by Roland Wrinkle

It’s been well over a year since every human being on earth joined hands, braced themselves and girded all the earth to endure the worst pandemic in 100 years. 7.8 billion of God’s children, together with all of His Creation, shared a nightmare. Now, perhaps, at longest last, it might be possible to allow ourselves to slip cautiously into accepting that, not only are green shoots sprouting up in a previously apocalyptic landscape, but that a new day is dawning for God’s good world. A world which has passed through the valley of the shadow

of death. A new world where we can “celebrate in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5). A new world where we will reap the glories of a brilliant array of new ways of doing old things…and new things that are already replacing old things.

A New and Better World. The pre-pandemic trend towards working from
home, either full or part time, has been irrevocably accelerated. I gave up my leased office. No longer will I spend two hours daily on the freeway to meet with our other lawyers and staff in order to accomplish everything (not most… everything) that we all learned to accomplish with 21st century technology from our homes. No more driving to and from downtown LA, Pasadena, San Diego or wherever and sit and wait in order to handle a court appearance of limited or extensive duration.

We are all poking our heads out of our shells of isolation and slowly—ever so haltingly—seeing each other once again… finally. What used to be regarded as small and simple pleasures, often taken for granted, will take on a glorious new air of celebration. We have, and will, learn so much about how to live together in a world characterized by a global economy, an interconnectedness which is exploding due to digital innovations and an irresistible sense of international affinities previously unimaginable.

A Lawyer Learns From Jesus that His Neighbor Lives in Zimbabwe. The “expert in the law” knew he was obligated to love his neighbor as himself, but he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, And who is my neighbor?’” Jesus responded with the tale of the Good Samaritan. The foundation of the story rests upon an understanding that Jews and Samaritans hated each other and lived distantly apart. Samaritans were seen as the mongrelized remnant of the despised breakaway Northern Kingdom of history. Jesus selected the characters of the story because they represented, at that time, two ethnic, national and religious groups that could never be imagined as “neighbors,” let alone objects of each other’s love. In contemporary terms, Jesus might have used an Evangelical American and a Sunni Taliban. After both a Jewish priest and a Levite (of the clerical caste) left the mugged and beaten man to rot and die by the side of the Jericho Road, it was the loathsome Samaritan who stopped and rendered aid. Jesus asked the scribe, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?’ The expert in the law replied, The one who had mercy on him.’ Jesus told him, Go and do likewise.

Two Commands in Four Words. So…the instruction to us is, “Go [get moving, as in follow Jesus] and do [not just believe and worship] likewise.” Go and act in the world. Or, as Dicken’s Ebenezer Scrooge finally came to realize, “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business.”

Hopefully and expectantly, this horrible-yet-commonly-shared ordeal has and will continue to lead to an explosion of vistas and perspectives towards a shared humanity and a unity of all of Creation. If so, it will be a miracle at the hands of a god who is resolutely intent on keeping His promise to ultimately “bless all the nations [including Zimbabwe]” (Gen 12.3) by bringing to fruition a restored creation where, “On either side of the river [will be] the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree [will be] for the healing of the nations [including Kyrgyzstan].” (Rev 22). A renewed and refreshed world as it was always meant to be, where there will be no privileges or penalties based on gender, religion, status or ethnicity (Gal 3.28: that is the meaning of “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.).

Another Miraculous Healing by Jesus. This miracle and this healing that will hopefully become more and more evident as we actually emerge from what appeared to be an interminable and intractable time of horror and dread, will be a miracle of God which heals the wounds that bind. Jesus used miracles and healings, documented in the four Gospels, to foreshadow and announce God’s ultimate miracle and healing, i.e., the bodily resurrection of the people of God at the Second Coming. This is what Paul was talking about when he said:

[We wait] in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies (Rom 8.19).

Firstfruits and Signposts. Jesus used healings and miracles to demonstrate to the ancient Jews that God was finally launching his rescue project, i.e., “at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious

throne,” (Matt 19.28) and that God’s future was bursting into
the present every time Jesus transmogrified really expensive
wine from tap water, calmed a storm, got himself born
without a zygote, walked on water, fed thousands with a
single TV diner, caught 145 fish over the legal limit, gave
sight to the blind, resuscitated a dead guy, healed everything
from withered hands to quadriparesis to leprosy, all regardless of tribe, status or station. All of this supernaturalness and reversals of how things had always gone, were signposts pointing unmistakably (if you were a bible-believing Jew at the time) to what God had always promised from the sixth page of the bible in His irrevocable promise to Abraham to “make all things new again.” John was more specific and direct. He didn’t call these portends “miracles” or “healings,” he called them “signs”—because that’s precisely what they were. Signs that unequivocally shouted out the way to the bodily resurrection of all of God’s people. “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep…. each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.” (1 Cor 15).

Pandemic Healing in a New Perspective. If I step back from looking at this pandemic disaster from the inside of it and, instead, look at it from the perspective of the promises of God, cemented in scripture, it’s as plain as the nose on my face: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Cor 15.56). I can see and taste the superabundance of green shoots as Spring breaks loose…and I can also see the vague but sure outline of God’s future for His people.

When we (assuredly) gather together again and greet each other longingly and physically, some of us will be missing (and achingly missed), while other faces will be new (and overflowingly welcomed)…but ALL of us will be in the arms of a loving God, eternally in the Age to Come. That is, was, and always will be, the Good News.