“Eastertide” or the season between Easter and Pentecost is a time when the God’s good creation begins to “spring” back into life.
To those who have ears to hear, we can almost hear the music of the spheres in the singing of the birds, and the laugh of playing children. To those with eyes to see, clouds look whiter and fluffier, and the sky a little bluer. It is part of the natural rhythm and order God has designed into his finely tuned universe.
Our God is a God of good and beautiful order, as he tells us in 1 Corinthians 14:33. We can and ought to rest in the fact that our God has a plan for his people, and it is to order our loves and make us more Christ-like so we can be a blessing to the world – like our Father Abraham. God calls us to lose ourselves in this work, only to finally find our best selves in His work of perfect freedom, in the glorious law of liberty.
In a world that is fallen into sin, and upside down (down the rabbit-hole so to speak) what does this ordering work look like? God’s ordering of our loves, to be more like the love Christ had for his beloved bride the church, will appear as disorder to the wicked who rule in high places. Christ’s Truth, Goodness and Beauty appears as error, ugliness, and evil to the world the flesh and the devil. To the principalities and powers, having principles makes you a threat to their power!
Living through 2020 has confirmed my belief in this fact. God has graced Geneva with the ability to meet and continue to give the parents the good and Godly education we have covenanted together to provide. The benefits of this covenant faithfulness on the part of God, in the midst of the world going crazy, will continue to be felt by your children throughout their entire lives. Federal Reserve studies project billions of dollars of lost earnings as a result of lost learning. What will Geneva students do with this situation?
Many in the world will resent this fact. Many Christians will be tempted to respond to the resentment of others with their own tit-for-tat bitterness, anger and alienation. But, this is not what makes for Holy and happy warriors that winsomely witness to the love of Christ that lures others to Himself. This is not what Christ did for us while he was on earth.
Our God is a God who loved us when we hated him. This is the love he calls us to share with others, in the good news of the gospel. The gospel may not be greeted as good by the world, but that fact must not tempt us to waver in our commitment to it.
I pray Geneva students and families will be thankful to God for the blessings of this year, in the midst of the many woes. Only then we can be the people of God the world needs during these dark times. After all, it was for such a time as this that we were not only born, but reborn. Happy Easter!