This one speaks for itself. I’ll just add that the approach here is one I find useful on rare occasions, i.e., where I mostly lay it out first in my own words and only then “cinch” it with scripture passages, left (mostly) to speak for themselves at the end. Oh, by the way, some reflection on Tolkien’s “eucatastrophe” played some role in prompting me to compose this sermon.
Every catastrophe has a future... and the future is God's.
A number of recent events have me thinking about the meaning of “catastrophe”. We all know about the worldwide economic crisis that’s been going on for over a year now. We see that the nations of the world are in turmoil over what’s going on: the riots in Greece, the threat of total financial collapse in countries from Spain and Hungary to Japan. And as for America, the so-called richest country on earth... the reality is that America is essentially bankrupt. America can’t exist at this point without borrowing massively more than it actually has. I call that bankruptcy. A report last month on the generation of new jobs in the economy seemed very encouraging at first. 441,000 new jobs were created! Everybody said hooray! But then reality struck: 400,000 of those jobs were temporary jobs created by the government hiring people to collect the 2010 census! It turns out there were only 41,000 real new jobs last month. To make clear how bad that is, 150,000 new workers enter the job market every month. That means there were jobs for less than a third of them, not to mention the other 8 million officially unemployed and millions of others who don’t even show up on official records. That’s catastrophic.
And now there’s the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. The southern coastline of America is turning red like blood. The fish and birds are dying. The water is turning into poison. They still can’t stop the oil that is spreading farther and farther. And it’s not only floating on the top of the water. It’s also forming a thick layer on the bottom—and that’s killing the sea creatures that depend on the ocean bottom for their food. It’s already a catastrophe and we still don’t know what else it will lead to.
Recently we had a catastrophe in my church denomination in America. Our “Bishop”, that is, the president or senior officer of the whole denomination, was killed in a car accident. Just 53 years old, with a wife and four grown children. In fact, he was planning to go to Canada the next day on a fishing trip with his sons. An overwhelming, heart-breaking shock—a catastrophe for his family, friends and a whole church denomination with thousands of members.
Catastrophes come into our lives, whether physically, emotionally, financially.... And people’s reactions to catastrophes include fear, anxiety, doubt, anger and loss of faith. And that brings me to the main idea of my sermon today, which is this:
If I don’t have a faith that’s prepared for catastrophe, I don’t have a faith that’s prepared for life.
Let me repeat it: If my faith isn’t ready for catastrophe, my faith isn’t ready for life.
Why? Because catastrophe happens. That’s reality. So if I don’t have a faith that’s prepared for reality, how can I have a faith that’s ready for life?
We don’t want our faith itself to suffer ruin, collapse, catastrophe. Therefore, we always need to be assessing our faith. Do I have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, no matter what happens? Or am I hanging my faith on a particular scenario that I expect Him to produce in my life? That’s a critical question.
Why is it critical? The obvious reason is that it could decide whether or not your faith stands strong in the day of catastrophe. But I’ll quickly add that I’m not so naïve as to think that some stark, terrible “day of catastrophe” absolutely comes into the life of literally every single Christian. We don’t all lose loved ones in their youth. We don’t all suffer long-term, debilitating illnesses, or bankruptcy, or a broken home or public disgrace or injustice or persecution. Some people live comparatively peaceful lives from cradle to grave. But listen carefully: even if you’re in that category, the question I asked is still a critical question for your life: Do you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ no matter what? Or is your faith faith in a pleasant, preferred scenario you expect him to arrange for your life?
Why is that a critical question? QUALITY. The quality of our faith will determine the quality of our lives, the quality of our spiritual being and growth, the quality of our joy, our peace, our hope, our relationship with God, our existence. If we have a faith that’s ready for catastrophe—a no-matter-what faith in Jesus—then we have a faith that grows, grows deeply in the knowledge of God whether or not the catastrophe comes. If I don’t have a faith that’s ready for catastrophe in the future, then I don’t really experience the quality of life in Christ now. And if future catastrophe destroys my faith in Christ, I probably never had it to begin with.
I recall a woman I knew long ago, who went through possibly the worst catastrophe anyone can: the loss of a child. Her 18-year-old son was killed in a motorcycle accident. As a result she gave up her faith, saying she could no longer believe in a God who would let something like that happen to her.
Now I have to ask the following question, even if it sounds cold and cruel: Didn’t this woman know, before her son was killed, when she was still “believing in God”, that there were other mothers in the world whose sons were getting killed in motorcycle accidents?
Of course she did—how could she not? We all know it. It means, therefore, that, on a certain and very real level, she was content to believe in a God who let other mothers’ sons get killed in motorcycle accidents... as long as it wasn’t her son.
So, she didn’t really lose her faith, because she never had it to begin with. It wasn’t real-world, ‘no-matter-what’ faith in the Person of Christ; it was faith in a Preferred Scenario.
I know. I sound cold, cruel, unsympathetic: “You can’t know the agony in a mother’s heart, so you can’t judge!” No, I’m not unsympathetic. The pain I feel for her tells me I’m actually full of compassion. But I know that other mothers and fathers, and husbands and wives, and sons and daughters, and dearest friends, have gone through catastrophes just as awful but have come out of it with a living faith. Why? Because they had real-world faith, faith that works in the real world where terrible things like this happen. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ no-matter-what. As a result they came through the pain with God’s peace, hope, strength, joy—in short, a good reason to really live. “I have come”, Jesus said, “that they might have life and have it abundantly.”
If I speak what sound like hard words about that poor woman, it’s not from a lack of compassion but the opposite. It hurts to see her stuck in despair and bitterness, with no way out. I want to see her really know the comfort of God’s awesome power, the healing comfort of the living Christ. But as a rule that happens only when we have faith that’s prepared for catastrophe ahead of time.
And, I think, especially in these times we need faith like that! We need to check, evaluate our faith, and make sure it’s firmly fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ—no matter what happens. Because then our faith won't fail us—for He is "the same yesterday, today and forever". The future and eternity belong completely to Him.
“Heaven and earth will pass away”, Jesus said.
Catastrophe? You bet it is!
“But my words will never pass away.” In the midst of catastrophe—unshakeable assurance, a rock-solid ground to stand on.
In 2 Peter 3:10-13 the apostle writes (read).
The earth and all that is in it will be burned up and dissolved. A catastrophe? Absolutely! But can you believe Peter says this is something we’re actually looking forward to? How can that be? Catastrophe and hope: how can they exist side-by-side? It’s impossible, isn’t it? No, not when we are in Christ. Because our whole faith is founded on a catastrophe and a glorious hope.
(Read Mark 15:22-26.)
“And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.” Catastrophe. Personal, physical, torturous catastrophe, lived through, moment by moment, drop by drop, to death.
(Read Luke 24:25-26.)
The Risen Lord is telling his disciples: No catastrophe... no faith! No suffering... no glory! And if you stop to think about it, Jesus is also saying: “No past... no future!” Because every present catastrophe, just like every passing second, is obviously, logically, going to immediately become a past catastrophe—a past catastrophe caught up in the rushing stream of time towards the future that finally belongs to God and His promises. “O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken...” If the catastrophe of the cross hadn't happened, there’d be no future.
(Read Luke 13:34-35)
The heartbreak of Jesus Christ: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem....” A past catastrophe, a future certainty. Your house is left to you desolate, but the time will come when you say, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” No-matter-what faith in Jesus perceives every Past and every Present in the light of the glory of a coming day. Yes, even when we perceive it through tears, just as Jesus wept.
Our faith is based on a catastrophe: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Maybe it seems obvious why I would call such a terrible death catastrophic, but... the resurrection? That's not a catastrophe, is it? Isn’t that something wonderful? Well, yes, it is – truly wonderful in every sense: great, amazing, miraculous. But it’s also catastrophic. A catastrophe is a total change of order, the turning upside-down of everything familiar; it’s an earthquake, an upheaval, a revolution, an end and a beginning. And the resurrection is certainly all those things. And we know the resurrection was really catastrophic for the devil: it obliterated, demolished, shattered the power of sin and death forever. Definitely a catastrophe, and what a glorious one—hallelujah! Without catastrophe we’d have no salvation, no faith.
Finally, I want to amend, to adjust a little bit, something I said before. I said that some people seem to get through life without major catastrophes. But please listen carefully: If we have this no-matter-what faith in Jesus—faith that sticks to Him no matter what else may happen—then I guarantee you we will suffer and catastrophe will come.
You might be thinking that if I worked for an advertising company they’d probably fire me, judging by the advertisement I just made for faith in Jesus.
Alright then, let me clarify what I’m talking about: If we have that kind of faith, then we will suffer because we share the sufferings of Christ, and we will experience catastrophe because, for one thing, Jesus will revolutionize our lives. (Philippians 3:8-10) “I count all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord... that I may win Christ... that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings”, says the apostle, and I trust we can say the same.
Need I add that none of us can escape catastrophe in any case, because each of us has a date with eternity, the physical catastrophe of death. But if we’re in Christ, death is something we’ve already come to ultimate terms with, thanks to Jesus: (Gal. 6:14) “...God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world,” says the apostle Paul, and I trust we say the same. (Gal. 2:20) “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me: and the live which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” So says the apostle, and so says No-Matter-What faith in Christ.
At his own approaching appointment with eternity, when nearly everybody had abandoned him and the state was going to execute him, the apostle wrote to his dear son in the faith: (2 Timothy 4:7-8) “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith”—not “lost the faith”; kept the faith!—“Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
When he could have protested that it was all unfair, and his friends were traitors, and God had failed him, instead Paul lived and spoke faith, no matter what: (2 Timothy 4:16-18): “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
Our faith was born in catastrophe and glory. Faith in Jesus, no matter what, will turn every catastrophe into an expectation of glory. Every catastrophe has a future, and the future... belongs to the Risen and Returning Lord Jesus Christ, “to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen!”
