Recently a neon sign in New York’s Times Square read: “Can’t wait until I can say that was so 2020.”
Without question, few Americans—and likely few others—have bidden farewell to the year just past without enormous relief, clinging desperately to the hope that the year to come will witness the reversal of the present pandemic-induced crisis, the healing of gaping wounds gouged by unprecedented divisiveness, and the full pursuit of a path to social and economic restoration and a new sense of national harmony.
The phrase “annus horribilis”—Latin for “horrible year”—seems to have first been used in 1891 by an Anglican publication to describe 1870, the year in which the Roman Catholic Church adopted the dogma of papal infallibility [1]. Later it was used by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth to describe the year 1992, when so many scandals within the British royal family dominated headlines around the world [2]. Few today would challenge the appropriateness of this phrase relative to yet another year that now belongs to the ages.
At least one prominent American newspaper has in fact used this moniker to describe the year 2020 [3].
As Seventh-day Adventist Christians survey the past twelve months, viewing them first and foremost in the light of Bible truth and inspired prophecy, a number of lessons rise to our consciousness which merit our focus and contemplation as the old year recedes into history and the new unfolds before us.
Lesson No. 1: Character and Crisis
Ellen White has written, “It is in a crisis that character is revealed” [4]. This is true of societies and nations as well as individuals.
The present pandemic has shown what can happen when the normal routine of duty and leisure, work and pleasure, is disrupted by unexpected circumstances which call for sacrifice and selflessness. Especially in the United States, where in most cases major crises (financial and otherwise) have occurred when economic and social “cushions” absorbed much of the blow of adversity, the present crisis has demonstrated the turmoil and alienation that can result when these cushions are either absent or largely ineffective.
Decades of eroded trust in established institutions—justified or otherwise—have made it difficult for many to forego the right to otherwise routine gatherings for work, worship, and pleasure for the sake of their own and others’ physical safety. Appeals for mutual sacrifice and collective burden-sharing are thus met with as much suspicion as support. Too many of us have never had to surrender our pursuit of material sustenance and personal enjoyment for the sake of someone else. “Looking out for Number One” has become the consuming passion of the vast majority of us. Making the well-being of others a priority has become an unfamiliar agenda.
Much will be written, we can be sure, of the social, cultural, and political impact of the Covid crisis. But the resistance of so many to the restrictions imposed by the present pandemic will likely, in retrospect, be recognized by wiser analysts as the progeny of a pervasive self-focus on the part of society’s overwhelming majority.
Lesson No. 2: Learning to Choose Our Battles
Some will remember a recent article on this site titled, “Choosing Our Battles Wisely” [5]. Hopefully this will be a most notable lesson to be drawn from the year now past. Wisdom demands that we not inflate every incident of governmental restriction into a challenge to constitutional liberty, religious or otherwise. Those who have rejected on such grounds safety guidelines arising from the present pandemic—physical distancing, mask-wearing, restrictions on public gatherings (even religious ones)—have foolishly expended credibility which genuine challenges to basic freedoms will one day require.
It can’t be stated often enough that the secular state holds a legitimate interest in the physical well-being of its citizens. Churches and other religious organizations have long accepted restrictions along these lines, such as those imposed by the local fire department relative to meeting room occupancy, etc. Restrictions of a similar nature for the purpose of preventing the spread of contagious diseases are no different.
Lesson No. 3: New Ways of Spreading the Gospel
God is never defeated. Witnessing for our faith might be curtailed by a pandemic, but present-day technology has shown itself to be a ready, if at times awkward tool in the hands of gospel workers. The Internet, social media, and the hitherto unfamiliar world of Zoom have enabled many of us to impart and to share the benefit of worship and the study of Scripture, even if we’ve been constrained to do this in physical isolation.
These experiences will prove instructive for future crises, when physical togetherness may again be ill-advised—though perhaps for different reasons—in the work of gospel proclamation.
Lesson No. 4: The Signs of Jesus’ Soon Coming Continue to Multiply
The coronavirus pandemic has reminded every prophetically-minded Adventist—and perhaps others as well—of the continuing relevance of Jesus’ prediction that as His coming neared, “there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places” (Matt. 24:7). But recent events have vindicated other inspired predictions also.
Only during the past twenty-four hours was I made aware of a tweet from a less-than-conservative Adventist pastor in a distant country, who spoke of how the end-time scenario found in The Great Controversy makes so much more sense to him in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021. This pastor spoke of the evangelical rioters with their “Jesus Saves” banners, and the apparent belief of these persons that violent force in God’s name is fully proper for Christians.
A supreme irony of modern Adventist history has been the extent to which last-day events as foretold in Scripture and the writings of Ellen White have become increasingly, even embarrassingly credible at the same time disbelief in the relevance and credibility of these prophecies has accelerated in certain professedly “intellectual” circles of the church. This tragic disconnect, like similar examples we have witnessed in our present day, illustrates how people can inhabit fictive worlds of their own making in which objective facts are irrationally prohibited from challenging their cherished worldview. Like the antediluvian sinners in Noah’s day, for whom even the signal manifestations of God’s power proved insufficient to persuade them of the need to board Noah’s ark, the plainest evidence affirming the truthfulness of classic Adventism’s end-time expectations seems incapable of convincing many hard hearts that the faith of their upbringing remains both meaningful and true.
Lesson No. 5: God Continues to Wait, Not for More Calamities, but for the Character of Christ to Be Perfectly Reproduced in His People.
Disasters both natural and human have been ubiquitous throughout the Christian era—indeed, throughout history itself. Certainly a case can be made that these tragedies have become increasingly numerous and hurtful with the passage of time. But be that as it may, such calamities are not what God is waiting for so that Jesus can come.
The New Testament is clear that God’s final judgments on Planet Earth are being restrained so that His servants can be sealed (Rev. 7:1-3). Elsewhere in Scripture this sealing imagery is linked with the Holy Spirit’s presence in the heart as the guarantee, or earnest, of His work in us (see II Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13; 4:30). We also read that the Spirit’s inward presence enables us to be “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19).
Elsewhere the New Testament apostles affirm total sanctification on the part of Christians as the indispensable prerequisite for the return of Jesus. Such passages as the following are clear beyond misunderstanding:
And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (I Thess. 5:23).
But thou, O man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.
I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession:
That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ (I Tim. 6:11-14).
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? . . .
Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless (II Peter 3:11-12,14).
The phrase “without spot,” used in two of the above passages, is especially noteworthy, as this phrase is used elsewhere in the New Testament to describe the sinless character of Jesus (I Peter 1:19). Without question, according to these verses, God is summoning His people to duplicate in their practical lives the sinless obedience found in the life of our Lord.
Other New Testament passages, repeated so often in the articles on this site but never often enough, declare the same eternal truth:
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
And every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure (I John 3:2-3).
And in their mouth was found no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God (Rev. 14:5; see also Zeph. 3:13).
In other words, pandemics may come and go, culture wars may ebb and flow, political divisiveness may crash across society only to recede for a season. But in the end, it is the divinely-empowered conquest of sin in the lives of the consecrated on which the Lord waits. Once that conquest is complete, the witness of God’s faithful will exude a credibility never seen before in the saga of history, the world will at last be warned without excuse, and the Savior will appear in power and great glory.
May the new year, when it closes twelve months from now, find each of us higher and still higher on our journey to this greatest of triumphs, is my prayer as 2021 spreads before us.
REFERENCES
1. “Annus horribilis,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_horribilis
2. Ibid.
3. Renee Graham, “In defense of 2020, our annus horriibilis,” Boston Globe, Dec. 22, 2020
4. Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 412.
5. Kevin Paulson, “Choosing Our Battles Wisely,” ADvindicate, Aug. 7, 2020 http://advindicate.com/articles/2019/9/20/paulson-draft-1-s88fl-6mlnf-49y4n-dkr69-dcwee-sxa65-f8e9m-enjcf-bkzn7-dlhf9
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan