I’ve been hearing conversations lately by church leaders realizing the need for the church to regain a central focus on the cross and resurrection of Christ—the story of God’s cosmic defeat of the principalities and powers of death and evil—for truly sustaining hope. Sadly, some faith communities have lost this emphasis in exchange for a primarily individualistic emphasis of a personal experience of forgiveness merged with positive advice for a happy life.

But during the COVID-19 pandemic, church leaders began to realize that—for those grieving the loss of loved ones or loss of a livable income or those weighed down by the suffering they saw all around them—messages focused on individual happiness were ringing hollow.

We need hope that truly reckons with the full weight of sin and death’s wounding of our world—hope that’s deeper than death.

The gospel is the story of God’s redemption of a wounded cosmos through the cross and resurrection of Jesus—an event that’s changed the fabric of reality. One that, in God’s grace, we’ve been invited to share with the world.

Only when we fully reckon with the bad news—the depth of sin and death’s stranglehold over creation—can we grasp the wonder of the good news, that “creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

Even as we lament honestly the “groaning” of creation (v. 22), we can experience the good news that Jesus is alive! Working through communities of people filled with the Spirit and with hope. Carrying us from death into glorious resurrection life.

Monica La Rose, Our Daily Bread Author

Our Daily Bread Ministries in Indonesia is supported by the freewill offering of individuals in Indonesia, who through their gifts enable us to continue to bring the life-changing wisdom of the Bible to many here. We are not funded by any church or organisation.

SUPPORT US