As I write this letter to you, over 500,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19. That number just takes your breath away, doesn’t it, as if two-thirds of the population of Seattle was lost in a year. While confirmed cases and deaths have been decreasing in much of the country since mid-January, it still boggles our minds that we’ve reached this grim milestone in one year.
500,000 is a hard number to wrap our heads around. Many national tragedies we saw unfold over the past 60 years had losses of life that were much smaller. 1 person in Dallas in 1963. 7 people on the Challenger in 1986. 13 people at Columbine High School in 1999. 57 people at Mount St. Helens in 1980. Those were tragic moments captured on camera or live reported, and they felt so, so close.
Numbers feel different depending on how closely we are connected to a tragedy. If we didn’t know anyone in Virginia or New York, the 2,977 dead on September 11th, almost twenty years ago, may not take our breath away as much as 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook just 8 years ago, or 9 African Americans at a church in Charleston almost 6 years ago. Or even the neighbor or coworker lost to gun violence whose name didn’t make national news.
But with 500,000 people, most everyone knows someone who has died from COVID-19. Our own church knows that this number includes a few names from our membership, and likely more from complications or losses of quality of life that can’t be directly linked. The number means something to us now, because we have names and faces that we include in that number.
This Lent, let us bring to mind those names and faces as we face our own mortality through reflecting on Jesus’ last weeks before his execution by the political and religious leaders of the day. Let us not forget that Jesus was sent to die by a crowd of ordinary people, who when offered Jesus’ freedom, chose to save the leader of a violent insurrection (Barabbas) instead. It will feel different to read Scriptures about death this year because we have been living with death as a companion for a year. Those of you caring for loved ones in the final months or years of their lives already know this vividly. And yet we have faith that God is alongside us, knows our names like God knows the hairs on our head (Luke 12:7), and no number is too big for God to care and to carry.
My prayer is that we continue to meditate on scripture, while also heeding Public Health guidelines, as we attend to communal health and wholeness even after a year of disconnection and isolation. Death is a part of life, but we are people of the resurrection, both in the present, and the future. We are only a screen-width apart this Lent and Easter, and we prayer to soon see one another face to face.
Blessings and see you Sunday, ~ Pastor Jeremy
You are invited to join us for a COVID-19 Anniversary & Memorial Service
March 1 at 7pm
March 1st was our last in-person worship service of 2020 as Seattle became the first municipality in the nation to encourage closed church buildings. We’ve had a year connected online and on our phones, but physically apart. We will ponder the ~500,000 lives lost to COVID-19, including some in our extended community and families. We will remember those who have died in our congregation whose lives we haven’t had the opportunity to celebrate yet. And we will remember together the assurance of God’s presence, even amidst grief and and isolation. Note: This is a live-streamed service on Zoom, and registration is required.
