Prophecy-believing Adventists were not blindsided by the coronavirus pandemic, nor by its suddenness and scope. That has been expected (Revelation 14:12—20).
Nor are we surprised that it is mounting by the moment, impossible to update fast enough, unhinging news anchors, rattling reporters, beset by bizarre solo cadenzas. Not surprising is the babel of speech with euphemistic revisions of frank, meaningful words like “quarantine.” Now it’s “shelter-in-place.” I’d call it house arrest. No surprise is the attendant burgeoning economic collapse, perhaps immune to all stimuli, of which there won’t be any more left at this rate.
So most believers were not surprised by this pandemic as a fulfillment of prophecy, but when it became a reality they could not but be appalled by the magnitude of the panic, its global scope, even the updated tinkling superstition as during the Bubonic plagues of the middle ages now seasoned with random haute scientific facts, and even the giddiness now setting in. And we expect more, and worse, sooner or later. This is but the overture.
We are not hearing a simple sonata, a divertissement, or a detached symphony movement. This is a swelling symphony of harshness. And this pandemic of panic is but the loud and noisy 1812 Overture, cannonades and fireworks and all.
There will be other movements of the symphony. The standard symphony has four to be endured. This current one may have Mahler’s six. Expect some movements to be full fortissimo and others soothing, cheerful, cheeky, even giddy. But the anvil chorus is coming.
Recalling all the terrible plagues throughout history that have come in with a bang but faded in a whimper, certain voices insist that this one will be no different. It too shall pass and we shall enjoy a time of lovely accord and prosperity such as never before. Let us hum a lullaby and rock the cradle softly; no, let us mutely cross our legs and oooommm a mantra.
But right now all is pandemonium. Compounding the decibels are the proud American sure-fix riffs, heard above the head-splitting babel and, even our excruciating tinnitus.
Against such a cacophony, most of the squirming first-nighters hear only the players going their own discordant ways without a conductor or even concert mistress, a meaningless sound like 300 instruments separately tuning up.
But our believing Adventist eyes are now wide open and we clearly discern our God directing what to our ears is clashing and atonal. He now taps the podium for attention, raises His baton and leads all of us into harmonious heavenly—if impossibly complex—music such as never mortal man has before heard. He doesn’t need a music stand for he composed the music. Never a Man conducteth like this Man.
Before all of this panic and pandemoniums, we weren’t hearing him. We paid no attention. We were too distracted to notice.
Some of us are still trying our best to maintain a comfortably distracted state, but wind up being simply giddy. Here’s the regular Sabbath morning LLU megachurch worship service, not live but virtual. Carrying on as normal, the beaming middle-aged lady, haloed by banks of overhead Klieg lights, is giving the Children’s homily—but no children. The pews are empty. The video cameras pan across eerily vacant pews. But the show must go on. So the all-male middle-aged pastoral staff lays itself about the carpeted steps to the rostrum, like expensively tailored pin-striped walruses.
This is no time for giddiness, not even as escapist mirth such as Bob Hope brought the troops in WWII. A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but this is not the time for merriment. To the world merriment is an end in itself, just before the end. “Eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.”
This is a crisis of the very kind that God, throughout history, has used, even brought, standing at the conductor’s podium, tapping to get our attention and trying yet again to teach us of Himself and pleading to us to return to Him.
As our boat is about to sink under great banging waves and we panic, He stirs in the back of the boat and softly says to the storm, “Peace, be still.” Only in the storm and panic does He calmly command, peace, be still, fear not.
It was in the night of Jacob’s panic over struggling with a powerful adversary that God touched Jacob’s hip, throwing it out of joint and opening his eyes to recognize God.
But this time is the finale. Look upward and see the small cloud no larger than a man’s hand, bringing us serious, sober joy, transcendent joy, joy such as the world, certainly not a confounded panicked world, can neither give nor take away Lo, this is our God. He will save us.
Dr. Kime was born in 1929, in Los Angeles, California.
Kime pursued dual careers in art (since childhood) and medicine (physician; specialties in internal medicine and pathology; clinical and academic). He studied the principles of art, chemistry of paint, and the works of master artists as assiduously as medicine. After retiring from pathology at Kettering Medical Center in 1994, Dr. Kime has concentrated on his art, producing portraits, seascapes and figural work mainly in oils, and urbanscapes predominantly in watercolor. Dr. Kime currently lives in Redlands, CA.
