Passion Sunday 13.3.16 Coping under pressure
I met a man once whose main objection the faith was: why does God simply not kill the devil?
A lot could be said on that topic, but one possible answer is that out of difficulty good things can come.
A lot of our life is based on competition, eg parliamentary debates, law trials, sporting contests, examinations.
The idea is that facing adversity or opposition we perform to the best, and the best result is likely to emerge.
Something like that could be said to happen in the spiritual life.
We are tried in the furnace: So that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 P 1,7). And turn out better for the experience.
Originally, if we had never sinned, we could have just skated through to eternal life. There would have been no suffering, just simply basking in the glory of God.
Since we have sinned, and much suffering has resulted, the next best thing we can do is to use that suffering; allowing ourselves to be refined, to become as much as possible the people we were always intended to be (in the mind of God).
Suffering is the way back, we could say, the way back to the path we should never have left.
And this explains Our Lord’s suffering. He had no sin, but He took on Himself the sins of the world. He absorbed the punishment those sins deserved, and emerged, risen and glorious, free from sin, and any further suffering, except that involved with trying to save others.
So He enters this adversarial world. And right from the start someone is trying to kill Him (Herod). Then in adult life the people of His own town want to throw Him over a cliff (Lk 4,29); other groups of people want to stone Him (Jn 8,59; 10,31); and there was all manner of verbal and intellectual challenge to His position.
As in today’s Gospel, He fends off the hostile questions and reveals the truth, to those who are capable of receiving. He would endure such mistreatment for the sake of setting the evildoers free - the very same people doing this evil, He has come to save.
It is hard work saving the world! When it does not want to be saved.
And the Church in each generation has to take up the task. The true disciples have to take some share of the flak.
We may not want all this difficulty, but we will see that it is worthwhile after it happens. If we trust in God to know what is best for us, we let Him do what He wants.
If we want adventure, enough to follow Jesus Christ. Let him take your life and turn you inside out.
There will be some pain, as we readjust; as we give up various bad habits we have formed.
Anything we do too much of has to be trimmed back (eating, drinking, talking, television, all kinds of self-indulgence). These things all take discipline, and do not come easily, but we are carried on the wings of grace. It turns out to be easier than we feared.
Then there is still more. We are not just recipients of salvation; we are disciples of the Saviour - meaning we have to take some share in His mission. It is not just a matter of getting to heaven ourselves but doing whatever we can to help others get there.
God does not kill the devil; but He does give us enough help to overcome his influence. From this we will emerge better for the experience.
We don’t have to like the fact that the devil is there, but it helps to have some understanding of what can happen. As always, we pray, Deliver us from evil.
No comments:
Post a Comment