On the one hand, we have the threat of a virus that, according to original predictions, could wipe out millions of people. Nobody knows if this will be the case, but there is a possibility. On the other hand, we have the certainty that if we shut down the economy for an extended period of time, millions will lose their livelihoods and global economic depression will ensue. Tensions are rising between those who want to avoid the virus and those who want to open up the economy. We are told that life will never return to normal again after this. Heavy precautionary measures will need to continue to be taken to protect us from contagion, even to the point of never shaking hands again. I heard a doctor on a news program suggest not having family gatherings of over ten people during the holidays. Churches may be encouraged to continue to have as many virtual meetings as possible to avoid the possibility of a virus; maybe not even this Coronavirus, but all viruses that might potentially attack us in the future.

This entire situation has provoked some deep questions that, in all of our hustle-and-bustle of routine life, many haven’t contemplated. One of those questions is, What is life? So-called “pro-lifers” (probably better described as “anti-abortion”) have dealt with this question biologically, and, in my opinion, have done quite well. Life begins at conception. That is the right answer to the question when considering whether or not to murder a child in the womb.

Read more

From one perspective on life, fear controls us. What or who we fear determines the course of life. Take the present situation in which we find ourselves. Our fear of a virus has shut down many other aspects of life. In the face of the projected threat of millions of deaths, millions of people are willing to give up normal social interaction, gathered worship, business, income, and even our Constitutional rights. As we have watched everything progress, our controlling fear is shifting. Now, the fear of wrecking the economy, economic as well as psychological depression, continued isolation, and living with paltry virtual worship and fellowship, might very well give us the courage to face the risks and open everything back up. Fear can make us timid of one threat while at the same time being the basis of courage to face other threats.

Life is full of threats. We must know what the greatest threat is and allow the fear of that threat to dictate our decisions. This is what Jesus teaches his disciples.

Read more

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,

and by night, but I find no rest.

(Psalm 22.1-2)

Long before Christ uttered these words on the cross, they were the anguished prayer of God’s suffering people. They are the sentiment of righteous Job, attacked by Satan directly and in the incarnation of his friends. David cries out with these words, having experienced attacks by Saul and his own son, Absalom, and driven into exile. These continue to be the cries of our brothers and sisters who suffer persecution and death at the hands of wicked Muslims, atheistic communists, Hindus, and others. Why has God forsaken me? Why is he not rescuing me at the moment of my greatest pain and despair, leaving me to the hands of my enemies to cruelly do as they please?

The anguishing cries of Good Friday echo through God’s silence of Holy Saturday. Where is God? Where are his promises? There is only death. The enemies have prevailed. The hope of Israel and the world lies under the power of death in a tomb. “O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.” God is silent.

Within the rhythm of Holy Week, it is easy to lose Holy Saturday in the midst of the feast of Maundy Thursday, the darkness of Good Friday, and the bright joy of Easter Sunday. Holy Saturday is quiet. That is as it should be. Concentrated in Holy Saturday are all the tensions God’s people have ever experienced between God’s promised future and the present. If we rush from Good Friday to Easter Sunday in impatience, we miss the valuable lesson of learning to live in the tension between promise and fulfillment.

Holy Saturday is the heartsickness of hope deferred (Prov 13.12). Holy Saturday is that space of God’s thunderous silence in which we, his people, cry out, “How long, O Lord?” Holy Saturday is the promise of resurrection immortality given in baptism to a body that is turning to dust. Holy Saturday is the space between the death of our loved ones and the promise that we will be reunited. Holy Saturday is the declaration that we are kings and queens over creation while being subjected to the tyrannical cruelty of Satan’s principalities and powers.

Holy Saturday is God’s test of our faith. Will we patiently submit to God’s difficult providences, obeying him even when it appears to us that he is not acting on our behalf, or will we impatiently grasp for Easter Sunday before the time?

The space between promise and fulfillment can’t be rushed. It must be endured. No one can “fix it” at that time. There is no “fixing it.” There is only persevering in faith. Waiting. Praying. Hoping.

Christian congregations around this world are enduring a Holy Saturday time in the present. Our congregations are scattered, united by the Spirit, but only able to be together pixels and sound waves. In his providence, God has given us over for the time to an enemy that has isolated us from one another. While we are thankful for the technological means he gives us to communicate, we feel deeply the lack of face-to-face interaction with our brothers and sisters in worship. We have a deeper sense of what it means to pray Psalm 22 as our fathers and mothers have prayed for millennia.

Holy Saturday must be endured, but it must be endured in hope; that certain hope that Easter Sunday is coming just like Jesus said it would. God is silent, but he will not remain so. And when he brings us out of this Holy Saturday moment, we will sing:

I will tell of your name to my brothers;

in the midst of the congregation I will praise you …

For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted,

and he has not hidden his face from him,

but has heard, when he cried to him.

(Psalm 22.22, 24)

Read more

History began with a test. Like any good father who puts challenges before his son to teach him and strengthen him, God the Father put Adam to the test. The Father’s intention for Adam was maturity. That was not the intention, however, for the serpent. He took the test of the Father and used it for an occasion to tempt Adam to sin. The serpent tempted Adam to question the motives of his loving Father and to grasp for that which was forbidden at the time. Adam failed the test, succumbing to the temptation of the serpent.

After Adam’s fall into sin, God promised that there would be a woman’s seed who would face the serpent’s seed. The woman’s seed will ultimately be God’s own Son. He will send his Son and, once again, put him to the test. The serpent will, no doubt, do what the serpent does: tempt the Son to question the Father’s motives so as to grasp for the Father’s promises before the appointed time. But this Son will not fail. He will pass the test, resisting temptation, and deliver us from the evil one.

Read more

“Please forgive me.” These are, many times, difficult words to say. It is easier to say, “I’m sorry” or even “I apologize.” Somehow those phrases keep me on the same level as you and what I’ve done was simply an accident. “Forgive me” acknowledges that I am somehow in your debt and, therefore, at your mercy. Because we have a need and constant drive to be justified, to believe we are in the right in whatever we say and do, it is difficult to admit when we are wrong, and at the mercy of another to release us from our moral debt.

Being on the other side of forgiveness has its challenges as well. You have been wronged. This person owes you. Now he is coming to ask forgiveness; for you to absorb the debt that he created. If you forgive him, it will cost you in some form or fashion. You want vengeance, your pound of flesh, your money, your dignity, all that he took from you. You want strict justice. Granting forgiveness can be challenging.

Read more

Does anyone envy our leaders right now? “Difficult” does not begin to describe the position in which they find themselves. On the one hand, there is this novel virus that is unpredictable. We know it can be deadly, but we don’t know just what percentage of the population is truly threatened by it. No one can predict that. On the other hand, in order to stop its spread, the lives of millions could be permanently damaged because of economic depression. Many senior citizens who will never contract the virus may lose all of their retirement savings and not be able to afford the staples of life. Business owners may lose everything that they have worked for which will, in turn, affect all of those people they employ along with their families.

Our leaders are in a lose-lose situation in many respects. If they chose to extend a quarantine, they will ruin the lives of millions. That we know without a doubt. If they don’t extend the quarantine, with our ability to know of and report every single death that might be even tangentially related to the COVID-19 virus, some form of media will report it and seek to blame the lack of “an abundance of caution” on the leaders. In many ways, this decision is analogous to choosing to enter into a just war. You know that you are sending many of your military to their deaths, but if you don’t do that, you risk the death of many more citizens and the culture itself when the enemy takes over. This is not an enviable position.

Read more

It feels weird, doesn’t it? It’s Sunday morning. You are normally bustling around trying to get yourself and the children ready to go to worship, but you’re not. You are sitting at home, probably preparing to watch or having watched an online service. The normal handshakes, hugs, smiles, and conversations enjoyed week-by-week are glaringly absent from your life. Combined voices and instruments of praise are thunderously silent. You can hear the Scriptures preached through the wonders of modern technology—and that’s good—but it’s not the same. It almost feels you’re just watching another YouTube video. There is a noticeable distance. The bread and wine we share after joyfully declaring our peace with one another is absent. There can be no virtual communion. As Paul makes clear, we only fellowship in the Lord’s body and blood when we “come together” (1Cor 11.17ff.). We must be face-to-face as the church; no matter if we meet in smaller gatherings or as the entire local church at one time, our gathering together is necessary for the Lord’s Supper. Today, it is all sadly absent.

Read more

When Jesus came preaching “the kingdom of God has drawn near” and teaching his disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” the language of the kingdom was not a foreign concept to the people listening. The story of the kingdom begins in the first days of our history.

In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. They were, in some way, united with one another. The process of creation in those first six days of history involved God dividing parts of his creation and then putting them back together in new relationships with one another. On the second day of creation, God divided the waters above from the waters below and put a firmament in between them. Above the firmament was God’s heaven. Below the firmament was the earth. Heaven and earth, once united, were now separated.

Read more

When things aren’t right in the world, when God’s people are being hounded, brutalized, enslaved, and killed by their enemies, when injustice rules the day, when the created order is threatened with chaos, God’s name is at stake. God has made promises, tying his character, his name, to certain people and their well-being. In order to vindicate his name, he must deliver on his promises.

Throughout the Scriptures we find God’s people appealing to the vindication of God’s character in this way. Moses prays this way when God threatens to destroy Israel when they sinned at Mt. Sinai (Ex 32.11-14). David prays this way throughout the Psalms (cf. e.g., Pss 23.3; 25.11; 31.3; 79.9). Yahweh himself declares through Ezekiel that he will deliver his people for his name’s sake (Ez 36.16-32). Jesus teaches us to appeal to our Father for the vindication of his holy name when he teaches us to pray, “Hallowed be thy name.”

Read more