Jubilate
Commemoration of Anselm of Canterbury,
Theologian
April 21, 2013
What do you say when there is no joy to be seen? When sorrow and
tragedy and evil overwhelm you? What do you do when God seems to not be in the
picture but Satan is having free reign?
What you do is what the world does not do. What you say is what the
world ultimately is left speechless to say. You say that there is hope in Jesus
Christ. What you do is put your hope in Jesus Christ.
At least, that’s what Jesus Himself did. Now that seems a little
strange to think of it that way. Perhaps it’s better to say it this way: He
knew who He was, why He came, and what He was about to do. His trust, His hope,
His focus was all on the Father. His carrying out of His love and salvation was
all with His eyes set on the cross.
Thus, we do what He did. We say what He said. We too focus on the
cross. We too say that it is in Him that we have our hope and our salvation.
Consider how this is utterly the opposite of the way the world responds
to tragedy. The world undergoes tragedy and seeks answers. Not the Church. Not
we who are Christians. We see beyond the tragedy. We see, in fact, in the midst
of the tragedy something the world cannot see. When tragedy strikes, we see
beyond it and see Christ and His cross. Remarkably, we see even in the midst of
tragedy Christ and His cross.
It’s never that God’s will is that evil runs free as it did on Monday
at the Boston Marathon. It is never our Lord’s will that evil befalls people in
such a way. But it is true that our God allows evil and tragedy to strike. And
it’s even true that He uses evil and tragedy for good.
To the world this makes no sense. We look at terror like we witnessed
on Monday and wonder what makes some people so heinous to cause this kind of
harm to others. The world doesn’t believe that the triune God is a good and
gracious God who wants nothing more than to save us from our sin. The world
looks at events like 9/11 and Boston and tries to make sense of them. The world
tries to figure out how God fits into this kind of evil and suffering. It can’t
understand how these things fit into believing in a good and all-powerful and
loving God. So it determines that God isn’t what He makes Himself out to be.
What actually is the case is that God isn’t what we make Him out to be.
God views our life here on earth and the time we spend on it much differently
than we do. So He approaches evil and suffering much differently than we do. If
we ask questions of Him and try to make sense of them He answers right back,
Are you trying to understand Me according to your feeble mind and your limited understanding?
Are you trying to make sense of My holy ways when your reason is clouded by
your sinful and self-centered ways?
He invites us to peer into His mind, though. He welcomes us to look at
His ways. He does so by showing us His Son. Where we see great sorrow and
suffering and seemingly endless onslaught of suffering and evil, God sees eternity.
And He sees it in His Son. Taking all eternity into account, He gives to us,
for a little while, His Son. He becomes a man. He walks the earth. He teaches
and meets people in their sorrow and their suffering. He meets one-on-one with people
who have experienced evil.
And then He does something remarkable. He chooses evil on Himself. Not
one person ran the marathon on Monday wishing for evil to befall them. They ran
it to accomplish something. People who entered the World Trade Center on
September 11 were just going to work. People stay clear of manifest evil. When
it strikes they flee.
Not Christ. He willingly stepped into the heart of evil. The people who
were at the starting line didn’t know what would strike four hours later. The
people along the route cheering on the runners, enjoying the day, didn’t know
terror would hit. Jesus knew. He walked into the heart of darkness willingly.
He walked the path of sorrow and suffering and the evil men brought upon Him.
He willingly submitted to all sin and guilt being laid on Him as if He were the
guilty one; as if He were the sinner.
As He approached it I imagine it was like a marathon. A marathon
doesn’t go quickly. Before you even step up to the starting line you prepare.
You train, you take care of your body. You log a lot of miles, looking ahead to
the day when all the work you’ve put in will come to fruition. When you’re
training for it, it seems anything but a little while. When the gun goes off
you breeze through the first mile. You tick off the miles and yet you still
have twenty-some odd miles to go in that 26.2 mile race. How will you get
through it? If you’re already starting to think that it’s taking a long time,
how will you feel when you’re at mile 15 and you still have over ten miles to
go?
When you’re coming toward the end and your body is ready to quit, your
mind is the thing that is getting you through. Playing tricks like, “It’s only a
little way to go,” doesn’t help much. It’s more just sheer will. But once it’s
over, you look back and see that it really was a little while. When a woman is
giving birth, she is ready for it to be over. She is not experiencing joy but
pain. Anyone who would tell her that it’s almost over would likely be greeted
with daggers from her eyes.
No, it’s not until the marathon is over, and the baby is born, that you
experience the joy. That you see that it really was a little while. This is
what Jesus knew going in. Not that it was different for Him. Not that it was
easy for Him. Not that He wasn’t struggling in His endurance. He needed to be
sustained by His Heavenly Father. He needed the angel to minister to Him in the
Garden. But He knew. He knew of the joy that was set before Him in order to
endure the cross. His eyes were set on the fact that it would indeed be a
little while and that the sorrow and suffering and evil would not be
never-ending.
He knew that it would come to an end, because He knew the promise of
the Father. He knew that He would be suffering and dying for the sins of the
world. He knew that the Father would raise Him from the grave. This is how
Jesus could speak of all that would transpire as a little while. It’s how He
can speak of the suffering and trials and evil we endure as a little while. The
world will think we are wishfully thinking when we see beyond the tragedy of a Pearl
Harbor or a 9/11 or a Boston and see the cross and our Lord Jesus Christ who suffered
there. They will think that we are deluding ourselves when we see all that goes
on in this life as getting worse and becoming more and more nonsensical as
something that is just for a little while.
Not that we don’t care. Not that we don’t see things for what they are.
But we don’t descend into despair as they do. We know how it all turns out. We
know that even as Jesus stepped up to the starting line He also crossed the
finish line. At some point we will also. We don’t know when. Its seems like
it’s taking a long time. But it is a little while.
But you know what? We ourselves will fall into the trap the world does.
Since it doesn’t seem like a little while we ourselves will wonder. When
enduring suffering we agonize over how it continues instead of coming to an
end. You know the only way we can actually believe and know that it’s just a
little while? The word of Christ. He has said it, that’s how we know. He went
into His suffering and death knowing it, and He held fast to it. He secured the
victory. We too go the way of Christ. We go in knowing, even though our sinful
nature doubts. We go in with certainty. We go in in all confidence because it
rests on the word of Christ, not on how things look, with thousands of ordinary
people going to their death in an act of terror, and hundreds of people dying
or scarred for life because of evil men.
In a marathon, even some who have youth and strength on their side will
stumble and fall. Even some of them will not finish. Even some of them will
finish far back in the race, after some who are much older and some who are
weaker. Phidippides hadn’t run the first marathon when Isaiah prophesied, as we
heard it in the Old Testament reading. But he knew how it works in this life.
He knew that we are feeble and suffer and question God in the face of evil.
He knew also this. It lasts only a little while. He knew the same thing
we know today, God is the Savior. Isaiah prophesied He would come. Since it
happened hundreds of years later, no doubt God’s people thought it was anything
but a little while. But in God’s time it was just that. Since our Lord has
promised to return again in glory and it’s been two thousand years, we too
don’t see it as a little while. But it is. It is because it’s His timing. He
doesn’t operate according to our time or timing. He operates according to
mercy. That’s why He entered time and willingly suffered. When we suffer in
this life this is what we can always know. He has conquered sin and evil and
suffering in His suffering, death, and resurrection. In only a little while you
will see that in all clarity and joy. God grant you His Peace as you endure in
the meantime. Amen.
SDG
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