Most of us believe that this beautiful and amazing world was created by God through his Word. Whether, it is through evolution or any other process.
Creation points out to its Creator whom we call God. God spoke his Word and everything came into being. According to the Bible narrative in Genesis 1-3 God created man in a special way ‘unto his image and likeness’ as a Crown of his Creation. He established a loving relationship with him and entrusted the world to him in order to make it more habitable and more beautiful through the work of his hands.
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He spoke to the first man (Adam & Eve) and blessed them and commanded them to “increase and multiply” and subdue the world through the work of his hands and exercise his authority over the fishes in the water, the birds of the air and over the entire animal and vegetative kingdom.
But man broke his relationship with God through sin. He cut off himself from Him and in order to restore man to his beautiful original status the Word of God or rather God himself became man in the Person of Jesus Christ. He lived among man and spoke about the Kingdom of God which he had come to establishing this world based on the pillars of truth, justice and righteousness. The combination of all the three leads men to live in peace, love and joy, and thus attain his self fulfilment in the company of his fellow human beings.
God is concerned about man – The family of all the children of God constitute our human society. He wishes man to fulfil his destiny in loving relationship with himself and through the society he lives in. In order to attain this fulfilment in the society
He gave man a few commandments: “Honour your father & mother”; “You will not kill”; “You will not steal” etc, the end of which is good order and peace in the world. Baring the first three which are directly related to God, the seven others tell us how to relate to ourselves and others. They are written on our hearts/nature. They bind on every man and woman born on this world and somehow form part of every civil society and to some extent of every institutionalised religion. Violations of these God-given laws are punished through Criminal Procedure Code, even in case of unbelievers.
Modern society coming all the way through various stages of development as apartheid, racial discrimination in Africa, America and other countries has forged ahead with ‘globalisation’ making the world a global village.
Despite all the progress made, man is still selfish where the progress made by man is getting drawn into the narrow confines of super powers, G20, racial and religious discrimination (especially casteism in India) coupled with environmental destruction, making this world a little hell instead of a heaven on earth. Man, today, has forgotten the tenets of God’s Kingdom and become selfish, greedy, with least respect to God and man. He has gone too far in his pursuit of wealth, power and pride.
We have become supermen with our supermarkets, super highways, super bikes, super computers etc. We have become too smart with our smart phones, smart cities, and smart cars. With all our smartness and craftiness we have failed to recognise God in our fellowmen. This has led the world to its ecological and environmental imbalance due to sheer profiteering nature of our development. The often used and abused word “economic development” at the cost of ecology and environment has led the world to “economic disaster” which we are witnessing today with the “coronavirus”.
God spoke in the past through his prophets, calling the people of Israel to repentance. The prophet Amos chastised the rich making profits by doing injustice to the poor; finally He spoke through his own Son, Jesus. His own words are found in Mathew 4, 17 “Repent for the Kingdom of God is near”.
God has not ceased to speak to man after Jesus left this world. There were God sent prophets in our world throughout the centuries like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and a host of them to remind the world to change its ways and respect “God in human beings” and work for their human, spiritual and material development. Our world leaders have failed to listen to these God-sent prophets.
They closed their eyes and ears to their words of warning. The ‘World Climate Accord’ signed in Paris became a mere paper accord. The super powers continued with their pride. The courageous youth Greta Turnberg addressed the World Leaders in the United Nation General Assembly in September 2019 warning them of the catastrophic future lying ahead of the World. Many applauded her, a few depreciated her. Nothing serious and concrete turned out from the General Assembly.
The catastrophe came in the form of coronavirus to crown (corona) man’s abuse of nature, to remind the super powers of this world that there is a Super Super Power above them, that there is no need of any nuclear war heads nuclear submarines, nuclear bombs etc to assert their superiority over others, to threaten others with their super power. A small virus is enough to annihilate totally the super power and the humanity. Will we at least now listen to the Word of God and change our ways?
The Church during the season of Lent invited her members to introspect and look into the deviations of one’s own behaviour as a part of the society we are supposed to perfect with love, forgiveness, mutual concern and encouragement and thus fulfil the great aspirations for the Kingdom of God – namely Truth, Justice and Uprightness to be lived in and shared in society, so that every man, woman and child is respected and seen as an “Image of God”.
Good Friday recalled that Jesus came to restore this dignity through his suffering and death on the cross. The supreme sacrifice of his life accepted and crowned by the Father with His Resurrection which we will celebrate tomorrow.
