I have covid. On the way to the emergency room, I told God that if he healed me, I would tell the world my story. So here it is.
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I have never looked death that close in the eyes. I have never before feared that my roommates would awake to find my corpse before their eyes. I have never before told God that he had to intervene or I would not survive.
I have never before asked him: is this it? Isn’t there so much more that we were going to do together, so much more of Your Kingdom to see unfolded, healing to witness, reconciliation to be a mover and participant of? Is this it, God?
Apparently, thankfully, God in his great mercy said no. This is not it.
His mercy that first breathed life into my lungs 25 years ago, rushed air back into my lungs so I could breathe, again.
This is my favorite part of the story:
As we were driving, the pain was so bad I could barely breathe. I gasped for air between irregular heartbeats.
Head pounding, world spinning, body shaking, I suddenly had this idea to start singing.
My throat was too dry to even get out a sound, but I tried until I got it out -
“It’s your breath in my lungs, so I’ll pour out my praise, I’ll pour out my praise.”
The pain was still increasing, but the more I sang, the more I was able to breathe.
As we got closer, every phrase grew stronger as I felt my God literally doing the impossible.
And right as I crossed through the ER doors, every single symptom vanished.
I turned around and walked back out to my friend, and we danced around the parking lot singing of the mercy of our God.
Maybe the strongest weapon we have against death is our worship.
There was nothing special about our worship itself.
It was probably the worst I’ve ever sung.
But what was special was the object of our worship.
Because now death no longer had our attention.
We were focusing all our attention and affection on the God of the resurrection.
If worship really is our strongest weapon, it might be a good idea to look at our definition and see if it’s just based on tradition, or if it seeks after the heartbeat of the God who is greater than religion.
I’ve been a worship leader for 10 years. I thought I knew what worship was by now.
But a few months ago God tripped me up with Isaiah 1, and every time I read it, I weep.
That doesn’t normally happen to me.
Bear with me -
“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord...
When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts?
Bring no more vain offerings...they have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you...your hands are full of blood.”
But, then he points forward to the only blood that will be able to cleanse our blood-stained hands. “Though your sins are scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red as crimson, they shall become like wool.”
Because of the perfect worship of Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection, our blood-stained hands are clean. And now, he invites us to respond in a new way of worship.
Verse 17: “Seek justice. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widow’s cause.”
That is God’s definition of worship.
That Saturday I woke up my roommate and told her, “I can’t breathe.”
But while I was gasping for breath for about an hour, there are people who have been gasping for breath for 4 centuries and longer, unable to breathe from the virus of systemic racism, systematic oppression, and white supremacy.
This pandemic has been in our country since its conception and we have taken NO precautions to slow, prevent, or end it. And unlike how my body is currently fighting off this covid infection, what is the body of Christ doing to fight off the virus of racism and white supremacy that has infiltrated our “respiratory system?”
Our hands are full of blood.
In Psalm 82, God says to the leaders:
“How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?
Defend the weak and the fatherless.
Uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
Rescue the weak and the needy.
Deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
Sometimes when my breathing is labored and I’m trying to catch my breath, I think of them. Those who had their breath strangled out of them, many of them by those who claim the name Christian. Honestly, that sickens me far more than this virus ever could.
Family, it’s time for the body of Christ to fight THIS virus with our worship.
Not with lights, cameras, and livestreams.
But with justice and mercy.
That will be our worship.
Rise up, church.
Rise up, and worship.