Pastors' Blog

We were in the middle of our staff meeting Monday afternoon, when my phone beeped a text message. It was from Karen: “Bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.” Everyone around the table grabbed their phone, as with the rest of the nation we watched the first pictures from the marathon finish line. The orange explosion—twice, just a block apart. The surreal pause. Then mayhem. And now the casualty count this morning—3 dead, 183 injured, 13 amputations. Our hearts and prayers reach out to Boston and the grieving families. But haven’t we dreamed this nightmare before? “Déjà vu all over again.” And yet, have you noticed, our shock levels seem a tad depressed? Granted, 9-11 was a tragedy of epic proportions. But the steady drum beat of subsequent global terrorist acts—London, Madrid, Bombay, Kabul, Baghdad, Jerusalem—has beaten down our once painful sensitivity. Add to the international carnage this past year’s twin tragedies in our own homeland—the mass killings in Aurora, Colorado, and Newtown Connecticut—and it may explain a collective freezing or at least diminishing of our emotional acuity. The repetition of evil numbs our perception of it and depresses our response to it. After all, how many times in a row can the human heart be triggered by inconsolable grief? “‘This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” (Mark 9:7) What would Christ say to Boston, to our nation, to the world? What word from Him could assuage our pain, our fears? Would it be a healing word for our beaten emotions? Or is there any healing left for us? If as is evident our civilization is retrograding—if this steady drum beat is but a harbinger of that which is to come—then does it not follow that those who hear Christ most clearly (His followers, His disciples, His friends) will be His Kingdom’s most natural frontline to advance a word of hope and promise in the midst of this emotional carnage? Wouldn’t it follow that beyond educating our young, our most significant resources should be invested in communicating the healing word of Jesus to as many alive today as possible? In every nation on earth? What if we raised up a generation of young, within this generation of earth, to be trained, equipped and mobilized to personally take that message of healing into this world? Today. The GYC and AYC movements, and other such similar spin-offs, may yet prove to be the godsend the church has been languishing for. Otherwise, if the institutional church simply keeps processing its young through its universities, with degrees but minus the passion and equipping of radical young disciples, what have we done to advance the Kingdom agenda in a society now desperate with fear and hopeless confusion? At some point, somebody is going to say, Enough is enough. God help it to be you.

It’s true. She was born in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. Only it wasn’t North Korea back then—it was simply Korea. My grandparents, Ralph and Mildred Watts, were young missionaries in Korea when Mom was born, and they ended up serving seventeen years in that country. So having grown up as a missionaries’ kid myself in Japan (where I was born) and having consumed Korean bibimbap (a delectable rice dish) and kimchee (marinated cabbage and chili) throughout my life, you can understand my personal interest in the unfolding saga between North and South Korea these last few weeks. I never cease to be amazed at how quickly the geopolitical landscape of our small planet can shift. Two years ago it was the “Arab spring”—Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iran—then it was back to Libya, Iran and Syria. And in between it all has been Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and then back to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.  And now the Korean peninsula is once again embroiled in the noisy nuclear saber rattling that has characterized the unsettled coexistence of these two nations since the armistice of 1953. Somewhere I remember reading—was it the words of Jesus?—about “nation against nation” and “wars and rumors of war” being a chronic and perpetual harbinger of earth’s eventual collapse. Welcome to our third millennial world. But on this International Student Sabbath here at Andrews University we are a campus of Christian Adventist optimists—optimistic in the midst of our world’s chronic dysfunction, simply because we have learned that upheaval and change are allies with God’s strategic mission to reach this generation. Sociologists and psychologists tell us that when a human being is experiencing sudden or radical change—be it the death of a loved one, personal illness, the loss of a job, et al—that person is significantly more open to spiritual change than usual. God is not the author of chaos and confusion—His archenemy is. But divine omnipotence being what it is (all-powerful and all-creative), Heaven seizes the dark upheaval on earth and transforms it into a glorious opportunity to transmit the everlasting good news of our Lord Jesus Christ. Which being interpreted means that right now in earth’s history is a profound opportunity to engage in Christ’s mission to reach this planet with the good news of His soon return. Right now is a significant opening door for you and me to personally join with the Spirit of Jesus in reaching this generation for Him. In fact, right now is splendid opportunity to enlist as a full-time or part-time missionary for the Kingdom. “‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature’” (Mark 16:15). Jesus’ parting command to His followers clearly includes both South and North Korea. Which means it is possible that someone reading these words right now is being tapped by the Holy Spirit to prepare to enter North Korean the moment that wall comes down and the door opens. It could very well be that you are being called and, unbeknown to you, are already being prepped by the God of the universe to become a strategic player in His endgame to reach “every creature” north of the 38th parallel. (Go to www.afmonline.org to explore God’s opportunities.) This much I know on this International Student Sabbath—Calvary’s crimson mission has been international from the beginning. Which explains this terse line a century ago: “God’s people have always been aggressive missionaries, consecrating their resources to the honor of His name, and wisely using their talents in His service” (Maranatha 123). Let’s go!

Remember that childhood rhyme? “Every party needs a pooper, that’s why we invited you—party pooper, party pooper!” I certainly don’t want to rain on Wall Street’s parade and become the party pooper nobody wants. But in the midst of the hoopla over the Dow Jones industrial average’s new all-time high on Tuesday (14,253.77), could it be a bit premature to be singing, “Happy days are here again!”? George Friedman, founder and chairman of Stratfor (an intelligence service for those who can afford its fees) and editor of the eLetter “Geopolitical Weekly” (www.stratfor.com for free subscription), made this observation in his eLetter also this Tuesday: “The global financial crisis of 2008 has slowly yielded to a global unemployment crisis. This unemployment crisis will, fairly quickly, give way to a political crisis. The crisis involves all three of the major pillars of the global system—Europe, China and the United States. The level of intensity differs, the political response differs and the relationship to the financial crisis differs. But there is a common element, which is that unemployment is increasingly replacing finance as the central problem of the financial system” (http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/europe-unemployment-and-instability). Friedman’s piece is a sobering reminder that when it comes to economic realities on this planet, it seems that no sooner do we extricate ourselves from one crisis then we find ourselves collapsing into another. Take the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announcement also on Tuesday this week. According to Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, health care scientists and officials are now tracking a new lethal “superbug” called CRE (Frieden calls it a “nightmare bacteria”) that is resistant to nearly all antibiotics and “kills up to half the patients who become infected” (South Bend Tribune 3-6-13). Frieden announced, “It’s not often that our scientists come to me to say that we have a very serious problem and we need to sound an alarm. But that’s exactly what we’re doing today.” Particularly vulnerable are patients in long-term care units in hospitals and nursing homes. Party pooper? No. Just the chronicle of the reality of life on this planet. Of course we still celebrate our joys—sunshine and blue sky above a snow-clad landscape, the love of family and friends, the joy of study and work, the laughter of play—we have abundant reasons to thank God for life and health today. But neither are we ostriches—and hiding our heads in the sand won’t make it go away. And so, as Jesus admonished His followers living the near edge of time, “Watch and pray” (Luke 21:36). Which the faithful are doing at the Vatican as they await the selection of their new spiritual leader. “Watch and pray.” Which the faithful in North Korea and Syria and Pakistan are doing as they try to correlate the threat of daily life with expectant hope. “Watch and pray.” Because 1 Thessalonians 5 isn’t about party poopers, but rather a vigilant faith community (“children of light” amidst the “darkness”) that recognizes that overnight the tables can turn: “For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord [the return of Christ] so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ [“Happy days are here again!”], then sudden destruction comes upon them . . . and they shall not escape” (v 2, 3). Party poopers? Not unless, of course, the party needs to poop out in exchange for a new realism that is vibrant with hope and the deepening conviction it is high time to live out the Christ life while such living can make a difference in this world. If that’s the case, then party poopers let us be!

Remember the story about Chicken Little, meandering down the road when an acorn fell from the oak tree, striking her on the head? Panicked, she ran down the road squawking to all who would listen: “The sky is falling, the sky is falling, and we must tell the king!” Chicken Little’s cry in Henry Penny’s children’s tale has become a familiar idiom for hysteria over disaster that really isn’t imminent. Last Friday our terrestrial home in the solar system experienced (within less than twelve hours) the direct strike of a meteor in Russia and the near miss of a second asteroid, 2012 DA14. Since the trajectories of the two orbiting pieces of giant space rock were vastly different, scientists have been quick to dismiss any connection between the two outer space visitors. The school-bus sized meteor that exploded 18-32 miles above the Ural mountains near Chelyabinsk is now the star of so many YouTube videos that it feels like we know each other. Streaking into our atmosphere at a speed of 19 miles a second (bullets travel at four miles per second), this meteor (meteors are asteroids that enter earth’s atmosphere; meteorites are meteors that actually strike the earth as this one eventually did) disintegrated with energy 30 times the force of Hiroshima’s nuclear bomb! Thus the sonic boom and the 1200 injured from the shockwave-induced flying glass. 2012 DA14 achieved its own distinction a few hours later by becoming the “closest-ever predicted approach to Earth for an object this large,” according to NASA. It’s more leisurely speed of 5 miles per second brought this half-a-football-field sized asteroid to within 17,200 miles of our home. Just fifteen minutes difference in the conjunction of earth’s orbit with this asteroid, and we would have suffered a direct hit, estimated by some scientists as capable of devastating an area larger than the city of London. Chicken Little was certainly right about this: anytime the sky falls, we’re in trouble! Yes, but aren’t the various space agencies tracking these foreign objects that speed by us? In fact they are now monitoring 10,000 NEOs (near earth objects) in our solar system. And astronomers are confident they have a handle on every asteroid 19 miles in size and larger (those with the potential to cause global catastrophe and even mass extinction). They are also confident they are tracking between 90-95% of asteroids a half mile in size. But here’s the kicker—reduce the asteroid to the size of 2012 DA14 (50 yards) or less, and they are sure of only 2% of these! I.e., “there could be hundreds of thousands of these smaller asteroids waiting to be discovered” (www.guardian.co.uk/science/across-the-universe. . .), hopefully in time. “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” Well, not quite. But the strange coincidence of two outer space visitors on the same day is a rather sobering reminder to Earth that life as we know it could be forever altered in a split second by a streak of blinding light across our skies. Not to be forgotten is the somber prediction of Jesus that before His return to earth “the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Luke 21:26). The obvious point for all of us who live in the “fourth watch” of earth’s history is to find in the person of Jesus our reason for living today and our “blessed hope” for tomorrow. After all, He is the Star of every apocalyptic prediction, the Promise behind every transpiring sign. No wonder His very next words are so buoyant with courage: “Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near” (v 28).