Apr 28, 2020
Applications for Questions of the Faith
By Pastor Phil Lawton
I have spent a lot of time thinking about our current situation. In between making phone calls, attending online meetings, and acting as remote tech support, I have come to a conclusion. This is new territory for all of us. We didn’t really have a concept of words like pandemic, social distancing, or Zoom. Yet now they are household words. If your church is anything like mine, then you were forced to adopt myriad of technology in the hopes that it would allow you to stay in communication while you all sheltered in place.
There have been other trends as well. People are learning new skills. Some are taking up leisure activities that they never tried before. And most of us are keeping up with the news like never before. This last trend has caused two very familiar things to happen. People are spreading conspiracy theories and arguing over what the government should do. Maybe things aren’t changing quite as much as I thought?
None of this is really the conclusion I came to. Yes, this is definitely new territory for all of us. Yes, people are doing new things. Yes, the world does not look like it did two months ago. But all that has led me to one very important realization: God is doing something new.
New Vision
I’m sure you heard them, too. All the jokes and speeches about how the year 2020 was going to be the year of new vision. How we were all going to see something new. Well, we have. But it looks nothing like what we thought. If I’m honest, I think that is a good thing. It means that we are awake. It means that we are all looking with hope at what will come next. It means that God has our attention.
I don’t want you to take that last statement as an endorsement of the idea that God caused this to test us—or to punish us. I can’t know that. What I do know is that some of the worst times in my life have been used by God to bring some of the best breakthroughs.
In John 9 we find the story of the man born blind. I encourage you to go read the whole chapter. There is so much in there. What I find most striking about the whole story is that the only person who really sees Jesus is the man born blind. Everyone else in the account uses the man as a prop for their particular theology. The disciples don’t see a blind man; they see a way to settle an argument about sin’s consequences on a family. (John 9:2) The Jewish leaders obsess over work on the Sabbath (John 9:13-16), and accuse the man of being a liar and Jesus of being a sinner (John 9:24). Even the man’s parents don’t want anything to do with the situation (John 9:18-23). The most sobering part of the account is what Jesus says at the very end: “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” (John 9:39)
In a year when we are supposed to be receiving new vision, I think it is important that we take Jesus’ words to heart. Everyone was too distracted by their own issues to actually see what Jesus was doing. In fact, the only person who saw properly was the blind man. He not only received physical sight, but also spiritual sight. God transformed him. I think God is doing the same thing right now. There are distractions too numerous to count. If we want to know what God is doing, it means that we must be transformed by God. That reminds me of another story.
Glowing butterfly night encounter macro shot.
Resurrection Not Resuscitation
In a hospital when you stop breathing or your heart stops beating, the doctors and nurses resuscitate you. Their whole goal is to get you back to health. They want to return you to a previous state. Their job is a success if your life returns to normal. That is not resurrection.
I’ve talked about this before (February 2016 SR: So Much More Than Zombie Jesus), but let me just sum up the differences. Jesus was resurrected. His resurrected body was similar to his body before death—it still held the tangible scars of His crucifixion (John 20:19-29) and He ate fish (Luke 24:36-43). But it was also changed. He got into a locked room (John 20:19) and He could disappear in the blink of an eye (Luke 24:31). Jesus’s resurrected body was something new.
There are numerous implications of this. Paul talks about how Jesus’ resurrection gives us hope for our own (1 Corinthians 15:20-23). This is awesome, but not what I want to talk about. I want to focus on the time before. At the time of this writing, we are only a few days removed from Easter. That means that we have just come off Holy Week. It also means that I have spent some time thinking about Good Friday.
Without Easter, Good Friday is actually “horrible nasty death Friday.” Jesus knew the pain that lay ahead of Him. That’s why He went to the garden to pray (Luke 22:42). Yet He still went through with it. We are told by the author of Hebrews that Jesus endured the cross because of the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2). I believe that joy was not so much the resurrection, but the reality that the resurrection meant humanity gets to spend eternity with God. Jesus endured the cross for us. But not for us as we are now. He endured it because it means that we will all be transformed (see Romans 8:18-30).
A Time of Transformation
We are currently in a time of transformation. We know that God works good in all things (Romans 8:28), and I
believe that part of the way God does that is to transform us during suffering. Jesus had a miraculous resurrected body, but He had to be crucified first. Job received a double portion of what he lost (Job 42:10), but he still lost his whole family. What comes after is going to be amazing, but we still have to endure suffering today.
I know that God wants to work wonders in your life. I know that God has amazing plans for your future. But I also know that none of that will happen if your life goes back to what it was. A caterpillar and a butterfly are genetically separate organisms. For the butterfly to emerge, the caterpillar has to die. A butterfly who clings to the life of a caterpillar will never make it to the sky.
Life after the pandemic is not going to be the same. There will be many changes. You will think twice before shaking hands. You will order more food on the internet. You will never take toilet paper for granted again. You will mourn for the people that you have lost. You will mourn for the life that you have lost.
It’s also going to be a time of great revival. Christians are going to see people come to Christ by the hundreds. You are going to hear and see things that you thought only happened in the book of Acts. But that is only going to happen if we allow God to transform us now. God is going to move in a big way. God is going to make life after this pandemic more beautiful than you can imagine. But that will be nothing compared to what comes after.
