Pastors' Blog

In a world already irreparably fractured, Russia’s attacks on Ukraine over the last one month and three weeks—chronicled across the earth through live video feeds—have diminished any hope of global healing. 

And yet many, who regard the pope as the most widely recognized religious leader in the world, harbor the hope Pope Francis might even yet this Easter spark a miracle of peace for the war in Ukraine, or at least a ceasefire.

After all, in his weekly audience on April 13, the pope admonished: “The peace that Jesus brings 'does not overpower others . . . It is not an armed peace.’ Instead, ‘The weapons of the Gospel are prayer, tenderness, forgiveness, and freely-given love for one’s neighbour, to any neighbour.' This, he said, ‘is how God’s peace is brought into the world’” (www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2022-04/pope-at-audience-war-is-an-outrage-and-a-blasphemy.html).

However, this papal homily on peace notwithstanding, the Vatican’s decision to have a woman from Ukraine and a woman from Russia walk side by side through the traditional stations of the cross on Good Friday this week did not sit well with Ukrainian Catholics or their archbishop leader: “‘I consider such an idea inopportune, ambiguous and such that it does not take into account the context of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine,' said Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of Ukraine’s Byzantine-rite Catholic Church” (www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-vatican-russia-ukraine-good-friday-b2057137.html).

But “Reverend Antonio Spadaro, a close aide of Pope Francis, has defended the decision, telling the Italian state broadcaster Rai that the pope is 'a pastor, not a politician’” (ibid).

Leaving that observation aside, one must admit the pope faces both a pastoral and a political challenge. Political because he is considered the head of the Vatican state, and pastoral because ostensibly he is the shepherd of all his flock which includes both Russia and Ukraine. 

So what would the Good Shepherd Himself do, what would He say? “‘Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?’” (Luke 12:14). Jesus usually remained above the fray and resisted being drawn into internecine squabbles. Or, “‘Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword’” (Matthew 10:34)? Here He specifically addresses family fractures that will turn members of the same household against each other. Or, “‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’” (Matthew 5:9).

Perhaps that line more than any other defines His disciples in this broken world. Even in our own church Ukrainians and Russians, Croats and Serbs, Muslims and Jews, Taiwanese and Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, Blacks and Whites indeed do kneel side by side in worshiping the Creator of us all. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” because while war is inevitable, peace is not. Peace is hard-won, hard-lived, hard-fought, hard sought. But peace is the high calling of the Risen Christ for all His followers. 

“Christ is 'the Prince of Peace’ (Isaiah 9:6), and it is His mission to restore to earth and heaven the peace that sin has broken. . . . The heart that is in harmony with God is a partaker of the peace of heaven and will diffuse its blessed influence on all around. The spirit of peace will rest like dew upon hearts weary and troubled with worldly strife. Christ's followers are sent to the world with the message of peace” (Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing 27-28).

Then let that peace be what the “children of God” pray for and work for beyond this Easter. Thus truly blessed will we be.

Have you noticed? Life doesn’t always happen this dreadfully slow (the waning pandemic) or this dangerously fast (the Russia-Ukraine war)—but life keeps happening. And so to celebrate the good-news, upside of life this springtime comes a new worship series—“Sign Me Up!”—a fresh invitation to find new life in volunteer service. 

The pandemic effectively pinned down the church and the nation, keeping many of us from social involvement and volunteer engagement. But now with a diminishing health threat, new opportunities for renewed service come cheerfully knocking at our door. 

“Sign Me Up!” explores a host of ways you and I can re-immerse ourselves (as disciples of Jesus) in our post-pandemic world of burgeoning needs and re-emerge from the shadows of the pandemic into the sunnier spring Sabbaths ahead. Welcome to you, welcome to new life, welcome to Pioneer!

March 26        “Good-bye Pandemic, Hello Refugees—Sign Me Up!” (Celebration of His Cross)

April 2             “Why Some of Your Friends Are Flourishing in a Languishing World—Sign Me Up!”

April 9             “Sleep in Heavenly Peace in the Inner City—Sign Me Up!” (Taurus Montgomery) 

April 16           “Albert Einstein’s Secret to Happiness—Sign Me Up!” (Celebration of His Resurrection)

April 23           “Mr. Bingle’s Old Coat—Sign Me Up!” 

April 30           “Do Justice—Sign Me Up!”

For seven days now the world has looked on with handwringing concern as an aggressor nation has invaded a neighboring country. It is our human (and Christian) tendency to identify the villain, take sides in the conflict and pray (usually) for the underdog. 

The stunning real-time coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the horrific footage of war’s exploding carnage, and the consequent flight of tens of thousands of wives, mothers, and children have tugged at all our hearts. Their bitter tears are soul-churning. Will these families be reunited?

But we do well to remember on the other side of the border are countless Russian mothers and wives somewhere worrying, somewhere praying for the deliverance of their boys (literally cadet youth pressed into service for the Motherland). Where is the heart of our maternal God in war between the children?

“A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more” (Jeremiah 31:15).

“War is hell”—words originally attributed to Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman—remains undisputed. After only seven days of it who in Ukraine or Russia would disagree?

But we must be reminded—behind the miasma of human wartime suffering is a single dark mind. “Satan delights in war, for it excites the worst passions of the soul and then sweeps into eternity its victims steeped in vice and blood. It is his object to incite the nations to war against one another, for he can thus divert the minds of the people from the work of preparation to stand in the day of God” (Great Controversy 589).

Who is surprised at this prophetic disclosure? From the beginning, the evil genius of the fallen covering cherub—his first taste of human blood spilled from the battered Abel—has masterminded the deadly art of war in order to rush human beings into Christless graves. “And there was war in heaven” . . . and there is war on earth.

But in a war between Christian nations how does Heaven respond? How should we pray? Remember the truth about God: “The Lord is . . . not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9 NKJV). Or as Eugene Peterson paraphrased it: “He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change” (Message).

The truth today is He is giving all of us—Russians, Ukrainians, Americans alike—“space and time to change.” This is why it is both right and essential for the friends of Jesus to cry out on behalf of any deadly war: “O Savior, hold back the winds of strife that all might yet come to know You.” Let every video clip of fighting become a call to seek the victims' salvation.

And if your heart is moved with the plight of the fleeing refugees, why not go to www.adra.org (Adventist Development Relief Agency) to make a donation to their refugee emergency interventions on both sides of the borders.

Because the good news for “Rachel weeping for her children” is this response from Heaven: “‘Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded,' declares the Lord. 'They will return from the land of the enemy. . . . Your children will return to their own land’” (Jeremiah 31:16-17).

It may be a wartime promise fulfilled only in eternity—but it is still a promise we must claim for all.

A friend of mine whispered to me the other day his conviction that the eventual downfall of the American democracy will be traced to January 6, 2021, and the mob attack on Capitol Hill. My eyebrows arched, considering the bright mind and respected scholarship behind the whisper. But then everybody has an opinion these days, have you noticed?

Nevertheless, with the one-year anniversary upon us, it is prudent we pause and reflect on this New Year’s “new normal.” On the health front, the Covid-19 pandemic surges with the Omicron variant—we all know—but there is hope its surge will not reflect a sharp rise in mortality rates as well. And on the political front, there's no need to even review its landscape—we've already formed our own conclusions about all of that, irrespective of what news outlets may tell us to the contrary. But then, welcome to life in America today.

My concern for us is on the spiritual front. How is it with your soul and mine? Are we closer to the Savior this New Year than last New Year? Is the Spirit of God finding fuller access to our private lives and personal decisions, our practice behind closed doors? 

Consider this ancient prayer in the old King James Bible: “My soul followeth hard after thee” (Psalm 63:8). “I cling to you” is the same prayer in our own vernacular (NIV). But do we . . . do you . . . do I . . . follow hard after God . . . cling to Him?

A. W. Tozer, in his long-ago The Pursuit of God, reflected on the psalmist’s prayer and then made this appeal:

I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality of our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain. (p17, emphasis supplied)

Did you catch that? “He waits to be wanted.” I know you want Him and so do I. But is it a “My soul followeth hard after Thee” kind of want? How hard do we really want Him?

Maybe our New Year prayer ought to be, “Lord, help me to want to want You.” As Tozer noted, “He waits to be wanted.” As Ellen White often observed, we must “be willing to be made willing.” So why not ask Christ to mentor us into a deeper wanting, a following hard after Him this New Year? “Lord, help me to want to want You.”

Given the trajectory of this nation, it is hardly rocket (let alone political) science to recognize what we once prized as a nation is slipping away and could suddenly be taken away. If ever this secular country needed God—and by that I mean the people we work with and pray for—this would be the right time to personally model to them a deeper devotion to Christ, a following hard after Him. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with such a friend of Jesus? “Lord, help me to want to want You."

Clearly, this wanting must begin with us—we can’t wait for America. So to help answer our own prayer, “Help me to want to want You,” the practice of the ancients (and of those who walk with Jesus today—and you know who they are) must become ours. Begin each day with a less hurried, and more deliberate meditating on Holy Scripture verse by verse, joined to an uninterrupted conversation with God through prayer. The books on how to do it are legion. But the prayer to go deeper is ours. 

“Lord, help me to want to want You.”