Around 2,000 years ago, the followers of Jesus experienced a day unlike any they had ever experienced. The perfect King and Saviour that their people had been promised for thousands of years hung dead on a Cross. Betrayed by one of their own, Jesus’s disciples watched helplessly as he was arrested, beaten and hung on a cross to die. It was a day of terrible calamity. But the day after all those terrible events (which we call Easter Saturday) must have also been terribly difficult for Jesus’s Disciples. All the promises Jesus had made them; the promise that Jesus would save their people, the promise that his own Kingdom was at hand (Matthew 3:2) and the promise that His Kingdom would last forever, looked to be lost forever; buried in a cold dark tomb with the very man who made them. Their whole world, the lives they had built over three years of following Jesus had been thrown into Chaos.
For many many people across the world, that’s a pretty accurate description of where their lives are at on this year’s Easter Saturday. Many people are right now in their own dark Easter Saturday. A calamity has happened; a deadly virus got loose and has gone global, infecting millions of people. And now we are in the middle of the story, stuck between it’s beginning and it’s unknown ending. Many people have recovered from Coronavirus, but many have not been so fortunate. How many more will share that fate? Because of the efforts taken to try and stop the virus, Economies across the globe have been thrown into chaos, with a bleak unknown future. Millions of people have lost their jobs. How many more millions will lose their own jobs? No one knows what happens next. No one knows how or when this will all end. And no one knows what the world will look like on the other side of this. It’s a dark and scary time for the world to be in; stuck between the start of the story, and a very uncertain future.
But 2,000 years ago, in another dark and scary time for Jesus’s followers, even Death itself could not thwart the Plans and Promises of God. Jesus rose to life on (what we call) Easter Sunday and left the tomb he had been buried in just two days earlier. The Disciples that had forsaken Jesus at the hour of his arrest and death, later went on to be filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2) and built his Church; a body of believers that endured the worst tyranny that ancient Rome could throw at it, and lives across the world to this day. God promised his people he would do all of these things, and the apparent calamity of the Crucifixion on Good Friday could not stop Him. For us today, there are many things God has promised for us, and the calamity of Coronavirus will not stop him delivering them. And the great thing about these promises of God is that they go beyond simple materialistic things; a big fancy house, an expensive car, simple things like that. God promises those who trust and believe in him far more profound things than that. Here are some of my personal reflections on just a few promises that I think are particularly relevant to the times we are currently in.
God is Always in Control: Romans 8:28 reads “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” This might be a bit hard to comprehend in a time like this. “Really?” We can easily think. “God’s gonna use Coronavirus for good? How??” Truly, we don’t know how; and it would be wrong of us to pretend that we could know. But what we can know is that no matter what happens, even though we may never understand why it happens, God always remains in control. 2,000 years ago, Jesus’s Betrayal and execution on a Cross were terrible things to happen. Jesus’s enemies thought they had won; the guy that had loathed for the last three years was now dead. But alas, God was in control at every point in the story. Jesus’s Blood was ultimately shed so that we could be washed clean of our sins and made right with God (Isaiah 1:18), so “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). God was in full control at every point of the Easter story. God was in full control back then, and he is in full control right now.
God is Always with Us: King David went through quite a lot in his own life. Before he become King he was hunted down by King Saul, who wanted him dead. In his own terrible and dark times, David may not have fully understood why God had allowed this to happen to him, but he did know that God was always there to help him through it. “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:2 – 3). It’s important for us today to know the same thing. Even though we don’t understand why things happen, we can know who is there to shelter us through the storm. “In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.” (Psalm 18:6).
God is Preparing a World without Disease or Death: For a lot of people, the world we live in right now is a bit of a dark and scary place. Looking through the History books, we can see that there have been plenty of terrible times like this, and far worse, before Coronavirus came along (eg. the Black Death, Spanish Flu, World War I & II). And we can only speculate what disasters may lie ahead in the future. Is that it, then? Is that the fate of this world? To simply go from one disaster to the next? The answer from the Bible is a firm No.
“Then I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
(Revelation 21:1, 3-4).
Because of sin, death entered the world (Romans 5), and because of this we experience terrible suffering like we are seeing with the Coronavirus. But because of Easter, the suffering we see in this world won’t last. God will replace this Earth, broken by sin, with a New Earth. An Earth that will be without any Disasters or Death of any sort. One that will be a place of everlasting peace and harmony between God and his People.
With so much uncertainty in our world at the moment, these then are three things we can be sure of: God is in control, God himself is our help and refugee during these frightening and uncertain times, and God is preparing a world free of any disasters, and a world free of even death itself.
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