Clothesline 245 "Facing Suffering"

As we approach Holy Week, Jesus’ visit to the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus is most appropriate. Can you even imagine the excitement in that home, dining with Jesus and a man whom he had raised from the dead? That’s an invitation I would love to have received! So much joy and love and sharing!

But this was six days before Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, crucifixion and death…and Jesus was alone with his thoughts of what was coming. What sorrow he must have felt!

Meanwhile, while Martha prepares this special dinner, Scripture tells us that Mary took a bottle of costly nard, anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. In those days it was common for a servant to wash the feet of guests, but with water…not a costly ointment! Judas takes her to task, saying that this fragrant nard could have been sold and the money given to the poor. But Jesus says, “Leave her alone. She will use it for my burial.” Jesus knew her act of love was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and she was an instrument of what was to come for Jesus.

Hundreds of years before Jesus, the prophet Isaiah said: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” All that suffering…for our sake. And Paul wrote to the Philippians, “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.” Paul believed that sharing in Christ’s suffering would bring him closer to a resurrection.

Through our own suffering, we come to understand more fully that we are not as in control of our lives as we think we are, and we must rely on God and others more than we think we should have to. Suffering can make us more sympathetic to others in similar situations. Even as we suffer, we can become a beacon of hope to someone else who is feeling hopeless.

When we look beyond our earthly suffering, we have a better view of God’s grand design for his people. We see a glimpse of that grand design in the Book of Revelation, with the multitudes that cannot be numbered, clothed in white, waving palm branches and crying, “Blessing and glory be to our God forever and ever!” We’re told that these white-robed persons are those who have come through the great tribulation, “who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

This grand design is our design, our future. And as we journey toward this grand design, let nothing hinder our journey. Neither sin, nor temptation, nor fears, nor worldliness, nor ill-treatment of others, nor suffering—none will stand in the way of our relationship with God unless… we allow it. So, which road will you choose?