“The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside!’

     or, ‘I will be murdered in the streets!’”

 

For my family, the ‘sluggard’ has become the comic relief in the book of Proverbs.  This approach was first shown to me  by my Old Testament professor who enjoyed describing the sluggard’s inability to feed himself in Proverbs 19:24.  For this verse, my daughter took a turn at reading it in her most terrified voice.  We pictured him giving these excuses to be his justification as to why he shuts himself inside and refuses to work.

 

Today, we have COVID-19 and this lion is invisible.  It keeps many inside for fear of bringing it to susceptible loved ones.  For just like a lion, it often preys on the weak.  Though, unlike the sluggard whose ‘imaginary’ lion was a means to an end and was what kept him in bed, COVID-19 is a very real virus, and the fear is also very real.

 

I have spoken with people across the globe who are so afraid of the pandemic infecting loved ones that they have sealed themselves inside, and only leave when necessary.  Government restrictions, however oppressive, are nothing compared to their own self-inflicted ones.  The promise of the incoming vaccine is the only hope they hold onto for deliverance.

 

For my family, regarding our devotion time, we asked ourselves “Where is Jesus?”  We saw the lion as Caiaphas, the high-priest, and we saw Jesus being led to Pilate for his inevitable execution.  After being witness to the book of Proverbs and the teachings handed down for generations from Moses to Solomon that were originally from God, we saw the wave of religious fervor that fashioned the cup Jesus prayed to be spared from, Matthew 26:39, but it could be no other way.

 

Because of Adam and Eve’s original sin, Genesis 3, humankind’s approach to the Divine had to always be behind a covering.  The Law and the temple’s veil were both such coverings and were given to us because of sin.  It could be seen then that Jesus’ death was to free us from our desperate need for a covering, and was the price that needed to be paid for that freedom- the tearing of the temple’s veil.  

 

Jesus bravely went to the sluggard’s lion and was indeed ‘murdered in the streets’.  He paid that price to free us from fear.  Jesus is the only vaccine we will ever need.