But what if....
I have been working with this sentence fragment this week because it was one of our nephew Michael's favourite beginnings.
According to his pastor, especially in bible study, he would often start off in this way. And we are living in a time where this is really relevant. Everything is up for re-examination and this is part of where we are living due to results of Covid lockdowns. Some examples: But what if there is no spike in retail sales in December? But what if gas prices stay high? But what if only a few people come to church physically anymore? But what if there is no God? Jesus asked that second-last question himself. It is there in Luke 18:8.
The last question is asked when people have lost their way and are searching for some meaningful answers. It is not a biblical question. Because of the awesomeness of God, especially in Genesis 1 and 2, this question is never asked. I commend Psalm 24 to your reading here as a wonderful statement of faith.
The biggest question I hear right now is "But what if things never go back to the way they were?" I look at this as a golden moment to do two things. As we seek answers to "what does this mean?" (a very Lutheran question by-the-way) we find answers that we would have never considered before. For example, there was little media involvement in the church; until the pandemic. There was only one way to do outreach in your community; it was door-to-door. Now, we are on several media platforms every week. Our offerings are on the website and we are expanding those in the near future. Stay tuned for developments. We seek the wisdom of others from outside ourselves in order to enrich and encourage the witness of Jesus through the Holy Spirit. God was good at this. So was Jesus. They hung out and used the most unlikely people to further the work of the kingdom. There is even a donkey. ( If you want to hear about a talking donkey then read Numbers 22.)
I will leave you with this: "But what if you spoke to Jesus and God every day?" Pr. Scott
