The True Pandemic

 "Jesus said to her (Martha), 'I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?'" John 11:25, 26

    Coming face-to-face with one's own mortality is a sobering experience. When we're young, we think we're immortal, but, sadly, we've all seen obituaries for those who have died too soon. We who survive move along, raising families, building a nest egg, until we hear news we'd rather not. 

    Especially since the onset of the pandemic, much emphasis has been placed upon our temporal beings and, rightly so, as least to some degree. I wish we were more concerned about the true pandemic: Sin, which results in death. This has been a global problem since the Fall of mankind. The Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that the wages of this sin is death. Contrary to what we hear, the coronavirus is not our biggest problem.

   There is a true vaccine for this pandemic, one that really works. In the verse above, Jesus told a grieving Martha, "whoever lives by believing in me will never die." Stop right there: We have all been to enough funerals to verify the reality of death. So, what did Jesus mean? How may we become inoculated?

    There is a second death, the death of our souls, which means eternal separation from God. To escape this awful outcome, we must be born again. A second birth for our souls. When our hope is in Jesus's death and resurrection, we live eternally with Him, praise be to God! His blood is the vaccine.

    Sitting in our own filth in a prison cell, bound in captivity by our enemy, Satan, we are powerless and sentenced to death. At the sound of footsteps, our hopelessness is punctured by liberation when we hear a voice say, "Arise! Your price has been paid in full by your Kinsman Redeemer." The chains clank to the floor as you unbelievably, but confidently, stride past your captor to freedom.

Do you believe this?

"I will deliver this people from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?" Hosea 13:14

"Jesus said to them, 'Take off the grave clothes and let him go.'" John 11:44