Wednesday, March 25, 2020
On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” (When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.) John 7:37-39
[Grandson] David and I enjoyed Sunburst Falls. I said we had
silent worship there with the falling water. I always think of living water
welling up to eternal life and paused to thank God for what He does for us.[1]
Elizabeth and
I have travelled some of the Pisgah National Forrest’s trail of waterfalls, and
I’ve stood near them many times. Somehow
the idea of silent worship (as Anne called it) never entered my
mind. But so it is.
Sometimes the
silence invoked by the overpowering noise water makes crushing against ageless
stone overwhelms a soul. Anne’s timely piece
on how life can be tossed upside down in a week – her word picture is Viral
Pan-Panic – is a stark reminder that our days are looming, threatening
any sense of normalcy.
In such a
world it’s easier to wander into fear, loathing the darkness. It’s totally counter-intuitive to stop and thank
God amidst the news media’s onslaught of disaster piled on calamity concerning
the Covid-19 virus. We are
so conditioned lately to what the next morning’s game changing event will bring,
you almost hate to turn on the TV. One Facebook
friend, whom I’ve known since kindergarten, posted that her husband is currently
in the hospital with a bacterial infection, in isolation. She was very quick to point out he did NOT
have the Corona Virus. A
month ago none of us would have leaped to that conclusion of pandemic in a high
school buddy. Now, everything’s changed!
And that is
the point for the church, and every follower of Jesus Christ; everything has
changed. No longer is there an inviolability
of same ol’ – same ol’; no footsteps are heard in the Sanctuary on Sunday mornings
at 11am. It isn’t business as
usual, and the waters are highly uncharted as to what that means for
the future.
And, if this
pandemic viral bug can toss everything on it’s ear, grabbing the whole world’s
attention and economic stability in two news cycles, think what the antidote of
living water can accomplish for eternity if we who believe
and follow Jesus Christ see that opportunity before us to interpret to 21st
century culture that whatever it is that kills the body is to be feared much
less than He who holds our souls in his power.
“Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Matthew 10:28
For You Today
The current
crisis may or may not be a judgment of God, or simply a genetic evil cooked up
in a petri dish. But it certainly should
help us focus on the only real center for disease control! Two thousand years ago it was set up on a
hill that looks like a skull. And it was
set up to battle the virus of sin – the ultimate pandemic crisis for humanity’s
eternity.
And Christ
beat the stuffing out of the Lucifer virus!
Go to VIDEO
Title Image: Anne Mehrling original work, used with
permission Unless noted,
Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
No comments:
Post a Comment