25. A Home Within the Wilderness
A Home within the Wilderness
The seeds [of the cranesbill] stand together as they ripen, like arrows in a quiver, with their points downward, and their feathered shafts straight up. When the time for action comes, the sun-heat peels them off, from below and above, so quickly that you can see them curl under your eyes, and turn into a spiral by their continued contractions.
They fall, spike downward, by the weight of the seed, and the sun finishes the work he began. Closer still the gimlet winds, and as it does so it bores down into the hardest soil. Such is their strange power of penetration, as they are driven in spite of their weakness, that they bury themselves up to the very hilt, leaving only the last long curve fit on the surface. Then this snaps off, leaving the head deeply hidden.
IS THE CHRISTIAN LIFE ALL SACRIFICE and sorrow and suffering? No, a thousand times no. The very ones who have known most of sacrifice and sorrow and suffering testify most unequivocally of joy and peace and blessing, for they have discovered in it the ‘key to existence.” Is it too late for us who take for granted the tremendous privileges and appalling luxuries of our country to grasp this treasure?
My Hungarian friend is convinced that I, together with most Westerners, exaggerate the hardness of the situation in her country. I suppose she is right—the contrasts are shocking to the casual visitor. She says:
“I have never in my life experienced any hardship on this account. All the hardships and sufferings I have been through were entirely private and personal and could have happened to me in any country. I have been to America and I have a basis for comparison. The only thing I could envy of you is the incomparably higher standard of living, that famous convenience which characterizes American society. No, I don’t deny I live in a country where negligence, disorganization, bureaucracy, administration, laziness, the economic crisis, and all the rest do their best to embitter one’s life. At least in this field I am not spoiled, so spiritually I don’t lose, but even gain. I often smile at naive Western young people who know nothing at all about facing housing problems as a young married couple with nowhere to live, who travel from London to Amsterdam and back as I travel from Budapest to Lake Balaton, who are outraged when they have to eat too many eggs and red meat which will spoil their precious health. How will these people ever learn what it is to renounce something and be content with what they have? I am rather ashamed because I live in abundance while people in Transylvania starve. Life has never been unbearable here, and being a Hungarian compensates for all. I love my country.”
Another Eastern European asked me if I thought America could learn anything from the Christians in his country. I replied that I hoped those Christians might teach us the meaning of suffering, for we are “God’s heirs and Christ’s fellow-heirs, if we share his sufferings now in order to share his splendour hereafter” (Rom 8:17, italics mine). The message is clear if we evade suffering, we shall miss out on the splendor. Jeremiah wrote, “If you have raced with men on foot and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you fall down, how will you do in the jungle of the Jordan?” (Jer 12:5, RSV].
If we are ever called to great suffering, how shall we bear it if we have not learned to share willingly with Christ our small ones? How shall we manage to save others if in little common ways we are bent on saving ourselves? Jesus could not do it (“He saved others, … he cannot save himself”—Mk 15:31). Neither can we.
The chance for each one of us to “die” is always given. The day’s happenings are presented to us by the God who conceived the intricate shape of the cranesbill’s seed. With exquisite delicacy He prepares us in mysterious ways and teaches us how to receive our daily deaths, whether they be small ones such as the cutting remark, the social slight, the unwelcome task, or the coming to pass of our worst fear.
A missionary to whom I had sent the tape of Lilias Trotter’s book wrote:
“Listening to Parables of the Cross has confirmed the rightness of a recent fleeting glimpse into the mystery of the unseen. The cross which you both speak about has eluded my deeper understanding despite years of Christian education. The past years have offered a brutal but long overdue stripping of my profession and worth, confidence in relationships, and reputation for emotional stability under pressure.”
Something happened which she did not describe. Then:
“Last week an edge was reached and the intellectual assent to suffering couldn’t hold. I chose to step down from an appointed cross, flinging it aside by an act which seemed deceptively like survival at the time—flight.
“And a curious thing happened. A new misery descended, but one bringing insight rather than despair. For suddenly, out from under the cross’s shadow, I felt exposed, unprotected. The freedom to quit, to choose not to love, remained, but the (dare I say) comfort of the cross was lost. That secret inner knowledge of a pulsating presence under the heaviness was gone; an unspoken covenant was broken. Christ stood dishonored by my hand. The channel of His glory was removed.
“I thought immediately of Mark 8:34, the imperative of TAKE UP the personal cross. If it had at one time been laid upon me, now it was definitely mine to choose to take—for His sake and mine. And I prayed, ‘Restore the cross to me,’ a shocking request, considering the severity of pain, considering the history of complaining.
“And it was restored, only heavier. But this time jealously embraced, albeit with feebleness, and it was as if I’d come ‘home.’ This familiar niche of suffering became a desired haven, the required obedience a welcomed task. No one could have been more surprised. Now maybe He can speak words I’m finally ready to hear. This cosmic partnership has been reyoked.”
I have nearly worn this letter out rereading it. I have carried it around with me, studied it, shared it with others, prayed for its lesson to sink deeply into my own heart. What a phrase, “the comfort of the cross”! I have begun to understand much better the words of a favorite hymn, Elizabeth Clephane’s “Beneath the Cross of Jesus”:
a home within the wilderness,
a rest upon the way …
and especially the words of the stanza commonly omitted from modern hymnals:
Oh, safe and happy shelter!
Oh, refuge tried and sweet!
Oh, trysting place where heaven’s love
And heaven’s justice meet.
Home. Rest. Shelter. Refuge. This cross, this instrument of execution, these crossbeams of real wood, these nails of real iron—here and here alone will we find the key to suffering, the key to our very existence on this sorely wounded planet. Jesus Christ, whose real human flesh submitted to the lashes, the thorns, and the nails, transfigured that cross by His wholehearted surrender to it in love—love for His Father, love for us, His helpless, sinning, suffering, despairing children.
But, we say, there are different categories of suffering—some of them are because we are faithful followers of Christ, some the woes and misfortunes common to our human race, but many are the direct result of our own sin. We reap what we sow. Must we not simply grin and bear the sufferings in the last category? Can we expect God to waive punishment which we richly deserve?
We must remember first of all that He took it all—all the punishment for all the sin of all the world. He paid the full price. He, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, suffered for us then and suffers with us now, regardless of the source of our trouble. If we suffer, He suffers.
We must also remember that actions have consequences to which, as long as we live on this earth, we cannot be immune. All punishment, all discipline from God is from a loving Father whose sole object is to make us like Himself—holy. So let us receive it humbly, trusting in His love—a far cry from mere grinning and bearing. Of course we do not always know, while in the middle of it, to which category our suffering belongs. Often it is a mixture, but the cross remains our refuge nonetheless.
I listened to a divorced man’s story of his disillusionment with his wife, her failures, her heartlessness, her shattering of his image of what he thought he was getting.
“Why would God have me marry somebody like that? I prayed about it. I thought she was a Christian. I thought she would love me as I wanted to be loved. I couldn’t stand it. I endured years of loneliness—terrible loneliness. I don’t know if you know what that’s like.”
Was any of the fault his? How much of it? Had he loved her as Christ loved the church? Had he laid down his life for her? Did he deserve any of the treatment he got? What kind of treatment did she get from him? I did not know the answers, nor could I ask him the questions. It was too late to mend the marriage. She has long since remarried, while he continues to stare at the “poor hand of cards” he’s been dealt. What then could I say? You will find peace only in the cross. Take it all to the cross and leave it there. I did my best to explain what I believe that means: forgive her, ask her forgiveness, ask God to teach you whatever you need to learn through the price you are having to pay.
The disorders and sorrows in my own life, whether attributable solely to my own fault, solely to somebody else’s, perhaps to a mixture of both, or to neither, have given me the chance to learn a little more each time of the meaning of the cross. What can I do with the sins of others? Nothing but what I do with my own—and what Jesus did with all of them—take them to the cross. Put them down at the foot and let them stay there. The cross has become my home, my rest, my shelter, my refuge.