2 Corinthians 4:16-18

March 15, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 21:15 in the audio file.

It really has been an extraordinary last week, and most of the extraordinary that effects us most directly has been stuffed into the last three or four days. It doesn’t matter where you land on the spectrum of anxiety, or on the spectrum of believing the politicians or mass media. Everyone is now being affected in some way, some in very serious ways, some immediately and others potentially in the long term. It sure gives new appreciation for when things go viral, including ideas and panic.

I am a pastor, and just one of four pastors of our small church which isn’t even large enough to get banned as a big gathering. Ha. The hours that our church elders and school board spent, referenced in my Facebook message to you all, has made me wonder how many man hours have been given by church leaders throughout the world this past week, sifting and weighing and praying and communicating to their people. How many preachers are interrupting their usual series to speak on this current event? I would guess the majority of Christ’s undershepherds (among those with an internet connection and watching the news) believe that the best way of honoring the Lord and encouraging their sheep today is to remind believers of the good news of eternal life along with the immediate implications. I am one of those preachers. I wonder what the last current event was (maybe the terrorism on 9/11) that caused such national, even international change of plans for Sunday sermon subjects.

That said, I have yet to be convinced that the death rate for coronavirus, and the concerns of its contagiousness, should stop everything. And also I am thankful for the opportunity to be reminded how thankful we can be for general 21st century hygiene and cleanliness, for inexpensive soap and running hot water on demand inside almost every building for our hands and our clothes. I am thankful for modern medicine and technology, even when it spreads misinformation, as it allows a way of connection and makes it less likely to overlook someone in need. I am thankful for the wisdom and patience and love and nerve among our elders. I am thankful for the cynicism of some among us who know that we are being sold some amount of chaff in the wheat, as well as for the more tender among us who are sensitive to the hurting. As a Kuyperian, I am thankful for toilet paper: every square inch. I am thankful for the opportunity to re-examine what is essential, what is good, what are luxuries. I am thankful when I look around and see how spiritually equipped we are, by God’s grace, for if and when things get really bad, either by government overreach and/or economic depression or by physical sickness and death. I don’t say that with the stereotypical pessimism of a Dispensational, though I have been reading Revelation.

I am not a medical, economic, or political expert. I have increasing Kuyperian interests, but interest does not equal competence. What I do know is that, whether or not we are facing an emergency, whether or not the curve flattening and hand wringing (not just hand washing) peaks soon, it is a good time for some good news.

I do not love music in the way that others do, especially those who have playlists for all occasions. I do have a “textlist,” that is a list of links to articles or quotes or short videos that have proven their consistent encouragability almost every time. When it comes to passages in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 4 may be at the top of my “read in case of emergency” chapters, and the final three verses of 2Co4 is certainly among my top five favorite paragraphs.

Some of you have heard me talk about, even preach (but not since a Sunday evening in June 2013), this passage a lot. Perhaps you’d rather I had just kept trucking into Revelation 7 and distracted us from coronavirus news by identifying the 144,000. Lord wi[...]