Real Tragedy
Each, any, and every individual death is truly a tragedy – no doubt about it and no matter the reason for it. People are irreplaceable. However; contrary to what you will see and hear in the news today, even the approximately 63,861 U.S. citizens who have lost their lives to date (at this writing) due to the Coronavirus, is,sadly, not the most tragic and far reaching news story of the day. Nor are the approximately (estimated, based on 2017 and other data as of 4/8/2020): 47,000 who will commit suicide; 55,000 who will die of influenza and pneumonia; 83,000 who will die of diabetes-related complications; 150,000 who will die due to stroke; 170,000 who will die from an accident; 600,000 who will die of cancer; or, the nearly 650,000 people estimated to die of heart disease in this country in 2020 (according to the CDC, American Cancer Society, and others). No; although these are terribly tragic, truly staggering, and unimaginably mind-numbing statistics, they are still – even when taken altogether – not the most horrifically terrifying and far-reaching news of the day…
Every day, every year, souls are being lost. This is a tragedy.
Instead, this is…: Where only about one in every two hundred and twenty-six people in America (or 0.4%) are Biblically-defined, born-again and blood-washed members of the Lord’s one, New Testament, called-out group of saved people (Acts 2:38-42, 47), that means that of the nearly 3,000,000 Americans predicted to perish in 2020, that approximately 2,986,726… wouldn’t be… (Of course, this figure doesn’t reflect or have subtracted from it the number of those who have not yet reached the so-called ‘age of accountability,’ but, you get the idea).
Yes, since 2020 began, our world has been changed in ways we never could have imagined. But the most powerful and important things have not changed, not at all, and not for the last nearly 2,000 years. This, despite deadly Jewish opposition, Roman occupation, and/or Catholic persecution; and despite all of the famines, plagues, wars, tyrannies, deaths, destruction, and other terror-causing atrocities that have occurred ever since (2 Cor. 4:16-17). Those eternal and unchanging things are: God (Mal. 3:6); Christ (Hebs. 13:8); God’s word (Ps. 119:89); and Christ’s command for us to join Him in His ultimate mission to seek and to save the lost. As you remember your Savior today, do not forget what He said, did, and instructed, in places like Matthew 9:35-38, 10:24-28, and 28:18-20, as well as Mark5:19 and 16:15-16; nor, how we see the early church carrying out His commandment despite being right in the midst of the very life and death struggles which they were enduring (See: Acts 8:1-12 and 11:19-21). Let us never, ever forget, that God’s intended purpose for the church, is that every, single, one of us, does everything we personally, possibly, can: to seek, save, and see that the lost get into Christ and then ultimately into heaven (Eph. 4:11-16)!
The Coronavirus has not changed Christ’s mission nor our part in it – no, not one iota. If you want to know what real tragedy truly looks like, then try this: First, memorize 2nd Thessalonians 1:7-10… and then burn the phrase “Over 2,000,000 million just this year alone” into your mind…