A Very Merry COVID ChristmasSample

Praise God (Even Now)

I don’t have to tell you what a messed-up year this has been.

But I’m going to anyway. 

As I write these words, I have just returned to my office after spending four days by myself in a furnished-but-still-depressing basement. A mild tickle in my throat led to my first COVID test (aka swabbing the back of my eyeballs with a Q-tip), which led to separating myself from the presence of my wife and daughters for 96 hours only to learn, in the end, that I didn’t have it. 

Welcome to 2020, ladies and gentlemen! 

My short sabbatical from my family, however, was a mild annoyance compared to what many of you have gone through. Some of you have had loved ones die from this confusing virus. Others of you have been separated from your lonely grandmother due to the nursing home’s rules or from your ill father due to the hospital’s policies. Perhaps you’ve spent most of 2020 dealing with financial losses from your small business or, like many of us, trying to stay positive about worship done through a screen and a spotty Wi-Fi connection. From missed graduation ceremonies to canceled sports seasons, from masks fogging up our glasses to the dumpster fire of negativity that is the daily news, 2020 has been a rough year.

Which is why Paul wants to help us.

In the mid-first century, the apostle Paul dealt with his own form of quarantine. Around the year A.D. 57, Paul was arrested in Jerusalem and then spent the next five years without freedom. Five years! (I was frustrated after four days in my basement . . .) Near the end of his imprisonment, Paul wrote four letters that you can find in your Bible: Philemon, Philippians, Ephesians, and Colossians. All of these writings are noticeably faith-filled and hopeful, despite the injustice Paul was suffering, but one of them grabs my attention—Ephesians.

After a short introduction, Ephesians begins with the longest sentence in the entire Bible. In the Greek that Paul originally used, Ephesians 1:3-14 is 202 total words, a sentence that runs on so long that it should get a “202” mileage decal to put on the back of its minivan. The NIV English translation breaks up Paul’s epic sentence into eight separate sentences, which loses a bit of the breathless nature of his expression, but I think you’ll still get the point when you read it.

In the days to come, as we approach the celebration of Jesus’ birth (or look back upon it, depending when you read this plan), I don’t want COVID-19 to get the best of us, suffocating our joy with all of the changes, uncertainties, and frustrations of this abnormal year. Instead, I want us to “pull a Paul” and find a run-on list of reasons to praise God. Even now. Even in the midst of this. 

So let’s slow down and meditate on what caused this imprisoned Christian to fall on his knees, raise his hands, and praise his God.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

“In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:3-14).