Virus Victims or Virus Victors?

[HKHaugan]

Virus Victims or Virus Victors?

 If there is anything a crisis does it is to make you conscious of time. And when we speak of time we have to keep before us that there are two times, world (calendar) time and spiritual time. I have put three ‘time’ articles out there for you to peruse with the idea that spiritual time is primary. Though the word ‘time’ is used, they are totally different in nature and purpose. Like our physical heart, body, mind and senses, there are spiritual parallels. But their nature and function are completely different. One time makes us anxious and the other offers peace. When surveyed by faith in Jesus they blend in balance and the physical is subject to the spiritual since the spiritual is its source.

 Take our corona virus problem for instance. Suddenly world time tells us that we have to wait so many days and weeks and maybe even months for some solution. Underneath lies the threat of our world time ending. Anxiety follows. Meanwhile, what do we do to occupy our time? The time we took for our ordinary activities was filling our calendars and the anxiety that produced absorbed our conscious moments. We wanted to get to appointments and meetings on time. We wanted to make sure we had enough time to accomplish something when we got where were going. It took time to get to where we were headed and we were concerned about leaving and arriving on time. We had to make sure we had quality time in the process and didn’t waste time on the way, during and after, whatever.

 Is it any wonder Jesus told His mother at the wedding feast when the wine ran out, “Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.” Was he being curt, discourteous and abrasive with His mother? No, no, no no! That’s the usual take that people try and cover over with some solicitous reply. Wasn’t it a much deeper reply for us to consider that spiritual time is more important than world time?

 I have at times, humorously asked the question, ‘If Greenwich time is mean time, what is nice time?’ That gives me a chance to talk about what I believe Jesus was doing at the wedding feats in John 2 when He was emphasizing that the lack of wine meant the lack of time to celebrate and dine. The consequences anticipated were without God, negative, assumed and based on fear. That is precisely why Jesus called for spiritual timing, ”My time has not yet come.” The fact that Jesus acquiesced and changed water into wine had a double meaning. First, He indicates He was fully aware that spiritual timing would not be available until He went to the Cross, His time, the time that would make spiritual timing the new context. Secondly, changing water into wine would fulfill the spiritual nature and purpose of man, woman and marriage and remove them from the cultural prison in which they had been confined.

 Paul picked up on this new context when he said, “If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord (Rom.14:8).” Spiritual life is found in our relationship with God through Jesus. Behind mankind’s anxieties lies the specter of death. In Christ, we live a life of spiritually balanced reasoning under a new authority, the spiritual relationship we have with God. Thus, the fruit of the Spirit, part of which is a patient response, we use the time we have been given in relational and spiritual centering.

 Historically crises come and go and Scripture shows us that even in the Hebrew Exile in Babylonian captivity (597 BC) under Nebuchadnezzar, we who find ourselves in the captivity of a spreading virus, have a God who has provided medical expertise and scientific ability to treat the physical distresses. Spiritual timing brings spiritual authority. In Jesus He provides spiritual time to bring us together in Him even when we are physically separated. Is He a great God or what?