After surviving the Holocaust, Anne Frank, in The Diary of a Young Girl, wrote, “I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” Jeremiah is described as the weeping prophet because he, like Anne Frank, watched the destruction of his people and their homeland. Jeremiah and Anne Frank surely questioned the tragedies around them.

Anne Frank was right to “remember the beauty that still remains.” Jeremiah looked at the evil around him and remembered the God above him. In Lamentations 3:21-24 he wrote:

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

Winston Churchhill said, “One always measures friendships by how they show up in bad weather.” Jesus shows up in bad weather. Of all the things we fear, pain and death remains the foundation of all our fears. Before time began, before death was real, Jesus planned to join us in death to defeat death and free us from its grasp. Jesus came to fulfill the prophecy that “the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned” (Matt. 4:15-16; Is. 9:1-12). Now Christias can say, ““Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor. 15:54-55).

Look to the eternal beauty in Jesus.  Life continues. Hope remains. Jesus saves. I can rejoice. In the face of economic uncertainty, coronavirus, and even death, I can rejoice. Jesus has already conquered the world and the grave.

D. L. DeBord