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Palm Sunday’s drive-through food drive at Ginghamsburg Church’s Tipp City Campus

A global pandemic. Near empty streets. Millions unemployed. Daily updates on new infections and mounting deaths. Passover and Easter celebrations in this holy season will have a much different meaning.

This Holy Week has me reflecting on the meaning of suffering. Why God? What did the Apostle Paul mean when he said, “I want to know Christ, yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings…?” How can resurrection and suffering be part of the whole? Need I say that I would prefer the power of resurrection minus the suffering?

Here are a few of my reflections from my journal meditations this week:

• We Are Not in Control. Grim news headlines from Wuhan, China, quickly become global headlines of a virus shutting down the planet.
• We Are a Global Community. Jesus’ disciples were guilty of making the same assumption many Christians through the centuries have made. Even after his miraculous resurrection, they dared to ask him, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom of Israel now” (Acts 1:6)? They were still looking for a political savior who would “make Israel great again.” Jesus’ response made it clear God’s new covenant movement no longer favored a particular people or individual nation. “It isn’t for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. Rather you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8). The Kingdom movement is about the health and inclusion of all peoples and all nations. For God so loves the world! An early Christian creed, recited when believers were being baptized, affirmed this truth of radical inclusion: “There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
• We Are Responsible For One Another. I have been inspired by the heroics of medical professionals, grocery store employees and the countless servants staffing food pantries during this global crisis. These heroes serve with selfless abandonment. A reminder: “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).
• God Suffers with Us. I have a tattoo of the crucifix on my forearm that reminds me of the selfless, unfailing love that God has for us. I often recite to myself the words from the Charles Wesley hymn, “Amazing Love, how can it be, that thou my God should die for me.” To be one with God means that we share in God’s suffering for all humanity. We suffer with the one who has endured rejection, injustice and abuse. We stand with the millions of children of God who face the pangs of daily hunger. We stand with the innocents taken by the demonic spirits of genocide, racism and human trafficking. Human beings create hell. But, as one Christian tradition reminds us, God descends into the hell of humanity’s creation to set prisoners free. We suffer because we are compelled by this supernatural force of the Father’s love to descend with him.

Our church buildings will be empty this Easter Sunday. In one sense, it seems kind of appropriate. The grave is also empty!

Mike Slaughter, pastor emeritus and global church ambassador for Ginghamsburg Church, served for nearly four decades as the lead pastor and chief dreamer of Ginghamsburg and the spiritual entrepreneur of ministry marketplace innovations. Mike is also the founder and chief strategist of Passionate Churches, LLC, which specializes in developing pastors, church staff and church lay leaders through coaching, training, consulting and facilitation services. Mike’s call to “afflict the comfortable” challenges Christians to wrestle with God and their God-destinies. Mike’s latest book Revolutionary Kingdom: following the Rebel Jesus is available on Amazon and Cokesbury.