suffering and waiting
My four year old daughter painted the Last Supper on Wednesday. Aside from accidentally painting one of the disciple’s faces blue, I was thoroughly impressed by her artistic abilities. She learned the story of Holy week at school and told us “the mean crowd didn’t like Jesus, put him on the cross, and then put him in the cave.”
That’s the hard part of the story, really. The part we don’t particularly like and yet the part that we can, in many ways, relate to the most. Cheered for at the start of the week, crucified at the end. The crowd that loved him quickly turned on him, and I’ve often struggled with finding joy in the gruesome pain of Friday and the unbearable waiting of Saturday.
I can’t identify with being crucified, but I can identify with being betrayed. With being mistreated and misjudged and put in a circumstance that wasn’t my own choosing. And I know what it’s like to wait. To wait in wonder. To wait in sorrow. To wait in agony. And to wait in hopeful anticipation.
Do you feel stuck in the pain of Friday or in the waiting of Saturday? You know Sunday is coming, metaphorically speaking, but it’s not coming fast enough. How do you hold on to hope when you aren’t sure how or when God will come through?
Jesus promised, “In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart I have overcome the world. (John 16:33) Be we believe that “these light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an external glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Because “[the suffering, grief, and trials] have come so that your faith may be proven genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:6-7)
And so we believe what we know: that suffering is an unavoidable side effect of living on this side of Heaven. None of us are exempt from sorrow or hardship or grief or waiting. And that gives me great comfort. Comfort knowing that if God’s Word is undeniably true about the hard things, then there is no doubt it’s absolutely true about all things.
Sunday came. Jesus walked out of the tomb, just as he said, just as the prophets foretold, and he was alive. He overcame sin and death.
The suffering, the waiting, it will come to an end.
And someday, “He will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order [in which we now live] of things has passed away. “I am making everything new!” He said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21:4-5)
And they are. Believe them, my friend.
