Weather Changers

The words, "Extreme Weather Warning" superimposed upon a thermometer and an golden sky

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It’s getting hot in more ways than one. After an unusually cool beginning to our summer, the Ottawa area, where I live, is about to be engulfed by a significant heat wave. The anticipated temperature for our national holiday, Canada Day, this Sunday, July 1, is 36 degrees Celsius (96.8 Fahrenheit). That’s high enough. But with the humidity, it may feel more like an all-time record-breaking 47 C (116.6 F)!

Such heat can be very oppressive. No energy. No motivation. It’s nearly impossible to think.

Also oppressively hot is the current social environmental condition. With yet another setback against religious freedom in Canada earlier this month when our supreme court decided against Trinity Western University, the heat of secularization continues to melt the traditional values that undergirds Canadian society. Certainly, a liberal culture claiming to celebrate diversity would have even a bit of room for an excellent, well-established and distinctly Christian educational institution to train lawyers. But no, a different kind of diversity prevails. One that enforces a new morality of sexual expression intolerant of biblical values.

The normal response to a heat way is escape. Hunker down. Stay cool until it passes. But is this how God wants us to respond to the growing encroachment of government forces? Just wait for the weather to change?

And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. (Matthew 8:25-26; ESV)

What would you think if I told you that God calls us to be weather changers? Am I stretching the metaphor beyond reasonable limits? Think about it. Are we not followers of the great Weather Changer himself? Remember the disciples in the boat, thinking they are about to die by drowning due to a massive storm, while the Master was asleep in the back? Several of them were weather experts, being fishermen. Based on conventional wisdom, they weren’t overreacting. They were finished as far as they were concerned. But that’s not the end of the story. Jesus (or “Yeshua” as they would have called him) completely changed their environment. He didn’t simply hold off the devastating effects of the extreme weather event. The result was a complete positive transformation  – “a great calm” (Matthew 8:26).

This story is designed to encourage us to confront extreme weather – not so much about the impending heat wave. Better than that! We are reminded that when we are in the boat of life with the Messiah, we are not to view ourselves as victims of our environment, praying for nothing more than survival. We are to be weather changers.

Following Simon Peter’s confident declaration of Yeshua’s messianic identity, Yeshua said “I will build my kehillah (English: assembly, congregation, church) , and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Gets pretty hot the closer you get to Hell. But once we are assured that Hell won’t win, we can relentlessly storm its gates.

If we are overwhelmed by the heat, we may find ourselves like the disciples in the boat, thinking it’s all over. Yeshua may not be sleeping, but he may as well be, given how things are going. But when was the last time you sought to arouse him, allowing him to size up the situation, and watch him do the impossible? That won’t happen as long as you think Hell is winning.

While I am not looking forward to the weekend weather, it will pass. As for the current social climate, that’s another thing. Hell’s heat isn’t going to dissipate on its own. By prayer and his Word, God has given us what we need to refresh a sweltering oppressive culture.

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