There have been many twists and turns that will haunt us for many years to come which began several months back.
The Coronavirus shutting down our economy and wreaking havoc on our health care system and leaving the nation with more than 35 million unemployed is one thing.
Tom Brady, the New England Patriot’s greatest living legend, the Goat, the greatest quarterback of all-time in the National Football League leaving us at the same time, is another thing entirely.
Is the epidemic and its bad energy consistent with the loss we are all mostly feeling about Brady leaving us for another franchise?
Yes it is in more ways than we might give credit for it.
Knowing Brady was taking the field every Sunday for the past twenty years gave the kind of satisfying, comforting reassurance to New Englanders that most sports fans across the nation have never known.
Now that’s irretrievably gone forever.
It seems likely even the National Football League season is gone – a cruel twist for Brady, as he was hoping to play during his 43rd year.
The virus has altered economic history for now. It has rewritten this season and probably next season in ways we cannot know.
The economic system and our ability to survive this epidemic caused downturn are reminders of how things don’t remain the same forever. They change.
Could Brady’s departure be the reason for the epidemic?
Could God be telling us that Brady shouldn’t have gone to Tampa by having this virus visit us?
Preposterous, you say?
Think about it.
With Brady here and ready to take the field at Foxborough on Sunday afternoons we were safe.
We were ready to do battle, to sit back and enjoy victory after victory after sometimes amazing victories.
Then he left us or we let him go. We squandered him or he didn’t appreciate our devotion to him.
Whatever.
Without him here, our world has been turned upside down.
Not just our world, but his world.
Only God know what really happened to change our world. God isn’t responsible for the epidemic any more than he is responsible for Brady going to Tampa.
Sunday afternoon is our work on this earth and our work alone.
Brady headed south and no sooner had he made the prophetic announcement he would no longer be a New England Patriot, the national economy headed south with him.
Blaming Brady for leaving us and connecting this event with the epidemic’s stranglehold on our lives is a bit of a stretch.
But when you’re sitting at home quarantining like good sol- diers while we watch on our flat screens tens of thousands of Americans – millions really – defying science and saying what the hell, who cars if we get sick, frolicking around as though the epidemic is a farce, well, that tells another story.
God doesn’t look favorably upon those of us who squander our lives or who squander life in general. Life is sacred.
God protects those who protect themselves.
The hoards of Americans needing to be outside as though be- ing outside among large crowds is more important than snuff- ing out the virus, reminds us of the crowds wanting to feel good that built an idol while Moses waited to receive the law from God.
Brady was the idol we worshiped for so long.
He is gone. He has left us to seek more riches and gold else- where.
When the veil of the ancient temple was “rent in twain” (torn in two) at the death of Jesus (Matthew 27:51), it was a dramatic symbol that the Savior, had passed through the veil of death and would shortly enter the presence of God.
That’s where we are today – suffering the loss of Brady, suf- fering from the epidemic, all of us wondering what comes next, while many don’t worship at all. They build idols of gold in their minds on beaches and in large crowds in bars and public parties wherever they gathered this weekend.
Let’s hope God helps out all of us, and Brady, too. Everything is connected during this era of the Coronavirus. Losing Brady and the results of the epidemic are a perfect metaphor.