The four who became an argument

One · What happened

Two in August, two more this week

On 25 August the Pennsylvania Department of Health announced that two residents of Lancaster County had died of measles, both unvaccinated. Yesterday's release added two more, one from Jefferson County and one from Mifflin County, also unvaccinated. The state now counts six hundred ninety-three cases across thirty-eight counties.

The federal count does not line up with the state's. KFF Health News reported on 15 September that the CDC's national figures listed no measles deaths for 2026 after the federal government changed the way it classifies them. Pennsylvania says four people are dead. Washington's page, for now, says something else. Both governments have their reasons, and those reasons are a fight I am going to leave to the people whose job it is.

Two · What it is doing

Somebody died, and you felt vindicated

Be honest about what went through you when you read the word unvaccinated. For a lot of readers the first thing was a small hot feeling of being right, and the sorrow came later if it came at all. If you think those families should have vaccinated, you had a sentence about them ready before you finished the paragraph. If you have spent five years being lectured by officials, you had a sentence ready too, about the federal count and who can be trusted anymore. The sentences point at different people. Underneath, you felt the same thing.

That feeling is contempt. It is easy to miss because it shows up looking like concern. You care about children and about the truth. I believe you. But your attention went straight to the people you already disagreed with. The four hardly got a thought, and neither did the mothers in Lancaster and Mifflin who are setting one fewer place tonight.

There is a quieter version too. Maybe you did not post anything. Maybe you just read the comments under the story for forty minutes, enjoying the ones on your side and getting angrier at the ones on the other, and then went to bed. Scripture does not let a man off because his contempt stayed on the couch.

Three · Where the ground is

Seven days on the ground and not a word

Job's friends get remembered for being wrong. Most readers skim past the first week, when they got it right. Job 2:13 says they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. Then they opened their mouths. For thirty-some chapters after that they used his grief to prove a theory they already held. God's verdict on them at the end, in chapter 42, is that they had not spoken of Him what is right.

I think the friends are the clearest picture Scripture has of what happened online yesterday. Four families sitting in ashes. And within the hour, people who had never met them and never will were standing over them making a case about vaccines, or about the government, or about each other. Some of the cases might even be correct, the way Job's friends said plenty of true sentences. They still used a grieving man as evidence, and God was angry with them for it.

Slow to speak

James 1:19 tells believers to be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, and verse 20 gives the reason, that the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. People quote that verse for arguments with a spouse. Honestly it fits a comment section at least as well as a kitchen. James leaves you your opinion about public health. He puts it in line behind listening, and behind grief.

Grief for the four is what the Lord actually asks of you this week. A man can weep for them without settling the argument between Harrisburg and Washington, and he can pray for the people who loved them whatever he thinks of their choices. If you find you cannot pray for them without a little lecture creeping into the prayer, take that to the Lord before you take it anywhere else. He already heard it.

Your neighbor on the other side

Every church in Pennsylvania has people on both sides of this in the same pews. Some of the most faithful parents you know made a different call from yours. Christ died for those parents as surely as He died for you, and Ephesians 2:14 says He broke down the dividing wall of hostility between people who had far worse reasons to hate each other. The measles question still matters. Your brother is still your brother after you disagree about it.

Four · Today

Five things, and none of them are “stay informed”

The federal count is out of your hands. What you did yesterday with those four is not.

1. 01

   Pray for the four families, and keep the prayer clean.

   No commentary slipped in, no lesson for anybody. Just their grief, the funerals, and the mothers. If the prayer keeps drifting toward the argument, stop and start over until it doesn't.

2. 02

   Delete the post, or the reply you left.

   If you used one of the four to win something yesterday, take it down, quietly, with no announcement about why.

3. 03

   Have coffee with the parent at church who made the other call.

   Do not bring it up. Ask about his kids and his work and how his mother is doing, and actually listen to what he tells you. You will go home having spent an hour with a brother.

4. 04

   Ask your pediatrician your real question.

   Whatever you actually wonder about your own children and measles, ask the doctor who has examined them, at the next visit or on the phone this week. That is the right room for it.

5. 05

   Confess the contempt, specifically, before Sunday.

   Tell the Lord which people you despised yesterday and what you said about them in your head. First John 1:9 promises forgiveness to the one who confesses. Then go to church and sit near one of them.