Online Letter 121

27 March 2020

Dear Online Friend(s),

Greetings in the Name of Christ who died for us, rose again, ascended to the Father and is coming again!

Total lockdown is ordered in several countries due to the Coronavirus. In India, as on date, it’s upto 14 April 2020. Christians are worried that they would not be able to hold special Services on Palm Sunday (5 April), Good Friday (10 April) and Easter Sunday (12 April). The Church buildings are closed but not the Bible or Heaven! I urge Christian friends to take advantage of this crisis to spend more time in personal and family worship and Bible meditation. To help you in this exercise, attached herewith is a set of my 20 Bible Outlines on the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, in English and in Tamil. The Hindi version will follow.

Besides using this material for personal and family meditation, you can have collective study through video-conferencing with a few Christian families. I assure you that you would get a deeper understanding of the New Testament truth of our identification with the Death, Burial, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ (Rom 6:11,3,4; Eph 2:5,6).

Most of us Christians cannot think of a celebration without attending a Service in a Church building. Don’t think we have lost everything because of this national lockdown. Christ instituted the Lord’s Supper in a “house” (Mt 26:18). The Risen Lord did not appear in the Temple or any of the Synagogues, but primarily in “houses” (Mk 16:14; Lk 24:28-31; Jn 20:19). When the body of Jesus was torn on the Cross, the veil of the Temple was torn from top to bottom. Even the Christmas story is only in two Gospels, but the curtain story in three (Mt 24:50,51; Mk 15:37,38; Lk 23:44-46)! There’s no holy place today. Under the New Covenant, God does not sanctify places but only people. Not any place but His people make the sanctuary (Eph 2:19-22; 1 Pet 2:4,5; 2 Cor 6:16).

When any type of religious gathering is banned, you cannot even have House Churches with a few families around. A single family by itself makes a good congregation, because that’s the quorum according to Jesus, whether the couple has children or not (Mt 18:20)!

Have a Blessed Season!