I’d like to adapt an exhortation John Piper gave years ago about cancer and apply it to our current situation: don’t waste this pandemic. There are important and valuable lessons each of us can learn during this worldwide crisis.
I’ve been helped by Francis J. Grimké’s reflections on the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. Grimké was pastor of Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington D.C. during the outbreak. Between October 1918 and February 1919 Washington D.C. was ravaged by the Spanish influenza. An estimated 50,000 cases were reported. Approximately 3,000 D.C. residents died as a result of the flu. In early October city officials banned all public gatherings, including church services. The ban was lifted nearly four weeks later after health officers determined it was safe to reopen schools, theaters, and other public gathering places.
On November 3, 1918 Grimké preached a sermon to his congregation that was later published with the title “Some Reflections, Growing Out of the Recent Epidemic of Influenza that Afflicted Our City.” In the sermon Grimké reflects on several lessons that Christians ought to learn from the ordeal through which they had passed.
This article from Log College Press highlights a number of important points made by Grimké. I encourage you to read it and consider it prayerfully in light of today’s COVID-19 pandemic. If you’d like to read the entire sermon you can find it here.