First Sunday in Lent 2005
Ecclesiasticus 2:1-23;
2 Cor. 6:1-10,
Matt. 4:1-11
Those of us who are old enough will remember a character created by the late Gilda Radner when she was a regular comedienne on the television show Saturday Night Live. Among her many comic personalities was one named Roseanne Rosannadanna, a totally freaked out, zany, brash, and goofy character who somehow shows up in a television newsroom set, giving the daily news.
As her newsreports get more and more surreal, they usually ended with Roseanne’s recounting some improbable disaster which befalls the subject of the newsreport. And, then she would wrap it all up by quoting her old nanny. “That just goes to show you! It’s always something! If its not one thing, it’s another thing!”
If you were paying attention to the common thread in the readings for today, including the Psalms, you might be tempted to think of Roseanne Rosannadanna’s explanation for everything: It’s always something!
Consider, for example, the opening words of the first Psalm we sang a moment ago: LORD, how they have increased who trouble me!
Or how about the opening words of Jesus ben Sirach in the second chapter of Ecclesiasticus: My son, if thou come to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation.
Or how about the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 6, as he describes the way in which his career as a minister of the Lord was playing itself out: “But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, 5in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings;
Or, how about the gospel appointed for today: 1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3Now when the tempter came to Him, …” It appears that when he was at his most tested and distressed, after 40 days of fasting, THEN comes the tempter. Not at the beginning when Jesus was fresh, but only at the end of the fast when he was weak.
Sufferings, tests, trials, difficulties, tumults, tribulations, distresses, labors – these are the kinds of things that can make a Christian throw up his hands and exclaim, “It’s always something!” What are we to think of these things?
Before we answer that question, let’s first set aside what we are NOT to think of these kinds of things. Christians make two mistakes about the trails, tests, problems, labors, and tumults they face more or less routinely in their Christian walks:
The first thing we must NOT think is what that caricature of Puritan Christianity is purported to think: that suffering and trials and hardships are the essence of Christian living. Holiness is, according to this caricature, all work and no play; and if anything is fun it must be sinful.
Whether this is a fair representation of Puritan spirituality is another question; I do think many times those who have championed the name “Puritan” have sometimes validated this caricature. It is, I think, not only a caricature, it is false to the gospel. Yes, the Christian life is characterized by trials and tests. No, the Christian life does not reduce to trials and tests, as if that were the beginning and end of the matter.
A second thing we must NOT think is that this kind of Christian life is actually false, a mistake, and a sign of poor or derelict faith. This view is touted today by those who promote what is commonly referred to as “the gospel of prosperity.” God wants you to be rich, they proclaim. God heals all your diseases! If you have faith, you will be healthy, wealthy, and wise! Those who suffer deprivation, trials, and tests are either very, very weak in faith, or not even Christian at all!
I do not know what Bible these people are reading, but surely it does not contain what we are going to see in a moment. Even now, those of you who have only a passing familiarity with the NT know that the prosperity gospel folks are ignoring huge hunks of the Apostolic teaching in Paul, Peter, James, Hebrews, and John.
So much for what we are NOT to think about the things that make us say, “It’s always something!” What, then, ARE we to think?
First of all, we are to understand that for Christians these difficulties, tests, trials, and hardships are completely ordinary.
Consider what James says in the first chapter of his letter: 2My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,…
Or the Apostle Peter: 12Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; 13but rejoice… (1 Pet. 4:12).
Or this: Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 1 Pet 5:8-9
Or the Apostle Paul: 2 Tim. 3:12: 12Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
Or this: 29For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, Phill. 1:29.
I submit that the Apostolic teaching is that “It’s always something” is the ordinary kind of life for a Christian, for a healthy Christian, for a Christian whose life is proceeding along the path that pleases the Lord.
WHY are these kinds of difficulties, trials, and testings ordinary? First of all, it is because we still live in a world that is fallen, laboring under a curse which has not yet been lifted.
But, there is an extra-ordinary reason why this state of affairs is ordinary: It has pleased God to send his son into this world, to bear up under all its pain, suffering, and curse, to SHOULDER the guilt for all its sin and to TAKE ON HIMSELF the righteous judgment against ALL that world of woe and wickedness. And having satisfied God’s justice, THEN Christ is free to REDEEM from that world of woe ALL who put their trust in Him.
What that means, in very practical terms, is this: the path that Jesus walked is the one we walk, not so that we can earn our own salvation, but so that we can PARTICIPATE in the salvation which CHRIST has earned for us in his own trials and tests. In Romans 8:17, Paul says that “… we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. Reversing that dictum, we would say this: If we expect to be glorified with Christ, then we should also expect to suffer with him.
Yes, for the Christian, it’s always something, but that something is not random, it is not irrational, it is not meaningless. Instead, it is full of purpose. And THAT is the SECOND thing we must think about this tumultuous quality of the Christian life. It is ACCOMPLISHING something. While we are tempted to think that trials and difficulties are getting IN THE WAY of things, they are the path to very great things indeed.
Consider again what Jesus ben Sirach said in Ecclesiasticus 2: Whatsoever is brought upon thee take cheerfully, and be patient when thou art changed to a low estate. For gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity.
Consider again what James says: 2My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
The trials and tests which James is talking about perfect a sinner’s character, they purge it of dross and the blemishes and weaknesses of sin. These tests and trials are the NORMAL way of growth, even when we’re not thinking of such momentous concepts as sin and redemption.
Consider, for example, exercise and athletic training generally. This is, of course, one long, uninterrupted, and persistent campaign of tests, challenges, and trials, given to our muscles. We’ve all heard the slogan “no pain, no gain.” And in the realm of physical training, we know this is true.
The training that yields results is the training that challenges weakness, confronts it with tests, trials, things to do which it cannot do very well. But, what is the result? Strength, limberness, perseverance, power. Does it come with pain? Of course! Is it worth it? Jesus said it was. And, Paul said it was.
What did Paul learn through all those tests and trials? He learned all about the strength and power and grace available to him, spiritual blessings which could come to him no other way than by the way of testing and trial. “ …6by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, 7by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, …” These are all Christian virtues, Christian graces, Christian resources. And, yet not even the acquisition of these blessings is the end of the matter, for there is something more out there, something more than being spiritually trim and fit …
We know this in the most dramatic fashion from the gospel account of Jesus’ temptation. It came BEFORE the beginning of his mission. The Author of Hebrews says this about Jesus: “… in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, 8though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. 9And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him …”
I used to think that these verses were speaking of Jesus’ trial in the Garden of Gethsemane. But I wonder if they do not more accurately refer to his temptation in the wilderness. It was THAT which perfected him, it was that forty day test and trial which brought him to the full maturity of his manhood as the servant of the Lord, and thus set him on the path where he became the author of eternal salvation for all of us. My point is this: Just as with Jesus, so also with us: our trials and temptations are not the end of the matter, they are the beginning of the matter. They do not conclude anything, but they begin everything for which we are redeemed.
This is why the Apostle Peter (1P 4:1) writes “1 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us[a] in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.
That is why Paul can say this about his trials and temptations: 16Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 17For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 18while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
In Wellesley Mass. Lives a man named Ray Kurzweil. He plans on living forever. Here’s what a recent news report says about him:
“As part of his daily routine, Kurzweil ingests 250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea. He also periodically tracks 40 to 50 fitness indicators, down to his "tactile sensitivity." Adjustments are made as needed.
“The famed inventor and computer scientist is serious about his health because if it fails him he might not live long enough to see humanity achieve immortality, a seismic development he predicts in his new book is no more than 20 years away. The book is partly a health guide so people can live to benefit from a coming explosion in technology he predicts will make infinite life spans possible. “
Kurzweil is typical of the darkened mind which longs for eternal life in a world full of death, disease, and disaster. His longing is not the problem. His solution is what’s tragic. For he thinks a cursed and fallen cosmos can be overcome by sheer dint of human mastery.
Unless God takes pity on him and sends to him an effective evangelist, this is what he does not know – that Jesus Christ has already entered this fallen and cursed world, that he has overcome it, and that he is now preparing a new heavens and a new earth in which the things that Kurzweil hopes to escape will not even exist. It is a world which we cannot yet even imagine, but it is a world from which Jesus himself beckons each one of us, to come to him in that world, by the path he walked to get there Himself. For Kurzwiel and for all those without Christ, the world with all its sufferings is something to be feared. For the Christian it is something to be patiently endured until it has passed away.
And, in another place Paul writes, (Rom. 8) “18For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. … but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. 24For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.
Have you ever thought “It’s always something?” I know I have. The Bible assures us we’re not imagining things – indeed, it’s always something. If it’s not one thing, it’s another thing.
But the Bible also assures us that it is not for nothing that these things happen. If our own Savior was tested and tempted, to bring him to his full maturity as the servant of the Lord, how can it be otherwise for those who are being conformed to his image? Thank God it’s always something! For by that we know that we are the sons of God. By that we are assured that we share not only in his sufferings, but also one day in his glory.
And in this life, while we await that blessed hope, may God grant we shall see what that old teacher of wisdom, Jesus ben Sirach saw so many centuries ago, “ that the Lord is full of compassion and mercy, longsuffering, and very full of pity for us, that he forgives our sins, and saves us in the time of affliction.”
God grant that we too may always say, “Let us fall into the hands of the Lord,… for as his majesty is, so also is his mercy.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
