A Matter of Death and Life

by Mathew Block

“And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars….” (Matthew 24:6,7). You don’t have to look very far to see the kind of instability that Jesus warned His disciples about in this passage. The Middle East. Ukraine. Sudan. Myanmar. Somalia. Haiti. It seems every time you turn on the news, you’re confronted with a new conflict—or the threat of conflict—breaking out.

A growing number of people today believe that the global security we have long enjoyed in the West is on the wane. International relations are increasingly strained, and doubts are raised publicly about the health of defence-alliances. Western nations, Canada included, are scrambling to scale-up their military capabilities. Is it any surprise that many feel the world is more dangerous today than it was just a few years ago?

Nor is war the only cause of the anxiety many are feeling. Our world is reeling from trade battles and economic upheaval. Canadians are paying more for less when it comes to basics like groceries. Add in the exacerbation of long-standing regional grievances within our own country, and you begin to understand why the world feels a little less stable to many.

At a moment of global instability like this, we can begin to understand the feeling that W.B. Yeats captures so vividly in his poem “The Second Coming.” “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” he writes. “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” Yeats wrote in the aftermath of World War I, and his words convey a sense of horror and despair at a world careening rapidly out of control.

Perhaps you feel that way too: that the world stands on the edge of a precipice. That one wrong move could send everything crashing down. That global politics today are a matter of life and death. What good news it is then, that we have a God who is intimately familiar with both! For Jesus is both the giver of life and the one who conquered death!

The story of Jesus is not the simple tragedy of some rural preacher who angered the local leaders and ended up dead. There is, however, a political element involved. Scripture is clear that the chief priests and Pharisees opposed Jesus not only for His teaching but also because they feared the political ramifications of His popularity. They worried this Jesus-movement would lead to civil unrest, and that the Romans would respond by destroying Judea entirely (John 11:48). Dealing with Jesus, it seems, was a matter of life and death!

At the cross, the Son of God folded the drama of world events into His own story, co-opting them to achieve victory in a battle far more important than any other in world history.

Thus the High Priest concludes: “It is better… that one Man should die for the people” than “that the whole nation should perish” (John 11:50). Little did he know, such a death was God’s own plan! For the High Priest “did not say this of his own accord,” St. John writes, “but being High Priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (John 11:51-52).

At the cross, the Son of God folded the drama of world events into His own story, co-opting them to achieve victory in a battle far more important than any other in world history. For ever since the fall into sin, humanity had been at war with God. Indeed, all people, as sinners, are by nature enemies of God (Colossians 1:21) and deserving of death (Romans 6:23). Jesus came to end this war. But He did not do so by crushing His enemies—by crushing us. Instead, He offered Himself to be crushed in our place (Isaiah 53:10).

Through His death and resurrection, Jesus declared peace between us and God. He took the sin which had alienated us from Him and nailed it to the cross (Colossians 2:14). In so doing, He freed us from death and the devil, so that we need no longer live in fear (Hebrews 2:14-15). Now all who believe in Jesus receive the gift of eternal life (John 6:40).

You have already been saved! Remember that good news when you hear of “wars and rumours of wars” and any other instance of instability in this world. Yes, war, natural disasters, persecution, false teaching… all of these trials and more may come. But Jesus has already won the victory. The end is assured. He will come again on the clouds and gather the faithful—gather you—to Himself (Matthew 24:31).

This promise comforts us in the midst of our anxieties over this present age, just as it also comforted those who went before us. They too faced times of war and instability, but they trusted, as we also must trust, that every crisis, every matter of life and death we might face, has already been answered in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through His death, He defeated death for us. Through his resurrection, He won for us eternal life. Our source of hope in this world, then, is a matter of Jesus’ death and life!

O God, we rejoice in the salvation won for us by Your Son, Jesus Christ. When anxiety over the cares and tribulations of this world overtakes us, send Your Spirit to comfort us, drawing our attention ever back to Jesus our Saviour. Assure us of Your love and our salvation. And when our time on earth is ended, O Lord, gather us home to Yourself. Amen.

Mathew Block is editor of The Canadian Lutheran magazine and communications manager for the International Lutheran Council.

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