who is God—on the cross.
This includes, of course, the present pandemic. As the human race reels under the assault of COVID 19, a truth we can cling to is that our Lord and God—hanging as our representative on the cross—reeled under this same affliction, and bore it willingly in love for all who will ever be grafted into Him. YHWH God has not only known about and ordained this pandemic from all eternity, but—from all eternity—He Himself has borne it’s agonies in His own body and overcome them through His dying and rising love.
So, for any and all who will ever cling to the slain and risen Jesus by faith, we know where COVID 19 (and all the associated societal pressures) ends…it ends—as with ALL agonies—in the wounds of the Risen Christ…the wounds that proclaim not just sorrow overcome, but sorrow transfigured to joy….not just thorns burnt down, but thorns turned into flowering myrtles (Is.55:13).
In a sense, we do not know how this pandemic will develop. But in another sense—a truer sense, if such can be said—we have already seen its end. If the crucifixion is the embodiment of sin and its effects, then the resurrection (and the transfiguration the resurrection works on the crucifixion) reveals to us the sure outcome of sin and its effects—including the effect called “COVID 19”—throughout human history: the beauty of God manifest to the disbelieving joy of His children.
When Mary turns from the tomb toward her risen Lord and finds her weeping turned to laughter, she embodies the experience that stands at the end of every conceivable suffering for those who hope in Christ.
