We have seen how quickly a virus can spread throughout the world with person to person contact. People’s health and lives have been threatened. Meetings, events and entire sport seasons have been cancelled. Churches and many businesses have been closed. National and world economies have been shaken to the point of collapse. It has been life changing for most of us. But amid the suffering, confusion and panic there is good news and hope.
There is another epidemic that is starting to spread around the world through person to person contact. Instead of a life threatening virus, this one is life sustaining love. This epidemic is not new. It first began over two thousand years ago as word spread quickly of God’s love, mercy and grace in the form of Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection. That Good News spread like a wild fire that religious leaders and world rulers could not control or extinguish. It was world changing. Over the centuries, there have been times when this epidemic seemed to be under control or even beginning to die out; only to find revival with a new wave of God’s love spreading person to person once again. The world is beginning to experience the greatest revival of the viral love of God since creation.
This viral love of God is spread through personal testimony of what it has done in our life. It is also spread through our words and acts of kindness. (Kindness is simply love in action.) Mother Teresa once said, “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” The same can be said of kind acts.
A Christian friend on Face Book shared something that happened to her and her husband a few days ago. They had just finished grocery shopping and loading their purchases in the car when a man approached them. It was clear that he was very uncomfortable asking for help. He explained that the restaurant where he worked had been closed because of the virus and he needed help getting some food for him and his wife. Her husband asked what he needed and he said, “Just the basics”. Her husband went back into the store with him and they came out with three bags of groceries. She wrote about how proud she was as her husband gave him the food with just one request in return; when he and his wife are back on their feet that they would do the same for someone else in need. Echoes of love!
I pray that you and I are not spectators, but active carriers of God’s contagious love.