"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed." 1 Peter 4:12, 13
Judas got up from the table quickly and prepared to leave. After closing the upper room door on his Lord, he made his way into the night. The hard stones on the street received his heavy feet perhaps reluctantly. What he was thinking we do not know; what he did we do. He made his was to the Sanhedrin and sold out Jesus for a mere thirty pieces of silver. Judas could not stomach the idea that the promised Messiah's glory would be attended by rejection and suffering.
Jesus, however, walked a different path. That very night he make it His special point to connect the hour of suffering with the coming of His glory. The climactic hour of the one was inexorably linked to the glory of the other. On the night of His betrayal He lifted His eyes up to Heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son" [John 17:1]. Somehow Jesus knew that the eternal glory of the Christ could be established only by suffering on the cross. He was not surprised by this. He did not think it strange. So when the hour came for Him to embrace it as His own, He was not ashamed.
This is a lesson that virtually all believers must come to realize in a personal way at some point in their journey of faith. It is no coincidence or accident that Jesus commands us to "take up our crosses and follow Him." Yet, perhaps the most striking thing I realize after each overseas medical mission trip I take, is how surprised Americans are when they must suffer. It almost seems to be the normal expectation for us here in this country that life will be easy. That we deserve to have everything go well. In Cameroon, Peru, Nicaragua, Uganda and dare I say virtually all of the third world, suffering is almost expected. Certainly the people I meet there are almost never surprised when things that we would consider horrific occur. They are virtually accepted without question. Here there would be loud protestations and likely lawsuits. Surely someone else is at fault and surely someone will have to pay. Not so in most of the world. So perhaps Peter was writing this letter to us in the west [as well as to the "elect exiles of the dispersion" ... who knew little else than suffering in their lives] to remind us that we should not expect a fate much better than that of our Lord.
I am reminded of what George Matheson said about suffering in the life of a believer. This 19th century man had been born with very poor eyesight and was virtually blind by age 18. Robbed of his physical sight, he nevertheless could see spiritual truth with penetrating insight and clarity. Suffering in life never caught him by surprise and he never thought suffering for his Christian faith was strange. And when, according to God's will, he was asked to enter into it, he was never ashamed. He wrote:
"There is a time coming in which your glory shall consist of the very thing which now constitutes your pain. Nothing could be more sad to Jacob than the ground on which he was lying, a stone for a pillow. It was the hour of his poverty. It was the season of his night. It was the seeming absence of his God. The Lord was in the place and he knew it not. Awakened from his sleep he found that the day of his trial was the dawn of his triumph.
Ask the great ones of the past what has been the spot of their prosperity and they will say, 'It was the cold ground on which I was lying.' Ask Abraham; he will point to the sacrifice on Mt. Moriah. Ask Joseph; he will direct you to his dungeon. Ask Moses; he will date his fortune from his danger in the Nile. Ask Ruth; she will bid you build her a monument in the field of her toil. Ask David; he will tell you that his songs came in the night. Ask Job; he will remind you that God answered him out of the whirlwind. Ask Peter; he will extol his submersion in the sea. Ask John; he will give the path to Patmos. Ask Paul; he will attribute his inspiration to the light which struck him blind.
Ask one more! -- the Son of God. Ask Him whence has come His rule over the world; He will answer, 'From the cold ground on which I was lying -- the Gethsemane ground -- I received my scepter there.' Thou too, my soul, shall be garlanded by Gethsemane. The cup though fain wouldst pass from thee will be thy coronet in the world by and by."
Ask the saints, any of them, and the response is the same. They never thought glory could be gained in any other way. Perhaps the poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox said it best:
All those who journey, soon or late,
Must pass within the garden's gate;
Must kneel alone in darkness there,
And battle with some fierce despair.
God pity those who cannot say,
"Not mine but thine," who only pray,
"Let this cup pass," and cannot see
The purpose in Gethsemane.
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