A Narrative of Hope in the Darkness of Tragedy
One can view theological concepts as academic, arcane doctrine. Theology can seem so dry and lifeless at times. But theology breathes and becomes more than just information in a confession or textbook when it becomes the story of your life and when it constitutes bread in a desert.
Imagining the Worst
Like most people, my mind sometimes wanders to places of doom, to places where my imagination entertains (what I perceive to be) the Worst. In my adult life, I had made this mental journey enough times that my Worst had developed with vivid detail.
My Worst was likely the same as that of many parents: the persistent fear that my child would die. But my Worst had a second layer for me.
As a youth pastor, I worried that my faith did not possess enough fortitude. God had given me a relatively comfortable life. Any white American male like me, raised in an affluent, stable Christian family, for whom friendships, sports, school, and career had come easily, surely would believe that God is good. I feared that if my Worst occurred, I would lose my faith. I would turn my back on God and walk away from Christianity, and, consequently, my spiritual failure would shatter the faith of hundreds of students to whom I had proclaimed the promises of Christ for over a decade.
My Worst, indeed, entered my life as tragically as I ever imagined it could.
This book considers 12 life-giving truths that Christians can cling to in the midst of tragedy—truths that brought vital hope and comfort to the author when grieving the sudden loss of his 3-year-old son.
My Worst
On Sunday, November 10, 2013, finding my three-year-old son’s lost Lego ax prompted the most magical conversation of my life. After recovering his coveted toy, my three-year-old son, Cam, exclaimed, “Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus!”
Out of nowhere, my little boy started to ask serious spiritual questions. He asked if we could go see Jesus. When I explained that, while we couldn’t see him, Jesus is always with us, he asked if we could drive to see Jesus. After explaining to Cam that we would see Jesus when we got to heaven, my son turned his attention to heaven.
Cam asked if we would see Adam and Eve in heaven. He then declared, “I’m not gonna eat that apple.”
My wife and I reminded Cam that we all “eat the apple.” We reminded him that God sent Jesus because we all make the same mistake as Adam and Eve did: we all sin.
The conversation ended with my son saying, “Jesus died on cross. Jesus died my sins.” In the minutes following that sweet proclamation, my wife, Lauren, and I realized that we had witnessed the dearest dream of every Christian parent—our son had professed faith in Christ.
That night I went on a short, overnight campout with a leader and some students. I awoke on Monday, November 11, to three missed calls from my wife in the span of a minute. I then encountered a voice of terror.
My Worst had entered.
My wife pleaded for me to drive to the children’s hospital as soon as possible but offered no explanation. I pressed her for more information until she reluctantly delivered the worst news of my life: “Cam is dead.”
Lauren had found our perfectly healthy child lifeless in his bed. Paramedics were attempting to resuscitate him, but she assured me that it was futile. In what remains a medical mystery, our three-year-old child inexplicably died in his sleep, something that occurs to one in a hundred thousand children over the age of one. My child’s profession of faith was the last meaningful conversation I ever would have with him on earth. Our son’s life had ended in the blink of an eye.
The first half of my dreadful daydreams had become a reality. I had imagined this moment hundreds of times. Here was the point of departure between God and me. Here was that moment when my faith would crumble. In my imagination of doom, here was when I would curse God, resign from ministry, and pursue a life of self-interest as a bitter, faithless man.
But the Lord put a word in my mouth that surprised me. When Lauren delivered the tragic news, I said to her, “Lauren, Christ is risen from the dead. God is good. This doesn’t change that fact.” God gave me faith and hope while I stood squarely in the middle of my Worst.
The Narrative of Hope
That initial proclamation stood as the first of many moments of hopefulness as I discovered that God had been preparing me for such a tragedy during my entire life. Knowing that this day would come, God used lessons from Bible studies, conversations, theological reading, sermon podcasts, and previous trials to build a foundation that would stand when an overpowering wave of tragedy struck my life.
Throughout the journey of my worst nightmare—my descent into a dark, sad valley—the Holy Spirit would remind me of truths that comforted my soul and sustained my life. Very often in the month after Cam died, I would say to my wife or a friend that I could not conceive how anyone could survive such pain if they did not believe certain biblical principles.
How could a person survive if one did not know the gospel? How could one subsist if one did not accept the sovereignty of God? How would one function if one did not know the possibility of joy in suffering? How could one move forward without the hope of heaven?
There are some truths that mean nothing to a person who is gasping for existential air. When tears seem to flow continuously in your life, the nuances of the Trinity or the particulars of a certain end-times theory do nothing to comfort. However, other biblical concepts can walk a person back off the metaphorical or literal ledge when jumping seems so reasonable and appealing.
One night I sat down and wrote down all of these comforting theological principles as a personal creed. I began to realize that the Lord had embedded these individual truths in my heart that collectively constructed a narrative under which I could live during my Worst. This narrative gave me hope.
Gospel
The road ahead of me is long and painful, but Christ has defeated sin and death through the cross. I can face reality and make this journey, because on the other side of the cross is the resurrection. In the same way that Christ rose from the dead, so too can my life emerge from the darkness into light. The gospel tells me that I cannot redeem myself; only Christ can heal and free my heart. My only hope is to trust him to do so. My tragedy has not disrupted the narrative of my life. My story remains God’s story, and that is a story of redemption.
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Meditate on Steadfast Love
Written by J.A. Medders |
Sunday, January 28, 2024
Steadfast love means steady love. God’s love for his people isn’t hanging in the balance. No wishy-washy commitment. The risen Christ is a dependable Savior. You can count on him. Steadfast love is strong. God’s love cannot be overpowered, overwritten, or under-deliver.There are times when we read the Bible and a word pops. It’s not unfamiliar or new, but something about it grabs the attention. This is when it is good to meditate on the word that jumped.
Let’s meditate on the steadfast love of God.
We have thought on your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple. (Psalm 48:9 ESV)
There’s a variety of ways to translate this Hebrew word, hesed. The Christian Standard Bible often opts for faithful love. Strong. Helpful. The New Living Translation went with unfailing love. I like that too. If we blend these words, we can taste the dynamic flavors of the word hesed. I like the choice of steadfast from the ESV because it’s not an ordinary, everyday word. It’s perfect for describing the supernatural, every day love of God.
Steadfast means it can’t deteriorate.
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Paul’s Prayer … and Ours
A great prayer to memorize and pray for your family, friends, church, and everyone you know.… that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:2-3)
Paul did everything by prayer. Not some things or most things. The secret of his power and usefulness was that he was a man of such clear understanding and humility who knew he must pray without ceasing—prayer with no intermission.
He knew the battle was not against flesh and blood but that it was raging on all sides with every kind of demonic power, powers that can only be overcome by a man clothed in God’s armor and strength and praying at all times in the spirit (Ephesians 6:10-20). It was (and is) a battle for the souls of men and women, boys and girls, to take their every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
And so, listen to his prayer this morning. A great prayer to memorize and pray for your family, friends, church, and everyone you know.
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Not Replacement…Expansion
Written by Rev. Fred Klett |
Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Through Jesus, Israel has been expanded in a glorious way, not replaced. Fulfillment of the promise to Abraham has come and will go forward until its completion when Messiah returns. Jesus must reign until all his enemies are placed under his feet. He will conquer all nations, including the Jewish nation, with the gospel.Much fuss has been made in our Jewish evangelism circles regarding “replacement” theology, the idea that the church has “replaced” the Jewish people in the plan of God. Some have even accused all who think New Covenant believers are “Spiritual Israel” as being guilty of this “replacement theology,” that is, of replacing the Jewish people with the church. Charges have been made that this idea of “Spiritual Israel” leads to anti-semitism.
Ironically my first exposure to the idea of all believers being spiritually Israel came about through involvement in “Messianic Judaism”! Way back in 1975 I attended a seminar by Manny Brotman, president of the “Messianic Jewish Movement International” on “How to Share the Messiah.” In the seminar notes I read: “When a Gentile asks the Messiah into his heart and life, he is accepting the Jewish Messiah, the Jewish Bible, and the Jewish blood of atonement and could be considered a proselyte to biblical Judaism and a child of Abraham by faith!” Isn’t this essentially a statement of the “Spiritual Israel” idea?
Getting the Big Picture
We must submit our thinking to the scriptures and derive even our method of interpreting of the Bible from the Bible itself! We must learn how the text interprets itself! Many have not done this. We can’t base our understanding of doctrine on “spiritual” intuition or emotional arguments. We must strive, asking wisdom from the Spirit, to interpret the word of God correctly, and this certainly means we submit to the approach used by the apostles the Messiah appointed to represent Him. And we must understand how the whole Bible fits together and derive our doctrine of Israel within that framework.
God has had one purpose and plan for mankind ever since the Fall: to restore a people for Himself from fallen humanity through Messiah Jesus. Because of the Fall of Adam we have all come under the curse of God, or as the Puritans put it “through Adam’s Fall sinned we all.” The Jewish people, and ultimately the Jewish Messiah, brought to the world the Abrahamic promise of blessing to redeem us from the curse of the Fall. Jesus brought the blessings of Abraham “first to the Jew” and then expanded the blessing “also to the Gentile” (see Galatians 3:14 and Romans 1:16). There are not two sets of Covenant promises and Covenant obligations, one for Jewish believers and one for Gentile believers, there is one New Covenant people and one faith (Eph. 2:16 and 4:5).
God has had but one program from the beginning: salvation through Jesus. God purposed to restore blessing once again to a cursed world. The core of the Abrahamic promise was to bring a restoration of blessing to all peoples through the seed of Abraham. This seed is ultimately the King of Israel, the Messiah. Psalm 72:17 tells us this by applying the very words of the Abrahamic promise to the Son of David: “May his name endure forever…all nations will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed.”
National and ethnic Israel can only find true meaning within the larger context of the renewal of all things through the Messiah. God’s purposes are one. God created the Jewish people to bring Messiah to the world. You cannot divorce any of the promises to Israel from the “big picture” of redemption from the Fall through Messiah.
God has not withdrawn His promises to the Jewish people. Rather, Paul clearly tells us, “no matter how many promises God has made, they are “yes” in Messiah” (2 Cor. 1:20). The New Covenant promise of eternal life through faith in Jesus is greater than any other blessing of God ever given. Indeed this is the fulfillment of the blessing promised to Abraham. The curse of death and separation from God is overturned through Messiah. Paul clearly says “He redeemed us in order that THE BLESSING PROMISED TO ABRAHAM MIGHT COME TO THE GENTILES through Messiah Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit” (Galatians 3:14). Only through Jesus can people truly come to the blessings of Abraham, life in the Spirit.
Whether we are Jews by birth or Gentiles, we who trust Messiah Jesus have one common faith. As Paul put it “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.” (Eph. 4:4-6)
Some Jews who are for Jesus call their movement “Messianic Judaism.” A few of these Jewish believers distinguish “Messianic Judaism” from “Christianity.” I believe it would be better theology to distinguish between a culturally Jewish expression of New Covenant Judaism and a culturally Gentile expression of New Covenant Judaism. Our New Covenant faith is the true, Biblical Judaism.
Gentiles who come to believe in the Jewish Messiah convert to Biblical Judaism! Our New Covenant faith is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant faith. Christianity is New Covenant Judaism, the true religion of the Jewish people—even if most Jewish people don’t know it yet! The concept of “Spiritual Israel” is a Biblical doctrine. It doesn’t mean “replacement.”..it means EXPANSION! God has joined Gentiles to the true faith of Israel—He has expanded the nation spiritually!
Kingdom Blessings Depend Upon Following the King
To be a member of a kingdom means to swear allegiance to its king. Jesus is the King of Israel and those who follow him are members of his kingdom. Consider the implications of these passages:
John the Baptizer, said: “For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham” (Luke 3:8).
The Scriptures teach that all those who believe are Jesus’ brothers (Romans 8:29 and Hebrews 2:10-11). Jesus said “whoever who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35). Jesus said he had other sheep, not of that flock (10:16). All believers are Jesus’ family and the sheep of His flock.
Paul says Gentile believers are grafted in to the tree of Israel, become Abraham’s children by faith, become heirs to the blessing of Abraham and are citizens of Israel (Romans 4:16-18; 11:17-21; Galatians 3:14; and Ephesians 2:19).
So, we see that every believer is a brother of Jesus, a child of Abraham, part of the flock of the Shepherd of Israel, grafted into the tree of Israel, an heir to the promise given to Abraham, and a citizen of the commonwealth of Israel! How wonderful to have become, spiritually, part of Israel!
The New Covenant
We are all covenant breakers before God. God made a covenant with Adam and we have all followed in the footsteps of our first father. What was said of Israel is also true of us “They like Adam have transgressed the covenant.” (1) We can only be saved from the curse of the first covenant of Works made with Adam if God provides a Covenant of Grace for us. This is what is in focus in the covenant made with Abraham.(2) The blessings promised to the nations refers to the reversal of the curse we came under through Adam. The New Covenant(3) brings to fruition the promise of blessing for the nations made to Abraham.(4) Without the New Covenant all are in Adam and under the curse. Yet, the New Covenant is made with the house of Israel and the House of Judah!(5) Gentiles must join themselves to the Holy Nation in order to be a part of this covenant. Yet amazingly I have been told by an opponent of the “Spiritual Israel” doctrine that Gentile believers do not have the New Covenant! He told me that since the covenant was made with Israel only Jewish people have it! Oy Vey! Do you see where the denial of the doctrine of “Spiritual Israel” logically leads?
Can it really be doubted that all believers are spiritually Israel? The scriptures tell us that Gentile believers are spiritual members of the Jewish family of faith along with the remnant of Jewish believers, even if most of the natural family members have temporarily left the household of faith by rejecting the New Covenant. By adoption Gentiles come into a relationship with the Jewish people and so should have a concern for the estranged members of their own faith family, just as they should be concerned for the spiritual return of children of Christian parents who have departed from the faith.
How can anyone reasonably deny that through the great salvation provided through the Jewish Messiah, Gentile believers have become spiritually Israel? This is the truth Jesus taught and this is the doctrine Paul taught—pretty good theological company to find oneself in!
A Key Passage: Romans 11
Though all believers are spiritually Israel, if we truly understand Romans 11 there should be no question about the fact that God still has a claim on the Jewish people. The natural children of Abraham are still in some way chosen because of the patriarchs, even in unbelief. He will restore the Jewish people to faith one day. Romans 11:28 clearly tells us “As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account, but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs.” Consider these comments by leading Covenantal theologians:
John Calvin
“I extend the word Israel to all the people of God, according to this meaning, -When the Gentiles shall come in, the Jews also shall return from their defection to the obedience of faith; and thus shall be completed the salvation of the whole Israel of God, which must be gathered from both; and yet in such a way that the Jews shall obtain the first place, being as it were the first born in God’s family.
…as Jews are the firstborn, what the Prophet declares must be fulfilled, especially in them: for that scripture calls all the people of God Israelites, it is to be ascribed to the pre-eminence of that nation, who God had preferred to all other nations…God distinctly claims for himself a certain seed, so that his redemption may be effectual in his elect and peculiar nation…God was not unmindful of the covenant which he had made with their fathers, and by which he testified that according to his eternal purpose he loved that nation: and this he confirms by this remarkable declaration, -that the grace of the divine calling cannot be made void. (6)”
Charles Hodge
“The second great event, which, according to the common faith of the Church, is to precede the second advent of Christ, is the national conversion of the Jews….that there is to be such a national conversion may be argued…from the original call and destination of that people. God called Abraham and promised that through him, and in his seed, all the nations of the earth should be blessed…A presumptive argument is drawn from the strange preservation of the Jews through so many centuries as a distinct people.
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