Certainty

In these uncertain times…

I’ve heard this phrase, or some version of it, countless times in the last week.  I understand why it’s popular – things are in a constant state of flux. But I’m not sure that these times are as uncertain as they might seem.  Trouble and tribulation have been part of the human experience since the fall.  

Long before there was a possibility of contracting COVID-19, there was an almost 100% certainty that each one of us would die. Life, it turns out, is most always fatal. And our trouble is that no amount of handwashing, social distancing, hoarding or any other measure will keep us from that day. We have no power to stop death.

But there is someone who does, who already has in fact. His name is Jesus, and He defeated death forever when He rose from the dead. He removed the sting from death’s touch by securing forgiveness for our sins on the Cross. Without Him, to die is to be eternally separated from everything we love and that’s the worst thing that could possibly happen. But for the believer, Christ’s victory is our victory (1 Corinthians 15:57). Death is merely a doorway to be passed through, the beginning of something impossibly better than we’ve ever imagined.

CS Lewis wrote, “It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.” Death may be certain, but it can never cut us off from the steadfast, unending love of God (Romans 8:35-39).

There is plenty of uncertainty in the world at this time, and in every time. One thing we’re not likely to run out of is trouble. But neither can God run out of love and mercy (Lamentations 3:22) and that should fill us with indescribable peace (Philippians 4:7). Let death, whenever and however it comes, find us unafraid, for God can be trusted.