Pastors' Blog

Somewhere in the Bible, it is commanded, “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 

Does that include the pandemic that pins this planet and nation down this Thanksgiving?

As far as I can tell, the command does not indicate an exclusion clause. Though let's be quick to recognize this is not a command to “give thanks for all circumstances”—it is a command to “give thanks in all circumstances.”

After all, how could we possibly thank God for the disease that has taken away our loved ones (1.34 million deaths globally—248,707 deaths across this nation as of three hours ago)?

No, the command is specific—“give thanks in [not for] all circumstances.” 

After all, how could we possibly thank God for the disease that has stripped away our personal economic security? 

“A new Pew Research Center survey finds that, overall, one-in-four adults have had trouble paying their bills since the coronavirus outbreak started, a third have dipped into savings or retirement accounts to make ends meet, and about one-in-six have borrowed money from friends or family or gotten food from a food bank. As was the case earlier this year, these types of experiences continue to be more common among adults with lower incomes, those without a college degree and Black and Hispanic Americans” (www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/09/24/economic-fallout-from-covid-19-continues-to-hit-lower-income-americans-the-hardest/).

The apostle Paul, himself no stranger to economic deprivation and intense personal suffering, is clear in his apostolic command: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

But really—we’re supposed to find a reason for thanksgiving in the midst of this Covid-19 onslaught—are you serious?

May I make a humble effort to suggest a small list of possible gratitudes this Thanksgiving? Perhaps your own list will look quite different:

• I am grateful for the technology that enables me to worship remotely with people I can’t see—somehow knowing, in a divine sort of way, we are actually connected to one another, though very much physically distanced.
• I’m also thankful for the people who put up with the bother of wearing a face mask when they’re around me—what an “I care about you” kind of gift!
• I’m grateful for the cell phone that lets me reach out to people I otherwise wouldn't have been able to reach during this pandemic.
• I realize more and more the simple truth embedded in that old saw, “I complained to God about having no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.”
• I’m grateful for the lesson this pandemic is trying to teach me—that what really matters most in life—more than professional success, more than economic comfort, more than even religious or theological correctness—what really matters most of all is relationships—and I want to treasure the ones I have all the more—especially the one with God.
• I’m thankful that as a result of this pandemic Karen has become a first-class, homemade-bread specialist.
• I’m also grateful that my Covid-19 test a couple of weeks ago came back negative.

Perhaps there is more truth than poetry to an “attitude of gratitude.” Consider these three one-liners I found in the chapter “Mind Cure” in Ministry of Healing:

• “Nothing tends more to promote health of body and of soul than does a spirit of gratitude and praise” (251).
• “When you open your eyes in the morning, thank God that He has kept you through the night. Thank Him for His peace in your heart. Morning, noon, and night, let gratitude as a sweet perfume ascend to heaven” (253).
• “This command [1 Thessalonians 5:18—see above] is an assurance that even the things which appear to be against us will work for our good” (255).

Did you catch that? What appears to be against us “will work for our own good.” That’s what God did at the cross—took the enemy’s absolute worst and transformed it into salvation’s absolute best—as only Jesus can do. Gratitude? Are you kidding? A blessed Thanksgiving, indeed!

Let me be an echo chamber for a moment—there hasn’t been an election like this in modern memory. So they tell us. And who could disagree? By some estimates, 69 million early voters have already exercised their prized right. That represents over half of the total votes cast in the 2016 presidential election! And Election Day is still a week off. Go figure.

But the pundits cannot figure it out—because there’s no way to predict the outcome of what will likely be the most contentious and divisive presidential race in U.S. history. And given the record mail-in voting (thanks to the pandemic), this season of uncertainty may linger long past the last ballot cast next Tuesday night.

How should we as Seventh-day Adventist Christians approach next Tuesday? 

Church historian Douglas Morgan, in his fascinating entry “Politics and Voting” in the new Ellen G. White Encyclopedia, describes how the initial “sentiment against voting and political involvement” in the early years of this apocalyptic movement shifted with the advent of the Civil War. In 1865 the General Conference session resolved “that it could well be ‘highly proper’ for a Second Advent believer to exercise the influence of his vote ‘in behalf of justice, humanity, and right’” (1037). Ellen White “shared this consensus,” and reacted strongly to an effort by “men of intemperance” to encourage Battle Creek Adventists “into continuing their avoidance of the polls.” To not vote “in this context would be to abet evil by default” (1037).

But hers was not a blanket endorsement of politics. “If the political realm presented opportunity, even obligation, for Christian service, it also presented dangerous influences that threatened to mold those involved, rather than vice versa” (1038). She was clear and “impressed on believers the principle that citizenship in Christ’s kingdom must animate and control their interaction with the political powers of earth” (ibid). As a consequence of a populist surge across the nation in 1896, one political party “made central a proposal for coinage of silver currency as a panacea for the economic injustices suffered by the nation’s rural and working classes.” Ellen White, while supportive of economic justice for the poor, warned this plan would have a very opposite effect. “The direction from the voice of the Son of God, she declared, is ‘ye will not give your voice or influence to any policy to enrich a few, to bring oppression and suffering to the poorer class of humanity’” (1038). 

As for competing political parties, in 1897 she boldly wrote, “‘there is fraud on both sides,’” and urged instead “those for whom the Lord Jesus is ’the Captain’ to ‘file under His banner’ and avoid ‘linking up with either party’” (ibid). Vote? Of course. She even counseled young college students: “‘Have you thoughts that you dare not express . . . that you may sit in deliberative and legislative councils, and help to enact laws for the nation? There is nothing wrong in these aspirations. You may every one of you make your mark’” (1038 emphasis supplied). But Adventists, she reminds us, “are to stand as subjects of Christ’s kingdom, bearing the banner on which is inscribed, ‘The commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus’ [Revelation 14:12]” (1038).

Wise counsel for us in the twenty-first century. Yes, we exercise our right to vote as citizens of this land or any other land. We express our voice and convictions for a myriad of issues at the ballot box. But let us do so with two abiding realizations. First, we await no human savior. Politics at its best is the act of legislative compromise in order to satisfy a majority of citizens. But sadly the very times and technologies of our social media driven world have shaped us into combative, argumentative adversaries with anyone or everyone who sees life differently. And we quickly coalesce with other loud voices from whom we draw strength. Any one who emerges from this raucous process can hardly be an adequate savior. That sad reality will not be undone.

Second, we are blood-bought citizens of Christ’s eternal kingdom. And “the politics of Jesus” (as John Howard Yoder expressed it) preclude a “winner take all” mentality. In fact Christ Himself infuses us with His own “loser take all” spirit: “‘For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it’” (Mark 8:35). Supreme love for God and impartial love of our neighbors can only thrive through a spirit of self-emptying, a spirit sadly AWOL in this season of American politics. But you and I can be different—must be different. Without compromising deeply held convictions, it is still possible to be loving, compassionate and kind citizens—men, women and young who value the heart more than the vote, who walk along side rather than always taking sides.

So go ahead vote, if you haven’t already. But let your face tell the truth: “For God made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of his glory displayed in the face of Christ” (see 2 Corinthians 4:6).

With all the finger-pointing going on, I’d like to share a piece one of our viewers sent me a few days ago. In my humble opinion, it is a point of view that deserves a hearing. So, with a few tweaks for spacing purposes, here is a fresh perspective from D. Bryan White:

The COVID virus has produced its share of finger-pointing over the last few months. Some good, God-fearing "saints" see God's judgment in all that has transpired, particularly in the last few days. So, In light of these heated arguments from the Right and Left, perhaps it would be well to refer back to the quintessential commentary on the wisdom or foolishness of construing everything as God's will, found in the book of Job.

The rain was believed by the devout of old to be a blessing, famine a curse—this idea extrapolated from Deuteronomy. Yet Job's rejoinder in his own defense was the observation: rain fell on the just and the unjust. The 3 visiting theologians at that impromptu Ash Heap Summit were sure Job's troubles were a divine sign of God's open displeasure over his secret sins but had no answer to Job's paradoxical observation—except to double down and insist his misfortune was a heaven directed curse.

When God finally gets his chance to comment, he ups the ante by observing—rain falls in the desert too—desert to be seen here as a metaphor for a place where neither the righteous nor wicked live.

Hmmm . . . So rain can be simply the product of a wandering thunderstorm, nothing more!

Perhaps we can use this to point out that the COVID virus travels on the wind, and lands wherever. Heaven has nothing to do with wind direction nor its ill effects. I say this for I have heard some good Adventist friends in California pointing to the Napa Valley fires as God's clear judgment against wineries. But I note as well, the Adventist Review is reporting several Adventists pastors have lost homes in St. Helena and Angwin! Were they too under some pointed wrath of Heaven?

Was the fact so many Republicans tested positive for COVID over the last 48 hours a divine punishment? Or, was another more predictable law in play—“as you sow, so shall you reap.” Plant squash seed and you get . . . squash. Build a house on a dry brushy hillside, and the fire is a natural risk. Put a bunch of people, Republican or Democrat, in close quarters without precautions, and you get a COVID outbreak. God is inserting into the din of “words without knowledge" a reminder of another law—cause, and effect.

The only judgment threatened by heaven in Job's story was against the "friends" whose self-righteous finger-pointing was offensive to God.

A little more prayer for our enemies and a little less finger-pointing does seem to be a far more bankable, God-sanctioned moral during times of crisis—then—and now.

I don’t know about you, but lately, I’ve been noticing the repeated appearance of the simple word, “unprecedented”—defined as “never done or known before,” i.e., unparalleled, unequaled, unmatched, unrivaled. And it seems to be on everybody’s lips these days.

“Unprecedented.” Here’s a googled list of headlines in which the word appears: “Wildfires 2020: The California, Washington, Oregon fires are unprecedented” (Vox); “Covid-19 drives leaders to make unprecedented interventions but what next” (The Guardian); “Climate Change: ‘Unprecedented’ ice loss as Greenland breaks record” (BBC); “Belarus massive and unprecedented protests” (NPR); “Arkady Dvorkovich: 'It is clear that today the world is facing an unprecedented crisis’” (RealNoevremya); and one more from among dozens, this one the understatement of the day, “San Francisco prepares for unprecedented November election” (SFBay).

“Unprecedented”—what’s up with this word’s popularity? Just a news media fascination—you know, the flavor of the month kind? Or is it humankind’s attempt to condense into a single word our angst over the stunning magnitude of upheaval and change scrolling across our 24/7 news feeds?

“Unprecedented.” Turns out Holy Scripture resorts to it, too. Without even using the word, Daniel describes it: “At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then [unprecedented]” (Daniel 12:1). Unprecedented end times—unequaled by anything in history. Jesus Himself builds off of Daniel’s endgame description: “‘For then there will be great distress, unequaled [unprecedented] from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again’”—so unprecedented will be those times that Jesus goes on—“‘If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened’” (Matthew 24:21-22). Reads a bit like the googled list of headlines, doesn’t it?

Ever get the idea God is trying to tell you something? Well if you haven’t, this would a good time to get that idea. The escalating headlines with their litany of “unprecedented” events are hardly surprising to the student of God’s Word. Daniel, Revelation, Jesus’ mini-apocalypse (Matthew 24/Mark 13/Luke 21) clamor for our careful investigation. Why? So we can log on to one more depressing headline and burden our already anxious spirits? Not at all.

Jesus cuts to the point: “‘I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe’” (John 14:29). Did you catch that? The point of prophecy, the point of Jesus’ embedded predictions is to make believers out of us! The growing list of “unprecedented’s” swirling around us these uncertain days is simply the Spirit’s call to believe in Him who is the Lord of both history and prophecy (history in advance). “I am telling you all of this, so that when you suddenly realize you have entered a time of ‘unprecedented’ upheaval and change, you will not fear—you will instead believe in Me even more confidently!” 

In fact, that’s exactly how Jesus put it at the end of His predictions: “‘When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near’” (Luke 21:28). There it is—the very best news of all—Jesus is coming soon! Unprecedented? Are you kidding? It will be the one headline with no precedent—before, after, or ever. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”