Responding to the Swine Flu: Fear or Faith?

20090501_page1As I’ve kept an eye on the increasingly bad news about the Swine Flu (you can watch it spread in real-time on a Google map here), my thoughts have been mostly about self-protection: “How much food do we have stored up? How can we get our hands on some surgical masks? What if we have to fend off hordes of flu-infected zombies… will a pneumatic nail gun be enough?”

So different from the way Christ-followers have responded to times like these in the past.

Just one example: In 260 AD a raging epidemic spread across the Roman Empire, killing a quarter of the population. Most people desperately did whatever they could to save themselves, throwing their diseased spouses, little kids, and elderly parents out into the road before they were even dead.

But here’s what the Christians in Alexandria did, according to the bishop of the church:

The most of our brethren were unsparing in their exceeding love and brotherly kindness. They held fast to each other and visited the sick fearlessly, and ministered to them continually, serving them in Christ. And they died with them most joyfully, taking the affliction of others, and drawing the sickness from their neighbors to themselves and willingly receiving their pains. And many who cared for the sick and gave strength to others died themselves having transferred to themselves their death. (Dionysius, quoted in Eusebius’ Church History)

These Christians sacrificed their own lives to save the lives of friends and neighbors whose own families had abandoned them. What could cause them to be so counter-culturally compassionate? Maybe they were simply responding to the clear instruction of Christ:

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me… Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. (Matthew 25:35-40)