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What struck me when I read the two passages that are set for Epiphany,
(Isaiah 60:1-6 and Matthew 2:1-12) is that in the Isaiah prophecy the
people from the east will bring gold and frankincense, but in Matthews
gospel, they bring gold and frankincense and myrrh, and myrrh is a symbol
of suffering and death.
Sometimes, I hear people talking about their faith as though by faith
we should be able to avoid suffering. Like me, you've probably spoken
to people who have told you that they lost their faith when something
really awful happened in their lives. They prayed to God but it still
happened.
Sometimes the story is about something that happened as a result of sickness
or misfortune, and sometimes it is a story about something that someone
else did and wasn't stopped from doing it.
God is often blamed when things go wrong, as though God is supposed to
stop it going wrong and if God doesn't, then God can't be real or can't
be good or can't have any power.
When Matthew wrote his gospel, at the beginning of his story of Jesus,
he lets it be known that suffering is a part of Christ's life.
The wise men brought myrrh as a gift. This isn't just a stylistic device
to symbolize how much Christ was going to suffer. It is a statement that
suffering isn't banished because we walk closely to God. The myrrh is
a symbol that God is also in the suffering.
Christ's death on the cross isn't about a love of suffering. It is about
a love that doesn't retreat from suffering, a God who is present in the
suffering and a God who will be at work in the suffering.
Jesus fear in the garden of Gethsemane is symbolic of our own fear of
suffering and the resilience of Jesus faith at the time is symbolic of
God's presence in the fear as well.
My wife Sharn once wrote these words:
God does not altogether remove our fear
But rather joins us in it,
When we are afraid and vulnerable.
It is the way of the cross
This is the way of the God who enters our life even in the face of death.
God is to be found within the heart of our fear.
It is impossible to protect the ones we love from suffering
and at times we can't be sure of hanging on to our own sanity.
Everyday many people suffer and die and there is no answer to this
Or to our innermost fears.
And yet it is here that we find God.
Suffering and joy both need each other. We should never imagine that if
suffering comes it means that God has deserted us.
John Henry Newman once wrote.
God has created us to do some definite service. God has committed some
work to each one of us that has not been committed to another. We have
our mission. We may never know it in this world, but we shall be told
it in the next. Therefore, trust God. Wherever, whatever you are, you
can never be thrown away. If you are in sickness, your sickness may serve
God; in perplexity, your perplexity may serve God; if you are in sorrow,
your sorrow may serve God. God knows what God is about.
This is not suggesting that God brings the suffering. Being human does
that. But I have been inspired more often by people of faith who have
encountered suffering than I have by people for whom the world runs smoothly.
A man is bereaved of his wife, and in his faith and courage, he encourages
and inspires others how to live, even in the face of bereavement. I know
how I want to be if ever I am bereaved by watching faithful Christians
deal with their own pain.
A man endures awful physical illness and becomes inspiration and courage
to those who will see with the eyes of faith how he lives in the face
of suffering. God is there, and this man's living will touch others in
a way that only he can do it.
This does not mean that God chooses who will and who won't suffer. We
are vulnerable humans and we cannot be anything else. If faith excluded
people from misfortune and suffering all good Christians would be healthy
superhumans, and would offer nothing to the real world.
Again, I want to read a passage that my wife once wrote.
There are many kinds of suffering
And Jesus learned obedience through suffering.
No deep lessons are learned if we run from pain.
The most tragic thing that can happen
Is that one can suffer all one's life and never know a higher level of
life for it.
Life is a moment by moment dialogue with God
But it is a yielded, perfected life, and it can be known in the depths
of this covenant relationship.
Without this school of suffering the will is not perfected.
That which we most resist may be our greatest opportunity.
I don't know who wrote this quote, but I also want to offer it to you.
It reads
As we all suffer in degrees more or less, what we become in and through
the suffering is vital.
Shall we become more full of love and acceptance, of compassion with other
sufferers, even more full of a certain kind of peace and joy?
Or shall we become narrower, more self-enclosed, more self-pitying?
A colleague and friend in Australia used to have a poster on the wall.
It read
"Do not pray for an easy life. Pray to be a strong person."
Faith does not exclude us from suffering. That reality confronts us starkly
in the Epiphany story when the wise men from the east bring the myrrh
amongst the other gifts. But faith gives us a hope and a means by which
even in suffering there is creative life. Why??? Because God is there
too.
Christian faith knows this like no other faith, and it is told and retold
from the beginning to the end of the gospel story.
Life will have its joy, its moments of gold and frankincense, and we can
celebrate those times with full hearts and delight, knowing God is there.
We should.
Life will also have its moments of myrrh. They are a reality too, and
in these moments, we can also expect to experience the hand of God moving,
creating, bringing good out of that which seems only evil.
God is no less present in the one than in the other.
Colin Ferguson once wrote these words:
Sow me in the desert sand, sow me on rock and stony ground.
Sow me in the thistle and the thorn
for only when you sow me can I make the desert bloom,
turn thorns into a holy crown and rocks into a tomb.
Sow me in the market places, sow me in hard and mocking hearts,
sow me in the prison and the pub
for only when you sow me can I make my living real,
bring peace instead of anger and hope instead of fear.
Sow me in the darkest night, sow me in death and helpless tears,
sow me in the sickness and the pain,
for only when you sow me can I bring a healing light, release the grieving
spirit
or give the blinded sight.
Sow me in your work and prayer, sow me in all the ways you take,
sow me in the people that you meet.
I need you to sow me whatever is around,
for anyone can sow me in the good and fertile ground.
PRAYER
Grant to us, our God, the faith to find you in the most unlikely and barren
places,
The faith to heed your voice, know your presence, and find your peace.
Grant to us, we pray,
the sight to see beyond our blindness your love at work in all the experience
of life,
to see the purpose that defies our temptation to meaningless despair,
that comes so gently when our hearts and minds are given to you.
Amen
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