Unmasking The Gospel

Like it or hate it, masks and other protective measures are here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. I’ve felt a “stuck in the middle'' attitude towards them with deeply opinionated friends on both sides. Through this I’ve found that there’s thoughtful information and well-meaning believers on both sides of the Covid response. When we take an “us versus them” mentality on such superficial issues, we are divided and inadvertently mask the Gospel-- dear reader, this shouldn’t happen!

When we focus on all of the litany of rules and regulations, we're ignoring a burgeoning truth pulsing under the Covid crisis. The gospel doesn't have to be masked! There's no sign saying "No Gospel allowed" (yet!). When Paul was in prison he wrote a letter speaking of rejoicing because even though he was in chains, the gospel was not chained, the word of God was not chained.

Now, the entire world fraught with a disease-- or fraught with the response to this disease-- is no accident. We are closer to the Lord's return than ever before, and the Scriptures show us that the world will experience increasing birth pangs (Matt 24:8). God’s hand is it in this disease, that fact cannot be ignored. He’s allowed it to cover the world, he’s allowed the reaction it’s sparked, he’s allowing the economic collapse and all the fall out from shut-downs, and awakening the burning need within the hearts of many for an answer that this fallen world cannot provide.

   In Acts 17 we learn that he determines the boundaries of our dwelling (where we live, and how far we move throughout our lives), and the generation we're born into "that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being'."

I believe that he allows everything-- trouble and good and pain and suffering-- to bring us to Him. So many people are without hope without God in this world. The Gospel holds hope and while we argue over mask-wearing and all the inconvenience to us, are we forgetting the hurting world? Are we forgetting that this isn't an about our rights? Didn't Christ gladly lay down His rights for a greater cause? Maybe we should be remember we're Christian before American, and our rights are in Christ first. Governments change and shift like shadows. Let's forget our earthly rights and focus on reaching those in need of Christ. Fear and death and heartache and pain should remind us that the responsibility for this fallen world lies on mankind's shoulders: we have sinned and we need forgiveness.

Can you imagine how powerful our witness to a fallen world would be if Christians were standing for the gospel, praying over the hurting, reaching out into the communities, and not seen as taking a stand against government mandates, but as standing for the gospel. If we were seen as unpolitical-- because we know that the answer is not in politics but in Christ. This time could be our greatest awakening or we could be like the church of Ephesus-- losing our witness to the dying world. Sin is pictured in sickness, and in this virus that’s come on the whole world we see a metaphor at work, a living metaphor of sin's reach. This metaphor is further manifested in our human response, and our inadequacy to solve it. The need for a cure, for a solution, echoes the much deeper and greater need for sin's cure and the cure for death. This was answered on the cross and Christ’s sacrifice, but so many missed it.

So many ignore, or trivialize, the depth of Christ’s cure. The world's desperate for a vaccine that will make them disease-proof. But there is no such vaccine. There is nothing mankind can create that would end disease and sickness and death in our world. The Tower of Babel arises yet again, the whole world working together to find a solution apart from God. As believers we should weep as Christ wept over Jerusalem, we should mourn for those who are without hope and without God in the world. And we should allow the light of Christ to shine through us, united by the gospel, not divided over masks. Let’s unmask the Gospel and enter the Covid conversation sharing the Reason for the hope in us.