Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Crucibles That Come
Commentary
for the July 9, 2022, Sabbath School Lesson
"For
I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither
the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39, NIV
This year, we have had an
unusually cold and wet spring that extended into early summer. Our pear and
apple trees set on fruit anyway. But our cherry tree that usually sets on an
abundance of tiny fruits failed to even bloom. The conditions weren't right.
While I will miss those tiny homegrown dessert snacks, the tree looks vibrant
and healthy with lush foliage. The rest from fruiting seems to be doing it good,
and I am looking forward to a large crop next year.
Even though I am without
cherries, I have learned something from the tree. Despite the hardships that
prevented it from fruiting, the tree did not quit. It kept right on being the
best cherry tree it could be. It had been endowed with a purpose by the
Creator, and it would be true to that purpose to the best of its ability. I
learn so much from growing things, I understand why God started humanity out in
a garden.
While the Bible is a precious
heritage handed down through thousands of years of human history, we sometimes
forget that other book, Nature. We say that God wrote the Decalogue with his
own finger to add significance to the text. But God's word is preserved in
every living thing. He spoke, and it was, complete with a DNA data bank that
ensured reproduction based on the original pattern. As the genomes are studied,
we discover the complex intricacy of life and the adaptability those
microscopic strands give to life here on planet earth. As we expand our reach
to the stars, we even use the knowledge we gained about life here to search for
similar building blocks of life elsewhere. And I wonder if an alien me is also
pondering the fruit on his tree and finding similar inspiration about life,
origins, and adversity.
Adversity is a fact of life.
Like the cherry tree, all are faced with challenges. How we respond reveals
much about our character. That may seem glib considering in some cases they are
mortal challenges like cancer, capital violence, grave accidents, viral
pandemics, etc. But death is an ever-present possibility for all life on the
planet and has been so since the expulsion from that original garden. It is the
monster hiding in the bedroom closet, prepared to leap out without warning
should we let our guard down. Humanity's fear of death is so powerful,
dictators and gangsters rely on it to subdue their enemies. It is so powerful
that our nation of three hundred million souls possesses four hundred million
privately owned guns to prevent it. Since fear is such a powerful motivator,
should we expect it not to be used in opposition to the Kingdom of God? How
many saints have been martyred for no other reason than placing their faith in
God more than anything else?
Sadly, in the fourth century,
when allowed to co-opt the authority of the civil government, Christian leaders
found they could use that same fear of death to enforce orthodoxy. It wasn't
hard to do. They simply projected the same fear they felt onto their enemies
and found it worked most of the time. There were a few who placed their faith
above the value of their lives, but most acquiesced to the demands to conform.
Of course, they felt safer, but they weren't really for death comes in myriad
forms to the fearful. Only now, it also came with guilt for the compromises
they made in hopes of preserving lives. The power of the church to use fear of
death was attenuated by the Reformation, but even so Puritans murdered Quakers,
and Protestants were not above murdering Catholics in revenge, having learned
well from Catholics who had done the same to them.
So, what are we to do about all
of this? Buy more guns? Kill others before they kill us? Is Christ's admonition
to love our enemies now canceled? Are we to love only those we already love, those who love us? If so, what then
differentiates us from anyone else? What defines a Christian apart from any
other person who lives in fear? How can two Christians sit on opposite sides of
a battlefield trying to kill one another to protect their respective families
back home? We may say that the other Christian should not have fought in
support of their corrupt government, but could they not say the same about us? God's
kingdom is not of this world, and if we make the mistake of equating our
government with that kingdom, we are deceiving ourselves. We may push hard
politically to have our government adopt Christian values, but they will only
corrupt those values, using them also to instill fear of death in their
enemies.
What does this all have to do
with this weeks Sabbath School Lesson? The lesson focuses on suffering. While
suffering can lead to death, it may not. Nonetheless, it can last all our
lives. The same fear that causes us to compromise our faith to avoid death can
cause the same to avoid pain and suffering. Like Job, who suffered, we can
endure, but others, to avoid suffering, identify with Job's wife's counsel to
"Curse God and die." They feel that their present life is not worth the price
of suffering and walk away from the Lifegiver. They do not understand that to
live is to suffer, and all are suffering, some more visibly than others. And in
the biggest lie that some accept, the enemy tells them that this life is all there
is. Once they accept that, they may compromise everything to hold on to that
brief, flickering spark of life, fearful of losing it. Or in despair, they may
end their own life rather than go on suffering.
It seems strange then that the
focus of our lesson quarterly is to find joy in suffering. But I think the
point they are trying to make is to not allow fear to conquer us and drive joy
from our experience. The suffering is seen as evidence that either life is
pointless, a position the Bible vehemently denies, or seen as proof that
something valuable awaits those who suffer. But here is the catch. They do not
earn that valuable reward because of their suffering. That would not be grace.
It would be works, which is antithetical to Pauline theology. Instead, they
suffer because the reward has already been secured by Christ. As he held fast
to the promise of that reward and suffered for it, so do we. And our suffering
has the same source as his. It arises from the ire in the heart of the one who
rebelled in heaven, attempting the overthrow of God's throne. He was cast to
the earth along with those who supported him. Every torment he can inflict on
those who will stand in the heavenly places where he once stood, so that they
might deny God and share in his fate, is proof of the importance of not
allowing fear to divert us.
To our way of thinking, we would
have had the enemy destroyed, ending the suffering. But according to the
Genesis account, mankind wanted to have a knowledge of good and evil, like
Pandora with her box, unleashing all manner of evil and every fear into the
world. Despite that history, too many of us remain attracted to evil, even among
those in the household of faith. We operate with the presumption that the ends
justify the means and use evil in an attempt to achieve a good end. If we
continue to behave like this, we cannot expect suffering to end. We might ask
why doesn't God simply destroy all the evil and its sources? The Book of
Revelation states that will happen one day, but if it were to happen today,
with our divided hearts, would anyone survive? Before that day can happen, we
all need to decide whether we want to continue living lives manipulated by
fear, or will we give ourselves to God, trusting in the future he has promised,
just as Jesus trusted him so completely that he could ride into Jerusalem and
certain death without fear, knowing that God will not fail to fulfil his
purposes. That same faith motivated Paul to face every manner of assault against
his person as he sought to share the faith he discovered while traveling to
Damascus. He was traveling that road to use fear to coerce others to abandon
the nascent Christian movement. But he flipped from fear to faith, a model for
the opportunity we each have to abandon fear, even in
the face of the suffering that he himself experienced. The question is, will
we?