“There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.” (Luke 21:11)

“There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.” (Luke 21:11)

In scripture, “pestilences” are contagious diseases, and more likely, epidemics that afflict a vast region of people – much like the pandemic we are experiencing now. Although we hate to admit it, man is at fault for all that is wrong with the world and this is the law of life we must live by outside of Paradise. 

Since man infected the world by sin the world has infected man with all sorts of viruses, microbes, and malignant bacteria. Thus, Leprosy, Plague, Cholera, Smallpox, Typhus, Malaria, Polio, Tuberculosis, Influenza, and HIV have ebbed and flowed upon humanity like the rise and fall of oceans – carrying away many and leaving behind fear, anxiety, pain, and loss; not to mention the knowledge that such epidemics are destined to return again and again over time.

Therefore, life outside of Paradise is not “life,” but a struggle for survival. Real life is found in Christ Who came to restore us to the “Life” that existed before the Fall. Not that man can ever escape disease and death in this world, “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. 3:19), but that in tasting that ultimate life-destroying disease (death), followers of Christ will be resurrected to a new and eternal Life in God’s Kingdom “where there is neither sickness, sighing, nor sorrow, but life everlasting!” 

Fr. John