Thoughts written during ‘Lockdown’ 2020
Family relationships 29th March 2020
Many around us seem to be stunned by the scale of the
disruption which has been caused by this infection and the response to it. Some are saying that we are being chastised for
our behaviour and that when this is all over we need to repair our relationship
with ‘Mother Earth’. But that is pagan
thought – according to the Bible our mother is the church, the new Jerusalem
(Gal 4:12), and the relationship that really needs repairing is with our
heavenly Father. Many seem ready to believe
that we might have offended ‘Mother Earth’ but think it preposterous to be told
that our lives might be offensive to our Heavenly Father. Please pray that we may not be left unchanged
towards God by this crisis for that would be a far deeper tragedy even than the
death of many. To love our neighbour but
to neglect to love, serve, trust, believe and obey our Maker is dishonest and
immoral because that relationship is more important than any other and because
that command is No. 1 of the ten and not an optional extra for those who ‘choose
to be religious’.
The origin of viruses 5th April 2020
If our Lord and Creator is good and loves to give good
things (as the Bible claims) why is our world so troubled by a deadly virus? (See also my April 2020 letter on this blog.)
With many of us starting to hear of people we know who have become ill or have
died this is definitely not an ‘academic question’ but one with sadness and
tears and prayers.
When God created the world “it was very good” (Genesis
1:31). Sickness and death along with
many other bad things only come in after
man’s fall from grace in Genesis 3. The
world before the fall is related to the world after the fall – it’s the same
world made, presumably, from the same elements – and yet, there is a decisive
change, things no longer operate in the same way. We know that many viruses are essential to
life - we would not be here without them – so it seems likely that viruses were
created by God before the fall and that they all had good effects (“it was very good”). After the fall just as God added thorns and
thistles to the varieties of plants (Genesis 3:18) we can assume he added bad
viruses to the vast collections of good viruses, perhaps by the corruption of small
parts of ‘code’ within previously good viruses.
Paul describes the change imposed on creation in Romans
8:20:
“For the
creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will
of the one who subjected it”.
God’s
response to man’s sinful rebellion was to change the whole of creation, to
subject it to ‘frustration’. Bad viruses, like every good
thing that is corrupted in this world, are all part of God’s response to the
fall of mankind and to a world that is in rebellion against him.
The future of suffering 12th April 2020
Here’s
how Paul continues in Romans 8:20-21, “For the creation was subjected to
frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it
in hope that the creation
itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the
glorious freedom of the children of God.”
The ‘frustration’ and ‘bondage to decay’ are temporary.
As
this is Easter, when the Old World of sin and corruption and death gives way to
the New World of conquered sin and defeated death, I am going to say something
about the end of the story. As Jesus
travelled around Israel he healed people, he restored them to wholeness, a
foretaste of the complete healing and restoration that God intends to bring
about for his people. In the
resurrection we see that victory in Jesus’ life – in his glorified body he will
never again be subject to suffering, disease or death. And he has promised to share that new life
with all who put their trust in him.
So
what does the future hold for those who belong to Christ? Here are three passages that describe the
transformation not only of individuals but of the whole cosmos.
1 Corinthians 15:51-57 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We
will not all sleep, but we will all be changed-- 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of
an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be
raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the
imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.
54 When the perishable has been clothed with the
imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written
will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." 55 "Where, O death, is your
victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the
law. 57 But thanks be to God!
He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 1:9-10 And he made known to us the mystery
of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the
times will have reached their fulfilment--to bring all things in heaven and on
earth together under one head, even Christ.
Revelation 21:3-5 Now the dwelling of God is with men,
and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be
with them and be their God. 4
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or
mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed
away." 5 ¶ He who
was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"
Why
all the suffering? 19th
April 2020
So
far I have written about the origin of
suffering (entering our world through God’s response to our sinful rebellion
against him), the defeat of suffering
(as Jesus, far from ‘keeping his distance’, came so close to us that our
sin-disease killed him as he absorbed it all in his own body and left all who
put their trust in him completely healed), and the destiny of suffering (it will be banished from the new creation
that Jesus Christ is bringing about: “There will be no more death or
mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” Revelation 21:4).
But, in the meantime, what
purpose can suffering have in the world?
Although all suffering and illness is painful to bear, and distressing
to watch, the Bible insists that God is dealing with us both justly and
mercifully. Ever since mankind’s fall we
have been tempted to think of ourselves as invincible – lords over the earth,
sure of our own goodness, masters of technology, untroubled for the most part
by illness, with death treated as a distant foe. But the truth is that we are not
invincible. The just penalty for our
rebellion and rejection of our Creator is ‘death’ – physical death (sooner or
later) and spiritual death (the rupturing of our relationship with our
Creator). Unless something or someone changes
us, all of us will one day run straight into the buffers and our separation
from God’s love and from all the good things that he provides will be confirmed
for eternity. And so God, in his
kindness, gives us daily reminders of our frailty, our weakness, our
powerlessness and our mortality. These
reminders are all around us, in our bodies, in the ‘natural’ world, in the
lives of others.
Jesus said (Luke 13) that when we
see people suffer we must not conclude that they were especially wicked,
but we must conclude that we too will face a similar fate if we do not
repent, that is turn away from our sin and put our trust in him.
Perhaps
you have seen sickness or suffering or bereavement do that – bring someone up
short so that, wonderfully, they finally stop running away from the Lord and
entrust themselves to him. Perhaps that
has happened to you.
These are obviously not academic
questions. A member of our Holme
congregation who works in healthcare, asks that we particularly pray for those
who are newly diagnosed with cancer and who may, because of current
restrictions, find that treatment is delayed.
Let’s pray too for the healthcare professionals who are heart-broken that
they cannot provide the usual prompt care and treatment for their seriously ill
patients. Heavenly Father, please give
strength to healthcare staff under great pressure and help them to not to blame
themselves when they do the best that they can.
Please show your kindness to patients who are waiting for treatments,
and above all bring them and their families to trust in Jesus, the doctor of
souls who gives peace that the world cannot give. Amen.
Can
suffering be good? 26th
April 2020
But
what about suffering in the life of the Christian? That’s a very different thing. We know that if we are trusting in Christ,
our future is secure, that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love
of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39). So, for us,
death has lost its sting (1 Corinthians 15:55).
Everything that comes into our lives, including sickness, comes to us
from the hands of our loving Father who allows only what will bring us
good. We “rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering
produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3-4).
In
the late 19th Century, JC Ryle wrote a little booklet about sickness
which is wonderfully helpful and just as applicable to those whose suffering is
the loneliness and frustration of isolation as it is to other trials. “God allows pain, sickness, and disease, not
because he loves to trouble us, but because he desires to benefit our heart,
and mind and conscience, and soul, to all eternity.”
He
advises “sick believers to remember that they may honour
God as much by patient suffering as they can by active work. It often shows more grace to sit still than
it does to go to and fro and perform great exploits. I urge them to remember that Christ cares for
them as much when they are sick as he does when they are well, and that the
very discipline they feel so acutely is sent in love, and not in anger.”
“Above
all, I beg them to recollect the sympathy of Jesus for all his weak
members. They are always tenderly cared
for by him, but never so much as in their time of need. Christ has had great experience of sickness. He knows the heart of a sick man. He used to see ‘every disease and every
affliction’ when he was upon earth. He
felt specially for the sick in his days on earth. He feels for them specially still.” (JC Ryle “Sickness” Matthias Media)
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