18 April 2020 | Tallinn, Estonia [Mervi Kalmus] <\/p>\n
I\u2019ve never watched a horror movie in my life but believe me, I have a pretty good idea about what kind of things would make me freeze in front of a screen in utter horror! <\/p>\n
The Bible has a few stories that seem worthy candidates for a horror movie script. One of them is an Old Testament story from the desert wandering days of the Israelites \u2013 the story of the poisonous snakes.<\/p>\n
<\/a>This means that the last thing we want to think about when coming together as a church, is death. And yet, this is exactly what we came together to do. In the middle of this deadly pandemic, we came together to remember a death.
We didn\u2019t have a real communion service \u2013 because communion involves being together. We could not be physically together but were connected electronically and in spirit. <\/p>\n
We did our best to stay true \u2013 even during a national lock down \u2013 to our Christian calling to \u201cproclaim the Lord\u2019s death until he comes\u201d (1 Cor 11:26). This call has not been cancelled, not even now. <\/p>\n
For us, staying true to this call meant that we all, individually, baked some unleavened bread. We remembered to buy some grape juice on our weekly shopping trip. And when we got together at the appointed time on Friday evening, we were ready. <\/p>\n
We sang worship songs, we prayed, our Baltic Union president shared the Word, we thought about Jesus and His broken body, and then we ate the bread and drank the cup. We proclaimed the Lord\u2019s death, we remembered that one death which has a potential to give us all life. Life everlasting.<\/p>\n
I teared up several times during the service. It wasn\u2019t just that I miss my church family so much. I teared up because I suddenly understood what it might have been like for the Israelites to live in the middle of a snake plague with danger around every corner. <\/p>\n
I understood how difficult and yet how crucial it was for them to look up to that bronze snake even as people were dying left and right. How confusing and yet how real their salvation was! And I understood that our only hope in the world where death runs havoc is a disfigured body hung upon a cross. Jesus, bruised and broken, really is the only hope we\u2019ve got. Because only \u201cby His wounds we are healed\u201d (Isa 53:5), only by His death we are given life. <\/p>\n
This truth suddenly hit home in a new way.<\/p>\n
We are all waiting for a human cure, a covid-19 vaccine. We are waiting for that time when we can leave our homes, go to church and have real communion services again. But I will never forget the lesson I\u2019ve learned during this pandemic \u2013 the cure comes from the suffering. Life comes from death. <\/p>\n
Yes! With Christ comes not just a story of death, but the promise of a glorious resurrection \u2013 a message well worth proclaiming.<\/p>\n