'As [Jesus] was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”' (Luke 19:37-40)
As Christians, we understand that suffering is used by God to grow our faith, and that as an earthly father uses discipline to teach his child because of his love and concern for them, so too, our Heavenly Father. As Luther stated it, "...we are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it".
There are times when we feel the vale of tears most keenly, as though Satan seeks to sap all joy, all hope, all comfort, even those truths we know to be promised to us not through any merit of our own, but for the sake of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and even then, only because God loved us first and beyond our human comprehension.
There are times when we see or experience injustice, chaos, death, evil and hatred, sometimes founded conversely on what some would have us believe are even secular virtues of truth, equality, love, and justice. During these times, we must return to what we truly know as love, and we can only know that because God first loved us. Where shallow human understanding ends, the depths of God's abiding love begins.
The apostle Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans that we deserve nothing less than God's full and justified wrath because of our inheritance in original sin, and the sins we commit during our lives. Here, though, God's logic conquers that of the world. "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly". That was us, all of us, before our baptism into and our inheritance of the Kingdom of God. (Romans 5:6)
"For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God." (Romans 5:7-9)
Justified. Saved. Not just restored, but improved. Christ's blood shed for us on the cross not only cleansed us of all our sins, but improved us. As if this exchange could not be more unequal, we have nothing to offer in return for this gift beyond measure! We were "ungodly", and "sinners". Leaving our sins in the past, nailed to Christ's cross throughout time and space, we are called to new life in Him.
The apostle John reminds us about the love God lavishes on us.
"Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him...There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him: whoever loves God must also love his brother." (1 John:15-16, 18-21)
So when we stand accused of not practicing what we preach, or adrift in the sea of uncertainty that is so often earthly life, what shall we say? We must speak the truth: we have a past as sinners, and a future as saints. In our lives, we can take comfort in the surety of God's promises. As Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians, there is no uncertainty in Christ.
"For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in Him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him. That is why it is through Him that we utter our Amen to God for His glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put His seal on us and given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee." (2 Corinthians 1:19-22)
When those in authority would silence us with threats of death and imprisonment, we should not fear. While our earthly bodies can be destroyed we remember our justification in Christ, and the promise of the new heaven and the new earth. The Gospel can never be destroyed, though Satan would seek to silence those who joyfully share it. Though the world would not hear God's Word, there is no hiding His "mighty works". Even God's creation cries out in acknowledgement of His majesty and power.
The apostle Paul gives us our marching orders for this life when we find ourselves in war or in peace.
"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
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