Thursday: The Mastery of Unmerited Suffering
WEEK 21
THURSDAY
THE MASTERY OF UNMERITED SUFFERING
Hebrews 12:6-11
This power of mastery over their inner moral lapses and mistakes leads us to consider the mastery that this movement had over the sufferings and trials that came through the sins and injustices from others. If they could recover from their own inner moral hurts, they could also recover from outer hurts inflicted on them by their environment.
First of all, we note that their faith did not save them from trouble and sorrow and suffering. Many modern interpretations teach that God will save followers from the sickness and calamities that fall on others. It is a sign of divine favor.
Of course it is true that the righteous are saved from many self-inflicted pains and illnesses and troubles that befall the unrighteous. The righteous know better how to live; they are not always barking their shins on the system of things. They know their way around better among the moral laws of the universe. But while this is true, nevertheless the righteous are not exempt from the ordinary sicknesses and accidents incident to human living in a mortal world. They get their share. And rightly so. Otherwise God would be bribing us into goodness, which would not be goodness. The sound position is the answer of the three Hebrew young men to the threat by Nebuchadnezzar that they would be thrown into a furnace of flaming fire if they didn’t bow to the image. “If our God—the one we serve—is able to rescue us from the furnace of flaming fire and from your power, Your Majesty, then let him rescue us. But if he doesn’t, know this for certain, Your Majesty: we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you’ve set up” (Dan 3:17-18). Note “Our God . . . is able to rescue us. . . . But if he doesn’t . . . we will never . . . worship the gold statue.” That was morality independent of any deliverance from its results. Right was right regardless of consequences.
How could a faith that has a cross at its center promise to exempt us from suffering when the center of that faith—Jesus—was not exempt? God let him die upon the cross; he never interfered to take him down. Why?
O Lord, we thank you that you do not exempt us from suffering and pain, but you do something better; you give us power to use it. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I do not ask for exemption but adequacy and power to use anything that may come.