Sunday, April 3, 2016
What color of suffering do you know well? Endless shades of pain visit human beings:
disease and treatments that mock us with hope only to have hope dashed when a
relapse comes; loss – loss of a loved one, loss of a relationship, loss of job
and with it loss of identity; that which shall not be named – mental illness;
anxiety of various types. Pain comes
from every angle. Anxiety by itself
takes on numerous forms – relational. I
struggled with that one for years.
There’s theological anxiety: what if what we do every Sunday is all for
nothing, there is no God, and this life is all there is? And social anxiety, which branches off in
countless directions.
What a horrible opening paragraph to
the sermon one week after Easter. Just
last Sunday, we stood joyfully blinded by light emanating from the empty
tomb. We can still see it from here,
still feel its warmth. And I stand reciting
verse after verse of depression.
First Peter 1:6 says Christians
rejoice even as we suffer various trials.
This letter was read in churches that worshiped about 60 years after the
resurrection. These were second
generation Christians, most of whom had not met Jesus in person or even any of
his original followers. They came to
faith as we do, by the witness of those who came before them. However, unlike us, in the late first
century, to be part of a Christian church was to be part of an extremely small
and often persecuted minority. Where the
passage describes the “various trials,” that word ‘various’ literally means in
Greek ‘multi-colored.’
That’s the crossroad where today’s
church meets the Christians of the first century. That’s the intersection of struggle and
faith. While our trials differ from
theirs, like them our struggles are multi-colored. Some of the trials we go through come from
our own mistakes. We find ourselves
knee-deep in messes of our own making.
Some can be explained. A person
is in a wheel-chair because another person drank too much beer and then drove a
car. Some suffering cannot be
explained. God, why does one 55-year-old run several marathons a year while
another 55-year-old comes down with cancer?
And God doesn’t answer the “why” question. Some suffering is unfairly stigmatized. We show great compassion for the one with
cancer while we judge the one with depression.
Neither did anything to be afflicted.
It is not the depressed person’s fault he is depressed but from
Christians he hears, “Get over it.”
And by the way, even if someone suffers and it is his own fault, as
followers of Jesus, the giver of unlimited grace, aren’t we to be givers of
grace and compassion? It is why
Christians visit prisons and love prisoners.
We are called, in Christ, to even love people who in some way are
responsible for the difficulties in their lives. We are not supposed to rub people’s noses in
the messes they make. We are called to
love all and especially to heap love upon those in pain.
Eventually, pain visits each one of us.
What do we do with this word from 1st Peter that says followers
of Jesus rejoice in our trials?
How do we rejoice in times of trial?
Easter is not that far in the rear view mirror. It is
just last Sunday. See the tomb? It is empty because Jesus who was dead is
alive, resurrected. Feel the life
pouring forth from Easter? First Peter
says God has “given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1:6). The
resurrection doesn’t stay fixed as something we sing about at the beginning of
spring only to stay there, forgotten by midsummer, and then re-visited next
year again at the first of spring. The
resurrection is a means by which God gives us new birth.
In new birth, we have undergone a change and there’s no going back to
who we were before we put our trust in Him.
In new birth, we have a new outlook.
Yes, we still face challenges and trials. Some among us go through significant
suffering. All have times of
difficulty. Yet we know that on the
other side of our deaths, eternal life awaits.
The darkness of our rainy days is pierced by the vibrant rays of eternal
joy that is ours in Christ.
Also in new birth, our sins are forgiven and paid for. So we can relate to one another as
individuals free from death’s grip. In
the resurrection of Jesus God adopts us as His own sons and daughters and
reserves for us the inheritance promised to children of the king. We are, in Christ, a family. This doesn’t instantly make our present struggles
go away. But it does mean that when we
face numerous shades of pain, we do not face these trials alone. The
resurrection doesn’t stay put in the week of late March and early April. The resurrection is God’s way of
creating. God creates hope. God creates a family.
The resurrection also opens the door to personal knowledge of God. We are invited into real relationship with the
creator of the universe. First Peter
says that we of the New Birth are “being protected by the power of God”
(1:5). This might sound odd when we
openly acknowledge that Christians have hard days and seasons in dark valleys
like everyone else. What does this
scripture mean when it says we are being protected?
We’ve named a few things. In
Christ, we have eternal hope. Even though
we live through some painful some days, life after death comes next. In Christ, we have a community. Even in bad
times, we have people around us to make the bad more bearable. And when 1st Peter as well other
passages says, we are “being protected,” it means God is with us now.
The Holy Spirit is mentioned in 1st Peter 1 in verse 2,
again in verse 11, and in verse 12. The
Spirit makes the church holy (v.2) – both the church corporate and individuals
within the church. We are set apart to
God. The Spirit lives within us, helping
us know how to pray, giving us courage and strength to stand up in spite of the
onslaught of various attacks (v.11).
And, the Spirit brings into our hearts news from Heaven (v.12).
Of course this is not news like that reported by The New York Times or CNN or WRAL.
What we get by the Spirit from Heaven is revealed news – deeper
understanding of God. It puts our
difficulties in proper perspective, helps us see the blessings in our lives,
and expands our capacity to love others.
Hold onto these promises: we have
eternal hope, we are in a family, and God is with us.
What makes it possible for us to keep our eyes on the resurrection so
that we are comforted and emboldened in dealing the world around us? I find hope in a basic practice that when
done consistently creates in us a mindset that we will see God no matter how
tough today or any day is. In this
practice we stay fixated on God and who we are as people of the resurrection in
Christ.
I am talking about daily and weekly rituals of worship. Verse 6 says we rejoice even when we
suffer. I am certain that the rejoicing talked
about here, which was done in the early church, was not an emotional response.
Yes! I just lost my job
because my pagan neighbor found out I refuse to offer sacrifices to this city’s
local deity. Fist pump! Oh year, my wife and I were kicked out of the
synagogue because they don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah and we do. We just lost the community of friends we’ve
had our entire lives. Sweet! My son just got his head knocked in by a
centurion who found out he follows Jesus and will not bow to images of
Caesar. Hallelujah.
I don’t think that’s what was meant by rejoicing. The early Christians wept and mourned; they
had grief, fear, and doubt. “Rejoice” is
a spiritual discipline. We are Easter
people. Even when we know our Christian
brothers in Syria are being targeted by terrorists, we rejoice because of who
Jesus is, because our sins are forgiven, and because of what Easter means.
He is risen! Syrian Christians
hurt, but terrorists cannot wipe them out.
We worship weekly to remember our victory and rejoicing is part of our
worship because we are Easter people.
He is risen. My depression
cannot get the best of me because I sing the songs of resurrection even when I
am down; and, when I am so down I cannot sing, my brothers and sisters in
Christ around me sing for me and I am reminded of the family of which I am a
part.
He is risen. Alcoholism, death,
angst – none of it can claim us. We are
already claimed by the one who defeated death.
We are his. Our weekly and
monthly rhythms of worship remind us, keep us in step, open us to new
revelations from God, and help us regularly reset our lives.
I have just experienced a
loss that leaves me feeling like a failure, utterly crushed and adrift. Rejoice!
Hallelujah! Amen!
The rejoicing done in corporate and individual worship is not a show of
false happiness. My loss leaves me
feeling broken. But I trust more in the
God of Easter than I trust in my feelings.
It feels like I am broken, but the tomb is empty; there is more to the
story and more to my story.
So, we come back every week. We
look one another in the eye. We
embrace. We weep at the cross on Good
Friday, soar in the light on Easter Sunday, and the rest of the time immerse
ourselves in the word and in the worship.
We trust it. We rejoice because
of who God is and God is who He is no matter what is going on.
In doing this, we discover as we look back at the Hells we’ve endured
that blessing was there all along.
Sometimes we don’t realize salvation is happening while we are being
saved but only upon looking back at it. Oh,
that’s where Jesus was!
“Although you have not seen him,” First Peter says, “you love him; and
even though you do not see him now, you
believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable joy, for you are receiving the
outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1:8-9). In daily, weekly practices of worship, we
don’t see Him, yet, actually, we do see the Lord. In the church, in the songs, in the Spirit,
we do see Jesus. We live in the
potential where any moment may be the moment when God breaks through. And we know He is with us in every
moment. So every experience of life is
lived in the light of the empty tomb.
He is with us, always. Our God
is with us.
Every day, we are people of the resurrection filled with a hope that
never fails.
AMEN
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