Such a Great Cloud of Witnesses

Hi everyone! Welcome to my campus ministry update for the month of March. I want to share with y'all some of the things God has been teaching me and our ministry lately, and I hope it is a great encouragement to you in this challenging time.

My pastoral supervisor Cody and I

Over the past month, God has been bringing up a common theme in my life and ministry. That theme has been that all people undergo suffering. I have some core guys who are going through dark places of anxiety and depression, some who feel like God is distant because things aren't working out the way they hoped, and I have found God pointing me and others back to the cross over and over again. In so many of these circumstances, God reminds me of the people who have gone before us have lived by faith in the midst of severe trials. I think that God likes to hammer in the lessons he is teaching us, and these are some of the ways I've noticed him doing that:

• We decided to start a core series on the book of 1st Corinthians, and what has really stood out to me is what Paul says in 1 Cor 2:2-5:
• For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

• I have in several of my one on ones with students who are going through hard times been led to one of my favorite passages of scripture in Hebrews 11, which looks at the history of those who have lived lives worthy of God by faith and reminds us that all the heroes of our faith suffered and did really hard things by faith, not knowing what the outcome would be.

• In my church we started a series called heroes of the faith, and we've talked about the courage, faith, and perseverance of Frederick Douglas, Henri Nouwen, Sts. Perpetua and Felicity, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I've been encouraged and inspired by all of these people, who lived lives that honored God in the midst of incredibly difficult circumstances.

• I recently preached a sermon at Thursday Night Focus titled "Things Jesus Never Said: Just Love Yourself" Writing that sermon was challenging and forced me to do a lot of thinking on whether I am willing to love myself less (be less selfish) to love God and others more. Am I willing to take up my cross and follow him even when that is really hard? (You can read that sermon through this link: Marks Sermon Outline)

Coronavirus (And why we can rejoice in the midst of it)

In the midst of God teaching me all this, this week has been when so much of the response to the corona-virus has begun, and I think that God has a lot to speak into this situation. First of all, I want to point us to how Christians have historically responded to these sorts of crisis. Let's be reminded of how our brothers and sisters responded to the plague of Cyprian 1800 years ago:

Between 250 and 270 A.D. a terrible plague, believed to be measles or smallpox, devastated the Roman Empire. At the height of what came to be known as the Plague of Cyprian, after the bishop St. Cyprian who chronicled what was happening, 5,000 people died every day in Rome alone.

The plague coincided with the first empire-wide persecution of Christians under the emperor Decius. Not surprisingly, Decius and other enemies of the Church blamed Christians for the plague. That claim was, however, undermined by two inconvenient facts: Christians died from the plague like everybody else and, unlike everybody else, they cared for the victims of the plague, including their pagan neighbours.

This wasn’t new—Christians had done the same thing during the Antonine Plague a century earlier. As Rodney Stark wrote in “The Rise of Christianity,” Christians stayed in the afflicted cities when pagan leaders, including physicians, fled.

Candida Moss, a professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Notre Dame, notes that an “epidemic that seemed like the end of the world actually promoted the spread of Christianity.” By their actions in the face of possible death, Christians showed their neighbours that “Christianity is worth dying for.”

- Article by Eric Metaxas

Christian love during the Plague of Cyprian

Christians don't fear death or plague. We have hope that is in Christ, the question that Christians need to be asking today in response to corona-virus is how can I serve and love others? Eusebius says of the Christian response to the plague:

Most of our brethren showed love and loyalty in not sparing themselves while helping one another, tending to the sick with no thought of danger and gladly departing this life with them after becoming infected with their disease. Many who nursed others to health died themselves, thus transferring their death to themselves. The best of our own brothers lost their lives in this way – some presbyters, deacons, and laymen – a form of death based on strong faith and piety that seems in every way equal to martyrdom. They would also take up the bodies of the saints, close their eyes, shut their mouths, and carry them on their shoulders. They would embrace them, wash and dress them in burial clothes, and soon receive the same services themselves.

The heathen were the exact opposite. They pushed away those with the first signs of the disease and fled from their dearest. They even threw them half dead into the roads and treated unburied corpses like refuse in hope of avoiding the plague of death, which, for all their efforts, was difficult to escape.

We have something to offer a panicked, dying world, which is the hope and love of Jesus. We can show this to others only when we are willing to put them above ourselves. Today Christians in China are using the corono-virus as an opportunity to spread the gospel to those around them (Breakpoint: Chinese Christians run toward coronavirus). We should be inspired by their faith and their selflessness to act in similar ways. We don't seek out suffering but we aren't afraid of it if it means the gospel is spread. I fully anticipate that this will lead to huge growth of Christianity in China, just as the plague of Cyprian led Christianity in Rome to move from a fringe movement to quite quickly the national religion of Rome. 

The question for us is will we respond by panicking or by teaching people the hope we have in Christ? We have hope, and we need to share that with our world. As Paul shares in 1 Thessalonians 4:

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

We have hope that endures beyond even death, and so we don't fear death or suffering. We can daily take up our cross and follow him. Allow the faithfulness of all those who have lived and died for Christ before, and are living and dying for Christ all over the world right now, to inspire and remind you of God's faithfulness.

Finally, I want to thank all of you who continue to partner with me in ministry, both in your prayers and finances. I am deeply grateful and blessed to serve alongside all of you and you are a huge encouragement to me daily. Thanks to everyone who contributed to Spring Showcase! We raised over $26,000 to send students to the Student Institute of Campus Ministry.

Pedro killing it at Spring Showcase

Prayer Requests

• Pray that our students would use this opportunity while they are not in school to love others and care for them. Pray that they would be intentional in using their relationships to give others hope and that they would be free from anxiety.
• Pray for our entire world as we respond to corona-virus. Pray especially for our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world who face both the effects of the virus and the suspicion of their neighbors as they seek to lead others to Christ. Pray that God would turn this evil to good and that his name would be glorified through this.
• Pray that I would be filled with boldness, empathy, and love. Pray that I would be equipped to share the gospel with others and that I would not become anxious during this time