Promises for Tomorrow; Strength for Today Part 1

 “Listen,” he said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die.  Then they will hand him over to the Romans* to be mocked, flogged with a whip, and crucified. But on the third day he will be raised from the dead.” ^{[1] Mathew 20:18-19}

As I prepare to depart to Afghanistan for nine months, I feel the gloom of departure and separation from my loved ones hanging over my head. It’s a deep, heaviness that sits in the pit of my stomach. It reminds me of what all of us as humans confront in one way or another in our every day lives.  It’s the dread one feels the night before a big exam, or when the bills are overdue and we don’t know how we’ll make the payment, or when we’re about to find out if we have cancer, or if we’re able to have children. In one way or another, we all confront difficult ordeals in our lives.

When I consider Jesus’ final days before his death, close observation of the Scriptures reveals heaviness in Jesus.  He knew his closest friends didn’t understand or know what was about to happen and he felt alone and sad. Yet when I consider what Jesus was about to endure, I’m ashamed to say I feel skeptical of the difficulty.  I think to myself: “Well, easy for him to endure it! He’s God for crying out loud, and he knew he would simply rise from the dead!” I’m ashamed to say that I secretly think it must have been easier for Jesus to go through that ordeal than it is for many humans to go through what we have to go through at times in this world. After all, we don’t have the luxury of being GOD!

However, truth confronts my skepticism about the magnitude of Jesus’ pain and our own ability to face suffering with the same kind of poise and confidence as Jesus did. Philippians 2 teaches us that Jesus laid aside his diving privileges when he became a human (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=phil%202:6-8&version=NLT ).  That means that he became fully what we are and emptied himself of any luxuries that would have made life any easier than it would have been for any of us. In other words, as the hour of his death approached, he encountered the difficulty with as much pain and grief as you or I encounter difficulty.

At this point I ask myself the question, what carried him through? What propelled him forward into the very teeth of that horrible death he knew he would suffer?

I think the writer of the letter to the Hebrews gives us a clue when he says that it was for the joy set before him that Jesus endured the cross.  Jesus’ joy was based on a reality that had not yet fully come to pass. His joy came from faith in the promise of his Father that through his death, all things in heaven and on earth would culminate in perfection. All the pain and suffering, grief and injustice of this world would be eradicated and replaced by Earth 2.0—the New Heaven and the New Earth. This promise for the future is what sustained Jesus in the darkest hour of his painful ordeal. 

I confess that such a promise—that is, the promise of the New Heaven and the New Earth—often seems far off and intangible in light of what many of us are facing today. But that might be an indicator that we have far too small a vision of how marvelous that reality will be when we finally arrive there. God gave us that promise for a reason. It was what sustained Jesus. It can—and should be—what sustains us. 

So while the gloom of departure still looms, I’m comforted to know that the promises Jesus hoped in are the same promises available for me. The same tools Jesus had at his disposal to endure the cross are the same tools available to me to endure my trial. 

God, deepen my understanding and appreciation for the significance of this brilliant truth! Please teach me more about the future hope you have given me through Christ that all things will be made perfect in the New Heaven and the New Earth. Teach me more about how that sustains me in my trials today. Give me an unshakable trust in your promise that lifts me above my circumstances and propels me forward with confidence so that I can live with joy in the face of difficulty. In Jesus’ name I pray.

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^[1] Tyndale House Publishers. (2007). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (3rd ed.) (Mt 20:18–19). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.