“Back to Normal”

Sunday, May 23, 2021

It’s finally happening: the CDC issued a new set of guidelines that essentially tell us we really don’t need these masks anymore.  That’s oversimplifying it, but considering the availability of the COVID vaccine to everyone who wants it, its astonishing effectiveness, the huge number of people who vaccinated already—including an overwhelming majority of those over age 65, the group at the highest risk—and also considering we can never eliminate all risk to life and health, that we bear responsibility for our own decisions, and that there have been huge costs in other areas due to the pandemic…considering all of that and more, the sentiment of most people by now is that it’s about time!  For over a year, we’ve been trying to get back to normal, and we’re getting a glimpse of normality as the most visible symbol of pandemic life begins to fade away.

Yet, is “normal”  something we can really expect to see returning?  Many times throughout history, something extraordinary happened, and everyone thought things would go back to the way they were, afterward.  For example, when a large group of Roman senators conspired to assassinate Julius Caesar, they really thought that with this menacing dictator out of the way, things would go back to normal—that their civilized republican government would pick up where it left off and bring back the way things used to be.  They ran through the city shouting, “people of Rome, we are once again free!”  In reality, they had not ushered in peace and security, but fourteen years of unrest and civil war, and the endpoint was not a revival of the good old Roman Republic, but the beginning of the Roman Empire.  Back to normal?  Not so much.

The scribes, Pharisees, and chief priests learned something similar, a few decades later when they, just like the Roman senators pining for the good old days, decided conspiracy and murder were the way to get things back to normal.  Here this Jesus guy exploded onto the scene and started teaching “as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Mt 7.29), and had the audacity to back up his authoritative claims with good works of great power, so that many of the people actually believed in him!  Well, they didn’t much care for that, so they tried to undermine him.  On one occasion, it was by attempting to get him to sin, or at least appear to have sinned:

And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might accuse him.

(Matthew 12.10)

Sure enough, Jesus tells them that “it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (v12), and heals the man.  Having gotten what they wanted from Jesus, but apparently not from the popular opinion, “the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him” (v14).  This is surely a violation of the commandment, “You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil” (Ex 23.1-2).  But they don’t care.  They think they know what is good, and they’re willing to commit as many acts of evil as necessary, in order to bring about their supposedly good objective.

This continues for some time, eventually working its way up the totem pole to the council in Jerusalem:

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

(John 11.47-48)

Notice that they aren’t concerned with right and wrong, or with violations of the law—they’re concerned with their place, and their nation.  They think Jesus is an existential threat to their nation because, regardless of whether Jesus actually is who he says he is, they see the political ramifications of this religious revolution.  They are, of course, correct about how the Romans would respond; but entirely wrong about what they should do about it.  But even before that, their first concern was that Jesus threatened their place, meaning their position of authority, power, and honor.  They don’t like the way things are going, and they want to go back to normal.  Why?  Because they liked the way things were before.  Jesus promises forgiveness, cleansing, and eternal life, and performs enough miracles to convince them he’s not just a whackadoodle, and should be taken seriously.  But they don’t want those things.  They’re happy to be in charge in the here and now, and to enjoy the fruits of appearing to be righteous, even while their hearts are rotten.  How far does this extend?  The high priest himself—who should be a devout and trustworthy voice for God, the law, righteousness, and purity—says, “it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish” (Jn 11.50).  John points out that he’s quite right, in a sense, but in order to get back to normal, he’s willing to descend into the pit of hell.  Ultimately, no matter what they did, they couldn’t stop God’s plan, and things would never truly get back to normal.  And thank God for that!  Jesus brought something far better than the good old days, which weren’t so good after all. 

We can’t undo all that has happened over the past year, and even as the viral threat fades, life will never really go back to exactly the way it was before.  This shouldn’t surprise us, and we shouldn’t be upset about it, either.  Instead, we should move forward with stronger fellowship, a firmer devotion, and a more resolute commitment than ever before, to live lives of holiness through Christ.

Jeremy Nettles

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