Last week was Holy Week, and if there’s any week that a Christian is supposed to have ‘the feels’, it’s this week. But I had none of the feels. I tried listening to podcast sermons, tried praying contemplatively (as seems to be the trend now), tried feeling broken about the state of my soul and the world. But nothing. I just felt pretentious.
So finally on Good Friday I watched The Passion of the Christ. I don’t think I’d watched it since college, but I figured if anything was going to get me into the right headspace for Easter, this would. Thankfully, I wept through most of it (my heart still beats!), but the moment that broke me most was when Jesus is carrying his cross to Golgotha and he stumbles. His mother runs to him, compelled by maternal instinct, and he turns to her and says, “Behold, I make all things new.”
The thing about me is that I tend to have delayed emotional reactions to tragedy. For the duration of whatever is currently tragic, I feel emotionally detached from what’s happening and cerebral about what needs to be done. Feelings of grief or loss come later. Sometimes much later, sometimes never. And what the world is experiencing right now is tragic. Not only because of the high number of deaths that many countries are experiencing, but also because of the enormous number of people who are losing their sources of income, who are being forced to shelter-in-place in toxic and abusive home environments; it’s tragic because of the sharp uptick in usage that I imagine porn sights are experiencing, and the relational fallout from that breaks my heart.
I suppose it didn’t help that I spent the past two weeks listening to three different podcast series hosted by investigative journalists who followed and/or broke the stories on Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby. How so much evil and depravity can exist in a single person is devastating to me. The earth is groaning, and not just from pollution.
I desperately needed to hear Jesus say, “Behold, I make all things new.”
This Covid19 season feels to me like a forced sabbath, like a forceful hit on the "pause" button. Humanity is exhausted, the earth is exhausted, the humanitarian community is exhausted, capitalism and globalization are exhausted. But no one was actually going to do anything to stop the reckless speed we’re moving at. Not really. I’ve never been a faithful observer of Lent (I tried to engage this year and failed miserably), but I can’t help thinking that Covid19 was interestingly timed with this Lenten season of collectively waiting for Jesus to make all things new by triumphing over darkness. I can’t help hoping that there’s something deeper at work here.
It’s easy to see God making things new in the fact that families who have been too busy with work and school and hobbies to spend proper time together are now getting nothing but time together. It’s easy to see God making things new for a planet that has been ravaged by our lack of mindful stewardship. Now city birds are chirping, the skies are clear and creation is breathing a collective sigh of relief. It’s easy to believe that God is making things new within the systems of finance and commerce that have for too long been the driver of gross exploitation and inequitable practices. I sincerely hope the disruption results in our thinking differently about material wants and needs.
That said, I’m having a harder time seeing how God is making things new in the lives of the countless people all over the world who are losing their sources of income, the millions of informally employed people who have no safety net to fall back on when their governments revoke their ability to make a living. It’s hard to see God making things new for those people who live with abusive partners or parents and who now have little recourse for escape.
In just the last five to ten years, the lid has been ripped off for many of the powerful men who sexually preyed on women with impunity, and for many religious figures who have been caught out in the same sin. But for every instance in which a sexual predator is held to account, just as many cases are covered up. How and when is God going to make that new?
To be clear, I don’t ask that question out of doubt, but out of impatience. I struggle with the fact that God is so patient with us. The longer He is patient, the more evil we commit and the more people fall through the cracks. It does not make natural sense to me. So I’m challenged by 2 Peter 3:9 where Peter says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness [that’s me!]. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” It makes me think of Habakkuk’s heated discussion with God in which God responds, “The revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and not delay.” (2:3)
God does not tarry. He has promised to make all things new. But this doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll make all tangible situations new right now. His work is more often than not conducted in the realm of the unseen and eternal. In the movie, Jesus says “I make all things new” when he’s walking towards his crucifixion, but in Scripture he says it at the end of the story, in Revelation 21:5.
We haven’t yet reached the end of the story.
Until we do, my hope is in this promise found in Zephaniah 3:
At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you; I will rescue the lame and gather those who have been scattered. I will give them praise and honor in every land where they were put to shame. At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home.
