Dear Saints,
One of my favorite sayings that I hear from you is when you say, “This doesn’t catch our Lord by surprise.” I hear it from so many and in so many different ways. This saying expresses your faith and trust in a Lord who knows all and who will see us through all things.
One thing I’d like you to also start saying is this: “This doesn’t catch you by surprise, either.”
Of course, I’m immediately speaking about the coronavirus, the stock market instability, the reactions from all sides that range from panic and fear to a pride and confidence in our health and this world that is setting itself up for a hard fall at some point in this life, if not now. But also, I want you to keep saying, “This doesn’t catch me by surprise,” no matter what is happening in your own life.
And it doesn’t catch you by surprise, not because you are so great, but because our great Lord has prepared you so well. He who has loved you from before the foundation of the world, has also been preparing you for suffering and trial ever since He called you to Himself in faith. He has promised suffering, even as He has also promised that He will be with us “as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”
When you do not know what to say, how to think, what to do, what to pray, or how to act – we can get stressed and exhausted.
Do not rely on your strength. That’s not how our Lord has taught you. That’s not what our Lord has prepared you for. Do what you have always done. Remember your training. Go back to the basics. Remember how He has prepared you for this.
You have been trained for this exact moment. Every time you have come to church, and every time you have opened your Bible, and every time you have opened your catechism, and every time you have opened your mouth and heart in prayer and song, our Lord has been training you for this exact moment, and every exact moment that will come.
He has trained you to believe and confess that He loves you and the world, that He is good and powerful, that He is merciful and present.
So, at this exact moment, what will you do? You will do what you have always done.
You will call upon God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You will remember that you are baptized. You will make the sign of the cross and remember that have you been marked and the Lord knows who are His.
You will confess your sins, in thought, word, and deed. You will remember that all evil of body and soul exists because sin entered the world. You will remember that you are not the answer, but are part of the problem, but that God in mercy has given His Son to die for you, and for the world. And with His forgiveness, is life, and salvation.
You will put down your phone, computer, and turn off the TV, and listen to God speak in His Word. You will say “Amen” and “Thanks be to God,” after hearing the Word of the Lord and know the great difference between the Word of the Lord and the word of man.
You will confess who God is: that He is Almighty AND that He is your Father; that the Son is Lord AND that He has faced great suffering and death and has come out victorious and risen and ascended; that He is Holy Spirit AND that He has called you into the life of God by giving you the gifts of the Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the promises of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
You will pray for the Church and for all people according to their needs.
You will pray as Jesus has told you boldly to pray, “Our Father….” You will be taught what your great need is as you pray that prayer. His name is holy; His kingdom is coming; His will is being done; you are asking and receiving not what you need for next week, but what you need day by day; your sins are being forgiven by Him and you are forgiving others; that you know the temptations of the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh toward despair and vice are great and in need of His protection; and that you are delivered from evil – that there is real evil of body and soul that faces you and there is real deliverance that begins here and only is fully completed when you die a Christian death.
You will receive again Christ’s body and blood. You will become convinced that if God has given up His Son into death, how much more will He graciously give you all good things. You will believe once again that Jesus is with you and for you. You will receive the victory that He accomplished 2,000 years ago, but is still giving into your mouth and ears for your heart to believe it today. You will know the sin and worry you have inside of you, and the gracious gift for God to come to you from the outside and enter into your heart once again.
What will you do? What you are doing and what you have done. Not because it is you who are doing this, but Christ in you, who has prepared you for this exact moment, and every exact moment, to rely on Him and His mercy.
This doesn’t catch you by surprise. You have been prepared for this. Whether this is going to end up being a great deal of suffering for you and for those you love and end in sickness and death or in financial suffering, you know what you need, because you have been receiving what you need all along.
Or whether we will laugh at how careful and ridiculous we were to cancel school and sports and to have the market go crazy and drive many to great nervousness, you will have received what you needed, because you have been receiving what you need all along.
Anytime we are brought to a feeling of helplessness and recognizing our great weakness and into a reliance and trust of Christ’s mercy and wounds and sacrifice and power made perfect in our weakness, it is exactly what we need.
If we haven’t been training as we should, now is the favorable time to start. That way, we will know what to do. That way, we have been prepared for what’s coming – whatever and whenever that might be.