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| The Eternal King Arrives Journey Through Advent Week 2: Eternal Jubilee |
"In this world you will have trouble.
But take heart!
I have overcome the world.”
+ Jesus (John 16:33)
But take heart!
I have overcome the world.”
+ Jesus
For this season of Advent, Emmaus City Church will be invited to join together in weekly reflections and homilies during our Sabbath gatherings featuring Scriptures from (RCL) Advent Year B.
The readings for the third weekend ahead are from Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8; 19-28
We will also engage in daily reflections throughout Advent, utilizing The Eternal King Arrives. The readings from last week included:
The first reading from this second week of Advent is featured below. Enjoy.
Week 2: Eternal Jubilee
Text: John 16:33
Day 8: The Good News About Our Bad News
Sometimes, Suffering Can't Be Spiritualized
By Strahan Coleman
I have some good news for you:
There's going to be bad news.
Christ's incarnation was punctuated by bad news. His arrival saw the slaughter of a generation at the hands of a tyrant. His ministry climaxed with his torture and execution. Even after the victory of the Resurrection and birth of the church at Pentecost, his Spirit-filled followers were persecuted and exiled, "scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia" (1 Pet. 1:1). Eventually the church took the gospel global, only to suffer pain and division over petty theological disagreements and cults of personality. I imagine this is not the messianic story Israel had expected, nor was it the dream of the early church.
We live in a culture obsessed with eradicating pain – inventing and selling technologies to insulate against it, pills to dull it, or self-help techniques to avoid it. It's unpopular to say "Life is hard; expect to suffer," but it's true.
Jesus says directly that "in this world you will have trouble" (John 16:33), and though we have heard this, many of us have found ourselves shocked, angry, and unprepared when we actually do experience deep suffering. As the dust settles, we realize our reactions to life's troubles don't match the theological truths we affirm. I've been jarred by this dissonance more than a few times.
Jesus' teaching that we can expect a life filled with bad news – and expect him to lead us through it – is actually very good news. Knowing that suffering is coming inoculates us from a shallow spirituality that believes pain can be avoided or attributes difficulties to unfaithfulness. It is no exception or failing when we suffer – it's a baked-in fact of life.
If we believe that our efforts or positive thinking will protect us from pain, we are set up for existential shock when it comes. Christ is forthright about this reality and invites us to accept both the inevitability of trouble and the assurance that he has overcome it.
This reality is actually quite liberating. Christ overcame the world's suffering and temptations in the same way that he overcame death: not by removing it but by traveling through it faithfully, allowing it to become the very vehicle by which he offers salvation to the whole cosmos.
In John 16, Jesus invites us to do the same by living from the peace of his Spirit rather than the anxiety of our circumstance, seeing the trouble of the world as an aberration held in Christ's hands, an expected reality we are empowered to walk through.
Suffering will come, and sometimes it will be the sort you can't spiritualize and probably think you can't face. When it happens, don't be surprised, and don't think it's on you to make it into a miracle. Remember that it is Christ who overcomes – trust him, lean in, and allow him to do the work of saving you and the world through it. This is the earthly reality of the Advent story. Hallelujah!
"I have told you these things,
so that in Me you may have peace."
+ Jesus
(John 16:33)
Here are links to other recent Advent articles:
Advent Story of God | Immanuel: God Present with Us, for Us; The Bold & Courageous 1st Advent Hymn; My Honest Advent; Advent Films Reflections: A Quiet Place, Arrival, Children of Men, Joyeux Noel; Praying with Mary and Jesus; Making Room for Limits; Making Room for Outsiders; Experience God-with-Us Today in Your Fears; Waiting is the Womb in Which We Are Formed; Christ with Shopping Bags or Generous Christ?; Advent Film Series Reflection: All the Light We Cannot See; When We're Afraid, God Pursues; He Is Not One to Leave Us Hurting
Blessings of peace and presence for you,
Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan
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