An undeserved mercy

People who have been disappointed in love, ambition, loss and the sins of others can take their grief too far, as if we have a right to have our way in all things all the time. Today’s devotional reading says we need to be careful -- for if the Lord were to deal with us according to our sins, we would have something to bear far worse than any present disappointment.

For Christians, we are not to allow anything, including deep disappointment, to destroy our peace. I’ve noticed so often when my heart is crushed, there is a good deal of sin mingled with the sorrow, and a great deal of pride and even creature-worship and idolatry mixed in there too. If I make an idol and God loves me, I can be certain that He will break my idols.

A man’s spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear? (Proverbs 18:14)

This verse asks a rhetorical question, but there is an answer for it; Christ bears the crushed spirit. He bears our pain and suffering, but also bore all the sin and selfishness that is mixed with it.

Yesterday I listened to a lecture about His suffering on the Cross. The professor said that before Jesus could say, “It is finished” He had to experience everything that sinners deserve. For that reason, the speaker believes that Jesus experienced that biblical “descent into hell” before He died.

Hell has been said to be everything that God is not. Human language is no doubt inadequate to describe this. The Bible uses metaphors, but fire and brimstone are not sufficient. The lecturer tried to describe what it would be like for One who had perfect communion with God to be abandoned because of His Father’s wrath on the sin He bore as our substitute. His description erased all my wonder at why Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” For Jesus and for our sake, this was hell.

My disappointments are nothing. All my sin and pride that is behind thinking that my life should always be perfect was born by the sinless one. In bearing that sin, plus all sin for all time, He experienced death and hell instead of me. What can be said about that? Only that no matter how I weep, repent, or try to live a godly life, it could never be enough. Not only that, I should never be surprised by suffering, nor think that my fate is the worst thing or my pain is more than I can bear. Compared to Jesus, all of it is nothing. Truly, my salvation is by grace, an undeserved mercy.

Safely Home

The Stauffer family is on my mind. How can anyone suffer the loss of a child? How does the Lord comfort this family? The tragedy is a high profile news story. Condolences are coming to them from all over the world, but what about condolences from heaven?

We might say that God knows what it is like to lose His Son. He understands their pain. Yet God planned the death of His Son, and I am positive the Stauffer’s did not plan or even imagine the death of their daughter.

This morning I read Hebrews 4:15. It says, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

Rather than try to imagine the temptations Jesus faced, I can imagine some of what a family struggles with when their loss is so devastating. For one thing, I would be tempted to say, “Where were you, God, when my child needed You?” I would be tempted to think that God was not there, or that He didn’t care, or that He was powerless to help.

My head, and certainly the Bible, says otherwise. My faith, and the faith of the Stauffer family, also tells me that this life is not all there is, that Emily and all who believe in Jesus will spend eternity with Jesus. Some go sooner, some later, but this is our destiny. In the meantime, we live here as ambassadors for our actual home, sometimes enduring great trials because of living in this place.

Jesus was God’s greatest ambassador and more. He came here with one mission in mind, to die for us. He came to receive the wrath of God for our sin so that we might be forgiven. How did He, humanly speaking, manage to do it?

Hebrews 12:2 says that He, “the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus knew the last chapter in His story and that was His focus. He endured.

We too, for the joy set before us, endure. It is in knowing this life is a mere whisper compared to the eternal bliss that is ours that keeps us going. I’m certain that the family in Edson whose daughter was murdered endures because they know they will see her again. They will laugh with her and rejoice at the feet of Jesus. They will do this because Jesus did it. He didn’t give in to despair or the temptation to just bail out. While He did say, “Let this cup pass from me,” He also said, “Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.” This is the stuff of endurance.

Whatever tempts the child of God, Jesus knows all about it. He is intimately acquainted with our struggles. He was here. He endured. He knew that this life is not all there is, that eternal joy awaits those who trust in God.

One verse in Revelation speaks of great testing in a future time and how God’s people will respond. Chapter 14, verse 12 says, “Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”

We who know Jesus and also know great sorrow and trials can survive. We hang on to what God tells us and we cling to the One who is our endurance. He will bring each of out of this sin-sick world and take us safely home. We mourn those whose departure seems much too soon, yet we know, I know, that I will see Jesus face to face, and also Emily.