By Neil Earle
It was quite a year.
Osama bin Laden remains at large, cowardly terrorists blew up tourists, Al Qaeda slipped back into Afghanistan, President Bush lectured the United Nations, Iraq made it back as a top story, there were atomic and nuclear jitters perhaps more pronounced than at any time since 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
These were only the top stories. You can be sure that many lost a loved one or friend this year, and Americans now work a whole month longer, we learned, than in 1969. Feels like it, doesn't it? 2002 proved one thing beyond dispute – this hurting world showed once again how much it needs the healing balm of Jesus Christ's gospel. Paul's cosmic insight into these crushing events in Romans 8 was never more relevant: "For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it."
As Christians we can rejoice: There is meaning and significance and a divine closure coming to history. We do not simply participate in an empty round of events from the bursts of neurons that make up the "magic mirror" we call television.
No. For a Christian life is real. Life is earnest. History is not just a random scattergun of tragedies and bombings, killings and lootings, wars and assassinations. There is spiritual closure promised to the events we all struggle through, there is healing for the nations promised in a text we all know very well:
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea. I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
"Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations" (Revelation 21:1-2, 22:1-2).
"The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations."
Here is a soaring vision that transcends the often weary, discouraging present.
Here is a promised hope of a certain resolution to human struggling that overleaps the Now, propels us into Tomorrow and convicts us that we have work to do – to bear witness by our very lives of the sure future yet to obtain in the eternal Kingdom of God.
Here is a hope that moves beyond our own past tendency – however sincerely motivated – to become too narrowly focused on our own life struggles – dire as they may be. It is enough to know that help and hope and healing are assured. And that confidence, that conviction we are to learn to share with others.
A Russian mystic and spiritual writer named Doestovsky often explored Christian themes in his novels. He wrote eloquently of the need to nourish a hope for the future:
"Surely I haven't suffered simply that I, my crimes and my sufferings, may manure the soil of the future harmony for someone else. I want to see with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer. I want to be there when every one suddenly understands what it has all been for."
"The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations."
That is what it has all been for. This is a part of the crowning glory of the Gospel. It points us to a promised fulfillment of our hopes. It proclaims the great good news that our human lot is not ultimately tragic. No. This often meaningless sorry round is leading to a universal fulfillment of such worth that compared to it all human suffering will be rendered manifestly worthwhile.
As Paul wrote: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" (I Corinthians 2:9).
All proclaimers of the Gospel share in the hope Peter declared long ago, "that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you – even Jesus.
"He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his prophets" (Acts 3:20-22).
This is what Paul pointed people to – the surety of a sense of closure on history. There is justice in the Universe – the guilty will be punished, the innocent will be rewarded. Even the physical creation itself will be delivered from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Romans 8:21).
The hope that that Gospel engenders is part of what some Bible students call "the Power of the Future." The future, in many wonderful ways, tugs at us in the Now, gives meaning to what we do Today. The coming rule of the Kingdom of God throws light behind itself as well as ahead.
Knowing that the ultimate outcome is a good one, a happy one, not just for us but for the cosmos, for all mankind – this gives us hope to carry on, and to continue to bear witness in the Great Commission. The Great Commission text itself vibrates with a sense of divine purpose and meaning behind the random events we endure. It closes with a note of final vindication and triumph: "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).
As Christians we are sent out with that glorious good news – both collectively and as individuals. Perhaps we all sensed in 2002, as the events unfolded before us in our very living rooms, the need for a convincing and uplifting word from the Lord. Perhaps many are echoing the plea of nervous King Zedekiah to the prophet Jeremiah so long ago: "Is there any word from the Lord?" (Jeremiah 37:17).
There are times when we realize just how deeply we are all one human family, when we all sense our connectedness and solidarity. The remembrance services held for the victims of 9/11 did that for many. "Yes, there is a word from the Lord. If there were bombings and sniper attacks upon the innocent, there were also concerned Christian agencies doing what they could. These gallant souls live out the meaning of the words of a perceptive clergyman from the 1600s, Dr. John Donne:
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."
Bible writers agree with that sentiment. Life is real. Life is earnest. Life can be very tough. Yet the encounter with the human heart of darkness, for example, did not discourage Jesus Christ: "He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man" (John 2:25).
Jesus knew all and yet loved us enough to die for us anyway. We as part of his body can do nothing less than to live for him for the people we meet in 2003. We are his church, a sign of his kingdom that is here in part and will one day arrive in its fullness.
2002 showed us once again the need for the Kingdom. 2003 offers us another chance to live and proclaim the Gospel hope. Will you join in our crusade? For it is not ours but the King's and he promises us sure victory. The Romans could not defeat him and the grave could not hold him. Let us rejoice in that and give thanks that we can, once again, offer the world a Word from the Lord.
Let's be about our Father's business.
The bell tolls for us. But it is not just a summons to a sober awakening. It is also a clarion call to a more firm and fervent commitment to that Gospel message in 2003. And all the years that follow. Jesus will be with us till our deaths or the end of the age, whichever comes first. We can have no greater hope than that.