Leviathan’s COVID-19: Psalm 74, Global Pandemics, & Hope
I am deeply indebted to my friend James Ware for bringing this segue to my attention. We’ve had many conversations concerning the themes of this article. We’ve bonded over things like chaos monsters, the book of Job, Psalm 74, and much else. Much of the material present were inspired from one of his Facebook posts in light of our school’s campus closure and movement online and a term paper on Leviathan in Psalm 74 for one of his classes a couple years ago; that paper has been a gift not only for intellectual stimulation, but theological reflection in light of this global COVID-19 pandemic.
I must also mention Andrew Orr and Yu Yamada for seeing Godzilla: King of the Monsters in theaters with me and bringing me into the cinematic world of Godzilla. James Ware and I have also discussed the themes of Titans in comparison with chaos monsters.
I’m also indebted to my friend Jonah Steele for our discussions concerning the theological theme of chaoskampf (a theological term describing a deity’s battle against a chaos monster, usually a dragon or serpent, to bring order and harmony).
Lastly, I am using material from Dr. Steve Cone’s Systematic Theology class lecture on “Creation and Providence” below. I’m sure there have been more scholars, professors, and friends who have influenced my thoughts below that I couldn’t name exhaustively.
With the campus closure of my school, the forced distancing between me and many of my friends, and necessary, but agitating changes, I needed to write something to process COVID-19’s effects upon my life. I’ve learned how selfish I actually am with my ordered schedule and how powerless I am in light of such global and local catastrophes. On Thursday’s news, I felt something like grief due to the many implications and negative possibilities of my school’s closure. Of course, these thoughts are not done in hindsight and I’m still processing through the new realities my friends, family, and I must face because of these systemic precautions.
I apologize for the lengthiness of this article. This was an attempt to wrap my head around my aforementioned grief and processing this pandemic emotionally, personally, and theologically. At any rate, I hope it brings some sense of encouragement and hope even in these pressing moments.
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live in a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”
— H. P. Lovecraft, Call of Cthulhu, 417.
These words from the science fiction horror author H. P. Lovecraft speaks to much of the mood in the minds of many in light of COVID-19. We’re ignorant to what COVID-19’s symptoms actually are. The virus seems to be infinite in power, with ease to spread to every corner of this planet making no difference between celebrity or commoner, politician or taxpayer, rich or poor. Federal, state, and local governments have enforced policies closing schools, large gatherings, and restaurants. People can’t voyage far.
COVID-19 seems more fitting in the vein of the cosmic horror universe from H. P. Lovecraft than the ordered and beautiful cosmos of Genesis 1. For Lovecraft, he understood the world to be a place of great chaos, darkness, and destruction. Lovecraft’s cosmology describes the universe as God-less and indifferent. There is no purpose or telos for the universe or history. Lovecraft’s protagonists contain no sense of purpose or meaning as they wrestle with their meaninglessness. The different chaotic forces at work in the universe sees humanity with no difference than space dust or star matter. Yet, humanity is thrown into the chaos of a meaningless, mechanical, and uncaring cosmos in which people cannot understand.
With COVID-19’s effects onto our world, it does seem like the universe doesn’t have a telos or direction, other than chaos and extermination. It has made those suffering from the virus exiled to hospital beds or quarantine chambers. It has made many more of us exiled inside our own homes. It has forced college students to travel with whatever belongings they have back to a former homeland away from the friends, relationships, opportunities, jobs, and educations they had on their campuses. Many churches have had to make the hard choice of closing their doors and moving services online. We’ve become refugees in the very places we call home.
A powerful psalm for this time is Psalm 74. It’s a psalm written by Asaph — the grandson of the prophet Samuel and a worship leader for king David — or written by Temple singers in the tradition of Asaph. But it’s a psalm worth ruminating on during this time of viral exile. It’s a psalm all about exile.
The psalm sings about God taming waters and slaying water monsters. In the ancient Hebrew mind, water and water monsters symbolized the chaotic forces that rip and tear and hurt everything — from individuals to communities to the land itself.
The psalmist related the destruction of water and its great monsters to the Babylonian exile and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Yet, even amidst the destruction of chaotic waters and of the Holy City, the psalmist was bold enough to proclaim that God was still Lord.
O God, why do you cast us off forever?
Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?
Remember your congregation, which you acquired long ago,
which you redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage.
Remember Mount Zion, where you came to dwell.
Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;
the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary.Your foes have roared within your holy place;
they set up their emblems there.
At the upper entrance they hacked
the wooden trellis with axes.
And then, with hatchets and hammers,
they smashed all its carved work.
They set your sanctuary on fire;
they desecrated the dwelling place of your name,
bringing it to the ground.
They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”;
they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.— Psalm 74:1–8 NRSV
Though the Temple was burning, the psalmist was bold enough to proclaim that God is still Lord. Though the psalmist saw the destruction of everything belonging to God, he still cried out to God amidst the chaos of exile.
Today, we’re experiencing the thrashings of chaos monsters right now in our schools, communities, nation, and world. It has affected us on every level — from high demands of toilet paper and hand sanitizer all the way to friends and family needing to be quarantined and even to restaurants being forced to close eating in store.
When my school announced the campus closure, movement online, and sending all students back home, I experienced grief and mourning. What-if questions came about. Worries for friends and peers ran rampant. Stresses concerning my on-campus jobs went through my mind. Wondering about the next few months took over my imagination. I had to lament and cry out. I had to give my cares to God.
We do not see our emblems;
there is no longer any prophet,
and there is no one among us who knows how long.
How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
Why do you hold back your hand;
why do you keep your hand in your bosom?— Psalm 74:9–11 NRSV
This stanza of the psalm is so powerful. There’s no one in the world who knows how long these closures will be or how long the virus will stick around. Each day it seemingly spreads more and more — from bustling metros with tons of international connections now to rural areas with hermetic kindred.
We pray, “How long, O God, is this foe to scoff?” How long will this virus last? How long will the hysteria continue? How long will healing be withheld? How soon will governments respond? How long will the quarantine take?
COVID-19 is one of God’s foes. It is a blot upon God’s good and beloved creation. It’s one of ours too. It’s a collective, human foe that doesn’t factor in any human difference. It’s a unified enemy even amidst human enemies. This virus doesn’t show favor or distinction between one group of people or nation to another.
These questions and cries and groans resound in the book of Psalms. The power of Psalms is the expression of believers’ pains, worries, stresses, sins, and anxieties. God is able to handle any words or sighs we lift up to him.
Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.
— 1 Peter 5:7 NRSV
For this psalmist, in all the anxieties and pains of seeing Jerusalem destroyed and crying out to God for God’s deliverance, he was able to worship and be faithful to God during it all.
Yet God my King is from of old,
working salvation in the earth.— Psalm 74:12 NRSV
Jerusalem is destroyed and the Temple a mound of rubble, yet God my King…
The people and I are exiled from our homeland, yet God my King…
Our world has seemingly paused in its regular routines, yet God my King…
We are made refugees and exiles in our very homes, yet God my King…
We suffer a virus that’s destructive to the elderly and at risk, yet God my King…
Amidst it all, we are bold to proclaim: “Yet God my King is from old, / working salvation in the earth.”
The God of Genesis 1 is a God of order who subdues chaos into his creative design. The God of the cosmic temple of the universe brings order out of chaos. God slays the chaos monsters and maintains order even amidst the chaos. God is able to rise a remnant out of the ashes of a debris-filled Jerusalem.
God is able to subdue and kill the chaos monster — Leviathan. God is able to end COVID-19 and bring about his salvation upon his creation.
You divided the sea by your might;
you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.
You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.— Psalm 74:13–14 NRSV
This creature, Leviathan, is very mysterious. It’s mentioned in the Old Testament only a handful of times. Its largest tributes are from Psalm 74 and Job 41. Yet, its mystery and intrigue has brought much debate. Is it a crocodile? Is it a dinosaur? Is it a mythological creature? Is it something else?
The descriptions of Leviathan from the Bible find their home more in the world of mythological battles between gods and warriors slaying incredibly vociferous monsters. Leviathan, in this light, is far more ferocious and world-shaking than any Nile crocodile or Everglades alligator.
Leviathan doesn’t live in the natural world. It isn’t from heaven. Leviathan belongs more to the fettle of Lovecraftian cosmic octopus deities like Cthulhu.
Though Leviathan is not a material creature, its stirrings in this world are far more destructive than any bite of a crocodile or chomp of an alligator.
Leviathan is far more real than any swamp or river lizard. Indeed, Leviathan is real — very real. More real than any physical creature on earth. For those of us who don’t live in swampy regions, crocodiles are no threats to us. But Leviathan is the greatest threat to us no matter where we live.
Leviathan isn’t a creature trapped in creation. It causes constant chaos between the realms of the natural and supernatural. It’s stuck between the two and wants to rip them both apart. When the Leviathan lashes out, it causes both a physical and spiritual destruction to the earth and to humanity.
The lashes of Leviathan are very present in this world — natural disasters, diseases, famines, and viral outbreaks. There will always be outbreaks and plagues as bacteria and viruses evolve into new forms and strains that negatively impact humankind. Though we have been able to slay many viruses and diseases through history with the advancement of science and medicine, there will always be another that comes to wreak havoc.
Leviathan’s lashes are much like the heads of a hydra — cut one head off and two more rise in its place.
This image from Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) was harrowing for me as I watched it in the theater. King Ghidorah, the hydra, was able to subdue all other Titans awoken by human testing. King Ghidorah was even able to slay Godzilla, the only Titan who ostensibly protected earth and humanity. The world was now bent at the will of King Ghidorah. The only thing to expect was the end of human civilization.
But this image of King Ghidorah upon the volcano with the cross standing and facing the hydra shook me to my core as I watched the titanic carnage unfold on the movie screen. Yet the ultimate sacrifice stood defiant to cause the end of King Ghidorah. When the hydra thought he subdued all the Titans under its control and killed its only threat — Godzilla — that sacrifice turned out to be the death knell for King Ghidorah. Godzilla rose and conquered.
Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you established the luminaries and the sun.
You have fixed all the bounds of the earth;
you made summer and winter.— Psalm 74:16–17 NRSV
Amidst the chaos of Titans, chaos monsters, and viral outbreaks, God is still Creator — God is still the one who makes order and peace within his creation. God has established the universe in his sustenance and maintenance to bring his plan.
But why would God create a world that is partially ordered and partially chaotic? Why not just have a world with no disease or no destruction?
The Christian faith submits that God is in control of his creation. God never wills moral evil. He never tempts humans to sin. Moral evil is never born from the will of God — only human will and human pride. But God directly wills particular goods, like the order of creation and blessings he gives to the world. But God does allow for the world to be partially chaotic and he sometimes allows people to suffer the consequences of their own sins, either through the sinner’s own sufferings or by punishment of societal human law.
Yet, God uses this actions-have-consequences passivity to bring about his good will. We see stories of Joseph in Egypt and Daniel in Babylon. We read where Paul wrote:
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
— Romans 8:28 NRSV
God is able to bring beauty out of the tragedy, peace out of the pain, and good out of the evil. Amidst that hard tension to see in the eye of the storm, we must still trust in God’s faithfulness and God’s goodness through the other side of the storm.
Have regard for your covenant,
for the dark places of the land are full of the haunts of violence.
Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame;
let the poor and needy praise your name.
Rise up, O God, plead your cause;
remember how the impious scoff at you all day long.
Do not forget the clamor of your foes,
the uproar of your adversaries that goes up continually.— Psalm 74:20–23 NRSV
God, we pray, remember us. Remember the poor. Remember the sick. Remember the at risk. Remember the health care workers. Remember workers and teachers affected by closures of restaurants and schools. Remember the students. Remember the jobless.
The dark places of the land are full of the haunts of the violence of COVID-19 and its implications. It is our common enemy. It is a force of chaos. It is a chaotic evil.
COVID-19 is not a judgement from God. It makes no difference between believer or non-believer, righteous or wicked, friend or enemy. COVID-19 is not part of an extravagant end-times scenario bringing about a rapture of believers. COVID-19 is a stain upon the world brought about by the lashes of the chaotic Leviathan.
The Satan is often coupled with Leviathan. As I have studied the Old Testament, I never wanted to make the connection between this creature and the Satan. But thinking more on the issue, I think it’s a right comparison to make.
When the devil disguised as the serpent tempted Adam and Eve, he promised God-less freedom for the First Couple. Yet, this exchange of God-less freedom was a freedom into death. In this fall, it had led humanity into death and sin and fear.
The thrashes of Leviathan pushes humanity to fear and to sin and to death just as the Satan first did.
The problem with Leviathan and its chaos is that we make it our god and our lord. With Leviathan in such a haughty position, everything we do bends our way to its thrashes and trounces. We bend to its will rather than to overcome it with the spirit of power, love, and self-control. And yet fear does make a veritably powerful god.
But Leviathan is not Lord.
Leviathan is another creature, albeit a destructive one, under the reigns of God.
As God’s speech about it in Job 41 mightily described it:
On earth [Leviathan] has no equal,
a creature without fear.— Job 41:33 NRSV
Nothing can restrain it. Nothing can stop it. Nothing can match it in battle. Nothing can pierce its armor. Nothing can end its reign. Nothing can kill it.
But God can.
God is at work drawing everyone and the world to himself. He never wills for evil to occur, but he does will that evil will be overcome with good. When we experience the pains of Leviathan’s thrashes — in the forms of natural disasters to COVID-19 — God is working through it and against it to draw us back to him for us to find our truest and fullest healing.
When destruction comes or unfortunate moments happen, we cannot accuse victims of “who sinned” to warrant the suffering — themselves or their parents — like the disciples accused a blind man as they traveled.
Jesus subverted the expectations that the blind man’s blindness was a judgement from God because of someone’s sin. It wasn’t. Rather, it was for a greater moment of God’s glory.
Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”
— John 9:3 NRSV
In these moments of natural destruction like COVID-19, it is easy to fall prey to temptation and sin of hatred, division, fear, and despair. But we are not called to choose evil. We are called to choose good. For that is God’s will, even amidst our pressing circumstances.
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?— Micah 6:8 NRSV
These pandemic circumstances are not opportunities to waver in faith, hope, and love. They are opportunities to pray to God, see his faithfulness on display, see his work being done in the world, and participating in his salvific work for creation.
The beauty of the Church’s long history is that we know Christians who have come before us who have experienced similar circumstances in the world.
Julian of Norwich is one of those Christians. She lived between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. She experienced her share of pandemics and outbreaks at the age of eight when the Black Plague ravaged through her town of Norwich. She lived through the violence of the Peasants Revolt and the Lollard persecutions.
Alongside it all, she was known for her vibrant faith in God, visions of Christ, and writings on spirituality. Her works are the earliest English works that have survived in history.
Through her life, she had to deal with plagues, famines, revolts, persecutions, and personal sicknesses. Through all of those trials she was able to write and to pray:
“He said not ‘Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased’; but he said, ‘Thou shalt not be overcome.’”
We do not have to fear being overcome because Christ has overcome all fear, evil, sin, and death. For us who are baptized into his crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection, we no longer have fear of being overcome by anything.
This includes being infected by COVID-19, losing employment, or even death.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
— Romans 8:37–39 NRSV
We can rest that God will end all pain, wipe away all tears, tend to all injuries, heal all sicknesses, and bring order out of chaos.
The prophet Isaiah envisioned God conquering Leviathan:
On that day the Lord with his cruel and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea.
— Isaiah 27:1 NRSV
The present pains we experience should thrust us more into the heart of God as Holy Spirit transforms us and Christ Jesus perfects our faithfulness and faith to God. These present pains are opportunities to pray, worship, love, and sacrifice. These present pains are avenues for God’s transformation of our whole selves — heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Rest in these words from the apostle Paul. I think it’s worth quoting Paul here at length:
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
— Romans 8:18–25 NRSV
Much like Julian of Norwich, C. S. Lewis experienced similar circumstances of erratic changes in society that affected every corner of human civilization. Fighting in and experiencing two world wars and the development of nuclear weapons, Lewis reflected deeply on how a human must live in lieu of pandemics, nuclear warheads, and ever-evolving threats to humanity wholesale.
In 1948, Lewis wrote this excerpt entitled “On Living in an Atomic Age.” It’s worth quoting and meditating in its length:
“In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.’
“In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors — anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.
“This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things — praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts — not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”
For the greatest suffering and the greatest evil was committed to the body of the God-man, Jesus of Nazareth. The sufferings and groaning of his body was in tandem with the groaning of creation’s hopeful revelation of the children of God.
In the crucifixion was the worst evil done by man onto man and God. But the evils done to Jesus were allowed only insofar that it was for the greater good. God willed to overcome the evil of the crucifixion through the greatest good imaginable — sacrificial love.
In the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, God has revealed his very nature to us. It took God becoming part of his beloved, broken creation to be rejected by his beloved, broken creation for his beloved, broken creation to be redeemed. Seemingly backward and counter-intuitive, this “weakness” of God is the greatest form of love ever displayed.
We must rest in Lewis’s words that Leviathan — in any form it may come, viruses or natural disasters or atomic bombs — should find us doing the sensible, human things.
Of course, atom bombs can destroy human society very easily wherever one may fall. But with COVID-19, we do have a responsibility of stopping and slowing its spread. Let’s be responsible in ending its contagious spread. Continue to participate in social distancing. It is a necessary thing in loving our neighbor and stopping the virus’s spread.
We must suffer the unwilling sacrifices of restaurant and bar closures, online schooling, working from home, and social distancing. We must accept the exile as our responsibility. We must accept being refugees in this instance.
But as we are exiled and made refugees in our homes, let’s continue to do the human things. Sing, like Italians quarantined in their homes joining in unison from their balconies serenading the streets with song. Give food to churches and organizations who are making lunches for children and families with the school closures. Run errands for your elderly and at risk family members and friends. Worship and pray in your homes. Keep doing your work and your homework. Play music. Enjoy conversations and moments with your friends.
Rest in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit at work in the redemption of all things. Leviathan is a threat to us, but is no threat to God.
“All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.”
— Julian of Norwich
