What is happening? The world is on fire, more than I’ve ever seen in my 45 years. Things are at a ‘biblical’ pitch it seems. To live in this sort of global landscape takes on a whole new meaning when it comes to facing a plague of the sort that we currently are with COVID – 19. There is no doubt that this virus represents a serious health (and thus other) crisis; particularly because of its high rate of transmission—indeed, this is the primary issue with this virus. As we all know by now, one of its primary and cascading effects is the sort of economic destruction it is doing to global financial systems (and households, even more so). The primary issue, whether it be on the health or economic front, as those are interrelated realities, is that human life is at stake. That said, people are suffering in untold ways; whether that be from the virus itself, the loss of income, the loss of relationships, so on and so forth. There is serious physical and psychological suffering being experienced en masse. For the rest of this post I simply want to reflect on human suffering, particularly as that is understood from the Christian perspective; and then bring that problem into discussion with the doctrine of the second coming of Christ.

My approach to suffering, beyond my own existential experience of it, is to start our thinking from Christ; indeed, this is where I want to start all of my theological reflections. In God’s wisdom He knew that our alienation from Him would be the source of untold angst, suffering, and death. He knew, from before the foundation of the world, that it would require that He enter into our humanity and take it all the way to Calvary’s cross; put death to death; rise again; ascend; send the Holy Spirit; and come a second time making the crooked straight, by putting the last enemy, death, into the fiery hell it deserves. He also knew that even though He would defeat death, that there would be an in-between time between His first and second comings. He knew we would be facing trial and tribulation of the sort that could only finally be surmounted, in intensity, by what He bore for us on the old rugged cross. He told His disciples then, and He tells us now:

These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” –John 16:33

He knew of the various plagues, like the Black Plague and Spanish Flu, and now the fear that COVID – 19 would and has instilled into us flatlanders. He knew of all the personal and corporate traumas the world was yet to face after He ascended. He knew each one of our stories, and because of what He knew about what He would win at the cross and the grave, He tells us to simply ‘be of good cheer.’ He isn’t being callous in this, indeed, just the opposite! He knew, even as He encouraged His disciples with these prescient words, what He was to face just around the narrative curve. He knew of the betrayal, the sweating of great drops of blood in Gethsemane, the whipping and crown of thorns, and the timber He would be bearing upon His flayed back in short order. Yet “for the joy that was set before Him [He] endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” The joy that was to be revealed after the trial so far out surpassed the tribulation itself, that He knew the words of ‘be of good cheer’ are in proportion to the weight of glory set up for each one of us in Him.

As many of you know by now, I was stricken with an incurable cancer (DSRCT) in 2009-10; a cancer that you just don’t survive; as my nurses and oncologists called it: a monster! I was near death multiple times just from the hard-core nature of the chemotherapy they used on me. The amount of suffering we underwent as a family, and that I went through personally, was not something I could have ever imagined beforehand. And yet the Lord was there, the whole time saying ‘be of good cheer’ ‘this sickness is not unto death.’ What I realized more than I had ever known before (and I had been through years of extreme depression and anxiety prior to this) was that God speaks; and I mean that literally, He speaks to the heart in a still small discernable and clear voice. It doesn’t matter how steep the hill, how arduous the road, how ugly the tumor[s]; God in Jesus Christ is King! He is firstborn from the dead, and the only Way, Truth, and Life the Christian needs when facing the abyss of hell. I re-sketch all of this to simply say that Jesus, as God’s Grace for us, is more than sufficient to meet whatever depth of need we are facing. As I used to tell myself: ‘He is not the God of the statistics.’ He is not delimited by a virus, a tumor, or financial collapse; He wants us to know that, He wants the world to know that by our witness to Him.

People like to say ‘Fu#% Cancer,’ and I know what they mean; but I’d rather say: come quickly Jesus! and He does, and will. As Christians we know that Jesus is coming again; and soon, if the levels of hell this world (globally) is experiencing are any indication. There are multitudinous eschatological schemas, in regard to the details, surrounding the second coming of Christ. For our purposes, we will not get into that now. What we know, prima facie, is that Jesus used the analogy of a pregnant mother’s birth pangs; that just prior to His coming those pangs would get strong and come with more rapidity. What we should take from this is that the ‘new creation’ is upon us. As we look around, and experience ourselves, the unending stream of suffering and chaos, as Christians we know that all of that, the whole of the cosmos is about to be turned upside down in the eschatological reality of the new creation. We know, as Christians, that this old tired cosmos, living under a travail and futility it seeks to be loosed from will indeed be loosed at the revealing of the ‘sons of God’:

¹⁸ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. ¹⁹ For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; ²¹ because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. ²² For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. ²³ Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. ²⁴ For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. –Romans 8:18-25

This stands as the Christian’s real hope even now! The heavens could roll up like a scroll, and the Son of Man could burst through at any moment with trumpets sounding and the Sword of His mouth ablaze with victory and triumph as only the Lamb of God can bring. At His coming COVID – 19, and whatever other thing we can fill that blank with, will be exposed for what it is; the last enemy, which Has finally met its consummate demise. Rather than the statistics, let this be the Christian’s perspective as we face the uncertainty of our momentary troubles and light afflictions. Maranatha