Several media pundits and commentators have compared the novel coronavirus outbreak with a catastrophic apocalypse, an end of times event not seen for a few generations. Since the initial outbreak, this globe-changing particle has spread rapidly throughout our interconnected world at a pace never seen before in human history. It has infected people of all ethnicities, with small, but present, regard for social status or individual notoriety. Hospitals all over the world have been overrun with patients, equipment needed to treat the sickest has dwindled rapidly, and body bags have been in high demand for many of the more advanced countries. At the time of this writing, as we all remain at home at this point several weeks into quarantine, with the end nowhere in sight, the feeling of societal catastrophe continues to set in, knowing that neighbors are dying, social isolation is the norm, and economic recession will likely greet us whenever the rates of infection have dwindled enough to allow us to return to our prior way of living. No wonder many have used the term apocalypse to describe our world in 2020.
While many people have been either out of work, furloughed, or working from home, I continued with my daily commute to the clinic. During this grim time, I couldn’t help but juxtapose what I would hear on the radio on that drive to work with what I saw all around the Alleghany County countryside. Spring had arrived. Skies were blue, the air crisp, leaf buds popping out of the ends of tree branches, and birds singing their ruach to the wind. Bees swarmed out ready to pollinate our flowers and grasses. Trees were actively sprouting new branches. Deer returned back up the mountain for the springtime migration. In this sense, the earth was cycling on annually as it has for time immemorial, not knowing that that humans are dealing with something that cycles every century.
Through all the chaos and heartbreaking stories of young and old getting sick from this virus, there are redemptive stories of what is happening to the earth since global lockdown went into place. The canals of Venice became suddenly clear, with fish visibly meandering through them without having to dodge gondolas. The globe was no longer physically oscillating, as it had been when human activity was at its peak. Pollution levels were drastically cut everywhere, with visibility at levels never seen by this generation throughout the most populous cities on Earth. Some animals were found venturing into human habitat, where fields and forests once occupied the space. Humanity’s detrimental footprint was, for the time being, quickly beginning to be filled in with the healing processes that push Nature back toward homeostasis. This sounds like the opposite of an apocalypse from Nature’s perspective. This is a renewal, a return of our environment to its prior functionally pure state. Our bodies have unimaginable means by which to heal themselves. The Earth does as well.
This picture of the earth returning to what it was brings up ideas of a return to New Creation, a revival from the apocalypse the earth found itself in. This obviously is not the first time an event like this has happened which lead to a renewal of the earth from the hands of people. Plagues, wars, any event that lowers the human population burden of the globe may end up creating an opportunity for a natural revival. It’s a cyclical phenomenon of destructive humans being removed in order to maintain some integrity of the order by which the world works. In the Hebrew Bible, the flood narrative is one of the earliest examples of this event. I cannot help but think the coronavirus has played a similar role, a natural result coming out of human indifference for the functionality of our planet as told by both the science of ecology, human physiology, and Genesis 1. The natural correction is this: by targeting the factor causing chaos, the natural order now has a chance to return itself to what it was meant to be, the glorified reflection of the creator being.
In the last posting, I wrote about the direct link between humans and coronavirus and the practices that led to the global infiltration. This perhaps could have been prevented if we were able to live according to the paradigm laid out in Genesis 1. We were not. So a natural cause-and-effect judgment has come, a judgment similar to what typically happens when years of poor health choices lead to chronic diseases. A similar story is outlined in the book of Revelation, in which the writer sees a series of images that represent the powers of the world that have risen prior to their great fall, namely Babylon in the guise of Rome, the modern worldly player of the time of the book’s writing. And the author John describes his lamentation of the fall of this beast, seemingly the opposite of what we would expect the attitude of the reader/writer to be, until we realize we are to put ourselves in John’s perspective, in the role of propping up Babylon. The destruction that is occurring is of that which we have built up in the world. The book Let Creation Rejoice by Jonathan Moo and Robert S. Smith gives a great guidance through this part of Revelation. The described “babylonian” world in Revelation 18 portrays a queen who enjoyed the goods from the merchants of the ends of the earth, things which many of us moderns enjoy currently which may not in itself be bad except that it comes at the cost of “the bodies and souls of human beings.” A human structure of the epitome of Good at the involuntary expense of others. It could be construed that Babylon may even have been built on the involuntary expense of creation, removed from its purpose to meet our desires. As I mentioned earlier, even the author John is mesmerized by our created order and laments at its fall. However, there is a way out of this fallen idol in which we dwell, as a voice from heaven calls people to “come out of her, so that you may not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues.”
What follows after the collapse of Babylon is the celebration from the “multitude in heaven…representatives of the created order” (Rev 19:1-4) for the reclamation of creation by God, with the time for “destroying those who destroy the earth.” This may be done with the created order wreaking the havoc that was asserted against itself. In time, what is left is found in Rev 21-22, a new heaven and earth, with the holy city coming out of heaven to earth, for God to live among the people in this new earth. God has made all things new, not all new things, an important distinction to tell us that his purpose is not to scrap the earth and have followers enter a new pie-in-the-sky heaven, but rather to reclaim this creation for what it was meant to be: a place for God and human to work and live together for industrious beauty. A reminder of this is the return of the Eden Tree of Life, from which the River of Life flows. The Eden tree is there to provide the fruit for humans and leaves to “heal the nations,” presumably from the disaster of their version of good and the aftermath from that. Curiously, the new city has descriptors of earthly valuables and the “splendor of the kings of the earth.” That seems contradictory with the description of Babylon, coated with merchant goods from around the world. However, in reflecting back to Genesis 2, humans were created to do something with creation, not merely sit around streaming online content. Creative human culture is a good thing and it is reflected in this image of the new Holy City. But when those things become idols, or are acquired at the expense and dignity of the created order, we are in Babylon, not New Creation.
Since coronavirus brought our world to a screeching halt, with suffering to an extent our generation has never seen, we have found nature in a state approaching, though not necessarily very close to, that which Eden would have represented. Rivers with visible life in them. New heavens free from smog and carbon particles. A world that was meant for us at the beginning of human history, perhaps a distant relative of what Revelation 21-22 is depicting. My observations of a healing natural order in the midst of this human crisis may sound crass from the perspective of our species, and it is. Many of us will die and have long-term sequelae from this viral beast. Out of all this, though, is some glimmer of hope. The hope of the Bible is that we may arrive at a point of this New Creation, where all things become new, functional in the way intended by God. This idea is a mirror image between the Ideal of Genesis and Revelation 21, with the new heaven and new earth replacing the old version which has been corrupted and is now gone. We were placed in the world, chose our own means by which to govern it, and created a mockery of our home. One way or another, this has continued on through millennia, with new generations finding new ways to wreak havoc. The results have been the raping of our world, mistreatment of the vulnerable among us, and a loss of our identity. We see this through the generations of characters in the Israeli history, until they are utterly conquered and distributed to various ruling peoples. Within this history lies the hope that someone can lead us out of this pattern, showing us what the rule of God looks like within us and our surroundings. If we could somehow follow this example of ruling with God, and revisit our vocation as described in Genesis 2:15-17, we may be able to mitigate things like our current plight from recurrence.
Another established relationship in this story is that between animals and humans. In Genesis 1:28, we are told to rule over the animals and subdue the earth. On initial reading, to us this seems like a green light to utilize all of creation as we see fit. Several critics have cited this as the reason the Western world has made a habit of using and abusing our planet: it is both permitted and demanded by our religious tradition. We seem to have a knack for, with the aid of modern technology, manipulating the earth to accommodate us and our desires, to the point of wreckage. The same may be said for the animals. If we need them to meet our nutritional needs by being a direct source of calories, so be it. That is why they are here.