A video to accompany my last tweet. I'm obviously not the only one who somehow made the leap from TP to Titanic. https://t.co/fXfO5R8vKa

— Serenity Bohon (@serenitylive) March 17, 2020

The above video alludes to the scene in Titanic when the ship is sinking, people are panicking and jumping ship, and in the midst of it all, a trio of musicians plays on. While this video is supposed to be funny (and it is funny), I am finding it kind of prophetic for my own role (and maybe your role, too?) in the midst of this pandemic.

This morning I read from the Bible in Matthew 4:23 again (I moved into Matthew 5, too, which is Jesus’ sermon on the mount). But, my soul clung to, specifically in 4:23, where it says “proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.” The word “gospel” as we may or may not know, means “good news”, and “the kingdom” is the kingdom of God, or the heavenly kingdom. And my mind wandered to the news that I’ve been reading over the past couple of days.

I’ve been reading news by the New York Times of the kingdoms from all over the world. Some of the news has been good or hopeful, but a lot of it has been negative. I also just thought about the news in general, and how it brings us stories and information of different places and people, and again how most of it is negative, but sometimes good. But whatever it is, it DOES express the stories and information from a place or people.

In the same way, Jesus Christ proclaimed the gospel – GOOD news only – from the kingdom of God. Which means that he proclaimed good stories and information from another realm – from the heavenly, unseen, spiritual, pure, holy realm.

And with those thoughts, I am a bit in awe because I have never thought of it this way, that everything that Jesus Christ did and said was proclaiming stories and information from heaven, which made me want to go back and read all the gospels over again (which I am doing). But also, it made me want to proclaim, and hold out in my attitude and actions, the good news, in the midst of all of this. I want to keep on playing beautiful music and holding out beautiful things from heaven in the midst of all of this. That is my role, and that is our role together. When we hold out the beautiful things, then beauty is sure to come, as Christ said in that sermon on the mount – “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7).