For three months, Pastor Jorge Grieve battled cancer. We did not understand why God would allow one of His faithful children, who had dedicated his whole life to His service, to suffer so much. But his death turned out to be more difficult than we thought. Even though we have the hope of the resurrection when Jesus comes again, the separation was still painful. Then our children grew up, graduated, married, and left our home. Although we knew that time would come, the separation was still painful for us.
We have all faced the sadness of separation and loss. COVID-19 has brought a cruel sense of separation to millions of people. It has altered the lives of families and forged a new set of priorities that affect all areas of public and private life. It has forced every one of us to experience the pain of separation.
The circumstances surrounding COVID-19 have only highlighted the fact that many were already suffering from loneliness and separation before the onset of the virus. The pandemic clearly shows that the separation humanity is experiencing is deeper than social estrangement. We need to return to God.
The Bible teaches us that because of sin, people are estranged from one another and from God. At Creation, God made everything perfect. He took clay, formed it, breathed into it, and man came to life (Genesis 2:7). He joined man and woman together (verse 22), made them one flesh, and placed them in the Garden of Eden (verses 15, 24).
But sin ruined God’s design and brought separation. When Adam and Eve sinned, separation became a painful reality for them and their descendants. Sin led to death, which is simply the separation between the body and the breath of life. Sin also brought separation between man and woman. Instead of behaving as one flesh, they blamed others for their sinful actions (Genesis 3:12, 13). Above all, sin alienated us from God. “Your iniquities have separated you from your God” (Isaiah 59:2).
Sin is more lethal and contagious than COVID-19, and it is entrenched in humanity’s moral DNA. “Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.” “Death reigned” (Romans 5:12, 14). Every descendant of Adam suffers from separation and will eventually die. But there is hope! God has provided the cure for this spiritual disease: “Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). Christ’s blood is the effective cure!
Praise God! A wonderful divine cure! Jesus broke down the wall of separation that isolated us from God. If we accept Him as our Savior, we will no longer suffer from separation.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . .
“. . . Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35, 38, 39).
The authors are directors and speakers for La Voz de la Esperanza.
