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This week the United States surpassed a tragic milestone: Half a million people in this country have died from COVID-19 — a number that, while devastating, doesn’t even take into account the full human toll of the virus. While numbers of cases, deaths, and hospitalizations have begun to fall precipitously (for a variety of overlapping reasons) and nearly 50 million Americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine, this dark winter feels like a prolonged wilderness of grief and loss.
Since the pandemic began roughly a year ago, I have shed more tears than I have in my entire lifetime. Tears of grief for the loss of loved ones, including one of my mentors and beloved fraternity brothers Judge Horace Johnson. Tears of anguish over the widespread economic devastation and protracted hardships. Tears of righteous anger over deep denial and failures in leadership. As we mark this milestone of 500,000 COVID-19 deaths, it is important to explore how our nation and the church grieve such immense loss of life. We can’t, nor should we, simply move on. Individual and collective mourning is a critical part of how we process, how we remember, and how we heal. Further, collective grief can move us toward common purpose in this time marked by such profound division. For Christians, as we move through this season of Lent, it’s important not to become numb to the sheer scale of these numbers and lose sight of the reality that each death represents an individual person, loved by God and made in God’s image, who had parents and family and friends and whose loss has ripple effects across many lives. And on this side of eternity, each one of these beloved children of God has left behind a real void.
Churches are on the front lines of helping parishioners cope with the magnitude of this personal and collective tragedy, even as what church looks like has evolved in the past year. Now it is church’s role to offer a template for what collective lament and community look like amid a global pandemic. The milestone of 500,000 American lives cut tragically short reminds us of Lent’s importance in a nation and world undergoing so much pain. The journey between now and resurrection Sunday must inevitably go through a wilderness of grief.
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