Growing in Christ
Union with Christ
Suffering with Jesus
06 months ago
It was over two years ago now. I’d gotten a concerned call from Michelle and headed home from work. When I got there, there was even more reason to be upset and confused. The next day we found out we’d miscarried our first pregnancy, but for that evening, we were lost in confusion, pain, and a hint of what was happening.
In those moments, I didn’t know what to do, but I knew we needed to hear from God. In these situations, people typically run to the Psalms. They’re full of perspective and the reality of life in a suffering, fallen world. But I think in my mind that night, I wanted something that was long (because I honestly didn’t want the silence to crush us), and something that put us in God’s story.
After dinner, I turned to John, and we read chapters 13-17, Jesus final discourse with his disciples. Maybe this seems odd as a passage to read for comfort in suffering and pain. At the time it made perfect sense, and it still does.
The section opens with these profound lines about the mind of Jesus going into the crucifixion. John tells us that, “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, [and] having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” He goes on: “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper.” Jesus knew the pain and confusion of the world – he knew one of his closest friends was going to betray him to death in a matter of hours (under his own permission in fact), but he didn’t flinch, and he didn’t muscle through. Jesus knew that his Father was sovereign and in control of everything, even his own death, and he continued to love. He loved his father, and he loved his own. He loved them to the end.
In this vein, there are three sections that particularly spoke comfort in those dark hours: The Vine, The Victory, and The Prayer.
The Vine
In John 15, Jesus speaks of his union with his believers in such intimate terms that they are his branches, feeding off of his nourishment. In terms of suffering, like a plant, when one part suffers, the others feel it. We typically understand this in terms of other people sympathizing and feeling with us, which is right. But we need to take this back to Christ. When we suffer, Christ does. Being united to Christ means that all that we weather in him is weathered in his love. The paths of love are constantly, ever flowing from Christ to his people in all situations. John Flavel remarks: “Christ and the saints smile and sigh together.”
The Victory
Jesus said, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 17:33). There’s nothing quite like the death of a long anticipated pregnancy to make you feel that the world is full of trial and tribulation. Here, Christ calls us back to seeing his own sufficiency for our need. The sorrow does not win, because Christ who took on the full weight of sorrow and suffering, did not stay dead. This doesn’t mean the pain isn’t real, or lasting, or a wound that won’t go away, but it does mean that there’s hope and peace and comfort in Jesus. Along these lines Paul later comments “[we do] not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thes. 4:13). We grieve, but with hope. I wrote about this after we miscarried here.
The Prayer
The High Priestly prayer of Jesus in John 17 is maybe one of the holiest sections of Scripture. If you want to know the Savior’s heart for you in this world, and in your trials, follow his prayer here. What this prayer did (and does) for me was give perspective. Jesus knows my trial, Jesus loves me and walks with me in my trial, and Jesus wants me to have the best thing at the end of my trial: seeing him face to face in his full, radiant glory. Suffering and sorrow will be swallowed up one day, and this Jesus who “loved me to the end” will see me, and I him, and will heal this heart wounded by the tribulations of this world. One day. One day soon. In the meantime, he has prayed for me to know him and his love, and the best medicine for sorrow and pain is to learn the hope and love that he is for me.
Reflections on the snow
01 year ago
Don’t know if you’ve heard, we’ve had some snow. Lots of snow. Lots and lots of unrelenting, sloppy, fluffy, I-have-to-clean-my-car-every-other-morning snow. Thus it should be no surprise to you: snow’s been on my mind a good bit lately.
Saturating Righteousness
Typically, when Christians reflect on the snow, the biblical image that comes to mind is the glory of the imputed righteousness of Christ. We draw this vision from the potent words of Isaiah:
Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
~ Isaiah 1:18
For the Christian, being covered by the righteousness of Christ is a great feast to their soul. No longer does God see the scarlet stain of their sin, but the pure, seamless, holy righteousness of Christ. It’s not a mechanical or mere legal reality, but a reality saturated in love.I think it’s the aspect of saturation that makes the imagery of snow so powerful. Snow covers everything; not only covers, weighs down and permeates everything in its wake. 
It’s weighty and beautiful and fills the soul with the fresh wind of winter. It fills the soul with glory.
Heavy Mercy
It’s this heaviness that leads me to meditate on the mercy of God imaged in the snow. His mercy is dense and real and unrelenting in it’s overflow of grace. God’s grace isn’t light and trivial. His mercy isn’t ironic or frivilous. His mercy is real because the death of Christ was real. His mercy is tangible, as tangible as the weight of a cross shamefully carried from the capital city, as heavy as the weight of sin upon Christ’s shoulders.
I thought of this while trying to get a friend’s car out of the snow the other night in the middle of the snow storm. We’d clean it off, and by the time we looked back at where we’d started, the car was again covered in snow! If you looked up, it was a kaleidoscope of haze and flakes all rushing down to kiss your face. Snowflakes lapped up the warmth from your cheecks and gave you a little shiver as they slid down. His mercy is like the snow – never ending, never changing, heavier and more constant and saturating in it’s saturation of our lives than we are aware of; even in our most alert moments.
Accents of Grace
I also began to mediate on how snow does a really go job of exposing what’s dead. Since everything is cast on white, you see colors accented more clearly. I think this is similar to how every believer grows. They see the sin in their life, their own wicked heart’s pride and idolatry more clearly when they’re covered in mercy.
But that’s only one view. You see the death of the trees when you look from below. Yet you also see other colors more clearly. As I was driving in the snow, I noticed this house on my way to work that I’d never really noticed was a radiant blue. Maybe it wasn’t really that blue, but the snow pulled the color out and set it’s beauty on display. Christians tend to only see the death in their life if they’re not regularly looking to Christ and being encouraged by their fellowship of believers who point out accents of grace. In some ways, I think this is what Paul’s getting at in 1 Timothy 1:12-17 – God’s mercy is great and heavy, and he’s shown it by saving me, whom I know as the chief of sinners, to whom I know and delight in by his own infinite, glorious, mysterious wisdom! The sight of sin in the Christian life must always be couched in the sight of Christ in the Gospel.
Panorama of Glory
Which leads me to again pull back and reflect on the snow. It covers everything. And it’s all glorious. Christian, pull back and see the massive, glorious work of God in your life. It’s all grace. All freely given in love. Love that loves for you to delight in God. Love that delights in you delighting in the works of God.
Creation is here to teach us to delight in God. If you get snow, enjoy it.
If you’re wanting more material to read on this subject, I’d recommend checking out Whiter Than Snow by Paul Tripp.
Hello, I’m a pessimist.
01 year ago
I don’t mean to be this way, but I guess I am. Hello. I’m a pessimist.
Well, that’s not entirely accurate…It’s not the sort of thing I intended to be, but in reflecting on how I view people and my life, I’m at least a pessimist. And yet, the term seems to fall short by a few shades of gray as to what I actually believe and do.
While my wife and I were out last night on our weekly date, I made the throw away comment about something we were discussion, “oh, I guess it’s because I tend to view everything I’ve done in the past in a negative light.” She picked up on this, and while we were in the car gently said, “You know love, I know you were kinda joking when you said that, but that’s really not good or glorifying to God.”
The issue that prompted this was a simple one: I had gotten a gift for Michelle a couple years ago, and I was talking lightly about how I’ve felt guilty lately about getting her the book because I felt it was a Gift-for-me-to-you gift. But she countered and reminded me that, no, while she hadn’t read the book in question, that it was still a thoughtful gift, and that I had her best intentions in mind when I had gotten it.
As we began to open up the issue, she was pointing out that viewing all of my past decisions through a negative lens distorts the truth in a couple ways.
Grace
In viewing things through a presumptively negative lens, I completely discount the reality of God’s grace. God takes the whole of a Christian’s life and showers them in grace from beginning to end when they are in Christ. You aren’t as bad as you could be, and thank God for it! To view things negatively, I foster a heart of ungratefulness and subtly feed unbelief that God is not at work. I feed unbelief by completely divorcing the grace, mercy, and love of God to work in all things by thinking the worst of any or all of life’s actions.
Gospel
By being at least a pessimist in how I view my life, I’m fundamentally not believing what the Gospel says about my life. Do I screw up and make bad decisions? Yes. But the Gospel comes in and says that my life is “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). Who I am is no longer defined by me. That’s kinda strange. You mean, those sins that I do, are no longer the defining mark of who I am as a person? Nope. You mean, being stupid doesn’t define me? Nope. What does? Jesus. To be a Christian is to fundamentally be “in Christ” and have all the things that define Jesus, define us. (This is, by the way, why Paul’s writing is absolutely saturated with “in Him” language. It’s important. Don’t miss it.)
When I view my decisions in the past, present, or future as the absolute worst they could be, and associate myself with them as my fundamental identity, I’m not functionally believing the Gospel. My actions, contrary to popular belief, do not define me. Jesus does. So to look back on a bad gift, feel really bad for it, and think , “Man, I’m such a block head!” is tantamount to saying “Man, Jesus isn’t enough!” That is, when I have that perspective and am not prompted to gratefulness and joy for Jesus being my identity. I am a block head – that’s for sure – but Jesus is better. And I’m in Jesus. So that’s enough.
So let’s do this again.
Hello. I’m in Christ.
__________
Resources
If you’d like to read some more on this subject, let me point out a couple of resources:
- If you’d like to learn how to better serve your spouse in helping them grow in Christ without being their personal Holy Spirit, let me point you towards a sermon recently preached at my church: Spousekeeping.
- If you’d like to learn more about this “in Him” theology from someone who’s so helpful in making it practical and real to our lives, I’d recommend David Powlison’s Seeing With New Eyes.
