Updated February 28, 2021
The virus named after a crown, and the King who wore a crown of thorns. Spend a minute considering the connection and what it means to you.
This strange year. Easter and coronavirus.
Again.
Changing all my…
Easter Traditions
The things we remember.
Sunny egg hunts in a big yard (and finding stinky old eggs the next spring). With a lot of people.
Dyeing eggs in the kitchen, and remembering who was likely to throw up smelling the vinegar.
The year there wasn’t a big budget for Easter candy or toys. Baskets saved from the year before were filled with new socks and underwear.
Or the time I walked around in our Church an entire Easter Sunday morning with a long strand of bright green Easter basket grass trapped inside the leg of my pantyhose from heel to thigh. (I am an adamant opponent of both pantyhose and plastic grass to this very day.)
Making New Traditions
It’s Spring, and we’re here, at home, making memories. Are you thinking ahead? I’m trying.
What if we recycled old memories? (Not the grass in the pantyhose.)
What if we recycled our grandparents’ memories?
What if each day we read our children or grandchildren the historical events of this week out loud?
Then what if we were together as a family, eating, looking at each other, being children of God.
Sitting together outdoors as a family in the shade after a meal.
Just being quiet together. Relaxing, thinking, with no entertainment piped in.
It almost seems like we’ve had a worldwide nudge in that direction.
I think I can do that. I think I want to. But there’s more. I need to know how I will THINK about it.
Look, friends, here’s a big confession: I’m the person who ALWAYS misses the signals. I always miss the subtle underlying point. I always miss the change in someone’s expression. I just do. My people have to stop and explain it, get the charts and graphs, and point out what I didn’t “get”.
As a kid in school, when we took the tests asking, “What was this story about?”, I knew I was in trouble. It was always a wild guess. Uuuummm…
So, I’m thinking about Easter, and Jesus, and Coronavirus, and my family, and groceries, and pollen. And I’m imagining the question will come up later:
What Was This Season Really About?
This time, maybe I can be prepared. Because I know I will need the answer. I don’t have it yet, but I’m poised in a crouch, eyes wide open, knowing it’s an important truth, and knowing that if I stay alert, and focus, when the question is asked I will be glad I was paying attention.
And I am. Paying attention to restrictions. And sickness. And our country. And our world. Paying attention to truth and to lies. I know which businesses have closed. I know what a Zoom meeting is. I know what groceries we need, and what we have. Our paper goods are stocked. I know what my friends and relatives are doing. I’m paying attention.
But that’s not what the question will be about, is it?
And the answer isn’t on Google. The reason it isn’t: because the answer is not known by human beings.
The quest for understanding takes me to my most trusted resources, students of God’s word, thought leaders among believers. Today I will share only two of those searches and what they yielded.
I’ve got a great Bible teacher. The truth he teaches is based on Scripture, and below are some of my own notes on the conclusion of a recent session, Affliction and God’s Glory. I don’t have the entire lesson here, though it was worthy of sharing. From beginning to end, it was a look at the history of God and his people, suffering, affliction, and most of all sovereignty.
One of the Scripture references for his lesson is a selection from Psalm 119.
Psalm 119: 65-72
65 You have dealt well with your servant,
O Lord, according to your word.
66 Teach me good judgment and knowledge,
for I believe in your commandments.
67 Before I was afflicted I went astray,
but now I keep your word.
68 You are good and do good;
teach me your statutes.
69 The insolent smear me with lies,
but with my whole heart I keep your precepts;
70 their heart is unfeeling like fat,
but I delight in your law.
71 It is good for me that I was afflicted,
that I might learn your statutes.
72 The law of your mouth is better to me
than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
My Notes
- The only way we can remotely comprehend God’s goodness in the past, present, future, in trials, is to be students of the Word. Even so, we are not capable of understanding his divine purposes.
- It is God who has made this crooked, it is God who will make this straight.
- You will be led astray in your thinking if you allow the media to instruct your thinking.
- There is a difference in being responsibly informed, and unwisely obsessed.
- The world has numbers and reports.
- We have the sovereign God who chose us to be his children.
- Where will our comfort come? According to God’s Word to his servant. The answers we need, God’s comfort, compassion, wisdom, all will come by studying the Word.
- Study until we are brought to the place of worship.
- It is more difficult to trust God than to obey him.
- And as believers, we love others enough to point them to God’s Word, and to his trustworthiness.
My quest is yielding knowledge, and I will continue to seek.
That nagging question pursues me.
I know the answer to the question isn’t on my television or my iPhone. It isn’t in my pantry or my knowledge of world politics.
The ability to accept this season will come to me through the Bible. The God who leads me, the giver of wisdom, He is the one who will show me.
I’ve listened to this lesson more than once. Because it’s important that I’m facing in the right direction.
When this incredible thing happens this very week.
Right now, two seemingly complete strangers have found themselves together, reaching an apex at the same time:
Coronavirus Meets Easter
In the middle of the worldwide focus on a disease gone mad, for over a year now, something rises to center stage: the Resurrection. Right now. How completely divergent. So unexpected, to be focusing on both. But we are. Again.
The virus named after a crown, and the King who wore a crown of thorns.
What was this season about?
As my quest continues, I am reminded I will not know God’s plan. My thoughts and ways are not comparable to His.
This makes me stop and look back: Am I even asking the right question?
Or is there a better question:
“Do I Trust Him?”
The Whole Armor of God
Ephesians 6:10-18
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.
16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;
17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,
18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,
I’m seeing it.
Coronavirus isn’t the enemy, is it?
And we aren’t the conquering king, are we?
It’s the exact thing I could miss
if I didn’t have the Word,
and people to open it before me.
Once again, I am called to humble myself, to settle the impatient quest to obtain knowledge, and to remember that I am subject to God, who delights in my love for him.
Some of you got here first, didn’t you? Thank you for viewing my ongoing journey. I don’t have to panic, do I? The test won’t be about my knowledge. It will be about my heart.
We don’t get to insist on answers, do we?
You are good and do good;
teach me your statutes.
Psalm 119:68
Deuteronomy 6:4-7
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
You. You’re here. Thank you. Your presence means so much to me.
Are you discouraged? Is it difficult to witness? Do you hear the scoffers, and you retreat?
How are you loving others today? What encouraging nudge have you shared with someone who is discouraged?
What encouraging nudges have you received?
Sometime, tell me how you’re coping with this season, and tell me how I can pray for you.
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