Every generation has a year. An event. A challenge that defines it. From 1346-1353, the Black Plague took 75,000,000-200,000,000 lives in Asia & through Eastern & Western Europe making it the most deadly pandemic in recorded history. In 1918, an American Generation dealt with the Spanish Flu Pandemic that took 675,000 lives AND WW1, losing 115,000 American Soldiers. And now the challenge comes to us. What will we do? How will we respond to the challenges of our day? In the context of the Atomic Bomb (1948), CS Lewis said, “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… 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.”
The church of Jesus Christ has survived the Black Plague. It has survived the Spanish Flu. It has survived wars & rumors of wars. It has survived every form of government and every form of political leadership. The church of Jesus Christ has survived every secular attack from without and every schism within. Every wave of generational unbelief has had to bow to the power and authority of Jesus Christ.
This is our moment church. This has been the most difficult year in a generation. How will we respond? Will we quit? Will squabbles about masks, pandemic restrictiveness, ethnic reconciliation or Presidential politics take us down? We say No! We will not give in for a moment to anything that stands in the way of our Jesus.
Jesus is the King of Kings & Lord of Lords. Jesus rules over every detail of our world. This COVID virus is shaking us to our core. The Virus is rattling our minds and pushing us to the very edge of eternity. We feel the fragility of our lives. The briefness of it. The frailty of it. We are being confronted with the reality of death and as we stare at that reality we don’t like what we see in ourselves. We are insecure. We are depressed. In many cases, we are altogether unprepared to stand before our maker and we react and respond with panic, fear, and uncertainty about the life to come.
God is good to bring these realities to our attention. He is good to show us we are not in control. Jesus died and rose again to give us confidence in the day of this Pandemic. Our faith in Jesus gives us confidence about the life to come. God is good as he leads people to Faith in Jesus and it is CRUCIAL that we embrace this moment by Faith. We were not meant to live in fear. We were meant to prove the genuineness of our Faith in the sight of God. The Church will survive the year 2020. In fact, the Church will thrive as long as it sets its hope on the promises of God.
This is our moment. Let’s stick together. Let’s love each other. Jesus is coming soon! I finish with CS Lewis in his article “On Living in an Atomic Age"
“Nothing is more likely to destroy a species or a nation than a determination to survive at all costs. Those who care for something else more than civilization are the only people by whom civilization is at all likely to be preserved. Those who want Heaven most have served Earth best. Those who love man less than God do most for man. “Let the bomb (and coronavirus pandemic) find you doing well.”