Where do we go from here? How do we go from here? What is expected of us - when we have looked into the abyss of human frailty and finitude, when we have felt the sorrows of a world splintering and falling apart? How could we ever go back to a life that is mundane and regular, that fails to see and feel with deep intensity the struggles and the pains of such a world?
When you have lived for months on high alert, when you have become far more aware of how short life is, how vulnerable and fragile all human beings are, when you’ve felt afresh the eternal significance of the gospel of Jesus, how do you re-connect with everyday life in anything even remotely approaching the ‘same old’? How do you avoid your life becoming as banal as it now seems it once must have been? How do you remain faithful to the insights you’ve gained, when all around is the pressure to return to what now feels so lightweight?
These question are not new. Those who have lived through any kind of tragedy or loss will testify to the sense of guilt that attends the resumption of ‘normal’ life. It feels completely false and unworthy to derive even a drop of pleasure from life in the absence of those we have lost.
This will be a very real issue for us in the coming days. We have been living through agonies of loss and the devastations of sorrow. We have prayed - urgently, longingly, desperately. We have drawn close to God, sought shelter under his wings. We have tasted and treasured anew the hope of the gospel and the glories of the Saviour. And now we’re just going to stumble back into a lesser life?
Shouldn’t we, rather, lay aside every non-essential part of our daily existence and focus ourselves entirely on evangelistic efforts? How could we ever let a day go by when we haven’t done something specifically aimed at reaching someone - anyone - with the gospel of Jesus? They might die tomorrow and without Christ they are lost. How can we ever again have fun when others are perishing?
Is there any way to hold all these things together?
1. The perpetual crisis
This tension isn’t absent from the New Testament. We find there, as you would expect, a clear and unrelenting focus on the significance of the good news for each and every person. The coming of our Lord Jesus and his saving work has ushered the whole cosmos into the beginning of God’s new age and the coming end of this present, evil age.
You see that in what Paul writes in his letters:
- Romans 13:11ff encourages us to understand the present time, the now of our lives: “the hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over, the day is almost here.”
- 1 Cor 7:29ff reminds us that “the time is short...this world in its present form is passing away.”
Peter also underlines the same point for those he writes to:
- “The end of all things is near,” he says in 1 Peter 4:7.
- In his second letter he plainly states that “the Day of the Lord will come like a thief” (2 Peter 3:10).
Those and many other passages express the urgency and the pressing reality of what the Lord’s death and resurrection have brought about. These are the last days. The former things are passing away. And all will be called to judgement.
The pandemic may soon reach its end but the crisis is not over and will not be so until the coming in glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are living in a perpetual crisis.
2. Living within the ongoing crisis
So how ought we to live in the light of such clear and stark teaching? What should ‘normal’ Christian life look like?
You’ll look in vain for statements that call Christians and churches to a multiplicity of anxiety-driven activities designed to hook others with the gospel. Our response to crises is to do more and to do it more intensely, to be busier and expend every ounce of energy we have. Which makes the exhortations that follow in the passages referred to above…well, remarkably ordinary and just a little bland:
- The day of the Lord is coming like a thief, so..."live holy and godly lives".
- The end of all things is near, so..."be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. Above all love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling...use whatever gifts you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in all its various forms."
- The night is nearly over, the day is almost here, so..."put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of light...behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealous. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh."
- This present world is passing away in its present form, so..."those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of this world, as if not engrossed in them." (That is, don’t treat those things as the ultimate good and as the lasting reality, because they aren’t)
Do you see where Scripture takes us after a pandemic, after tragedy? Not into a denial of the urgency of the gospel, nor into an uneasy truce with the mundane, nor into feverishly planning and delivering events. It takes us, relentlessly and resolutely, into faithful Christian living and into consistent, heart-felt praying. We show our grasp of the significance of the times by the timbre of our lives, the choices we make and the values we embody.
What we are tempted to downplay, the Bible elevates. It esteems and values, in recognition of the deepest spiritual crisis, the distinctive lives of ordinary Christians. Those lives have potential in the Lord's hands to demonstrate the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, with consistency and depth.
Can you go back to doing what you used to do? Yes, in many ways we must do so. Should you just get on with doing the usual things and not feel guilty for doing so? Of course - they’ve never really been the issue. You might know already, however, that there are changes you need to make that reflect the realities you have felt more deeply during these past months. Changes in tempo, in focus, in devotion, in seriousness. But those changes are for the sake of anchoring our lives within a thoroughgoing godliness that reflects more, and more truly, the light and life of Christ, the beauty of his holiness and the compelling power of his saving love.
