The Person who prayed for his followers to possess his joy was called “Man of Sorrows.” Jesus was not disturbed by this apparent conflict. He knew the Source of his joy and he knew the reason for sorrow. If Jesus walked the earth today, he wouldn’t be confused by the mixed messages that seem to be preached in Christian circles. Prosperity can come from the hand of the Most High who owns “the cattle on a thousand hills.” But if the Father calls one of his own to become nothing, we must trust that God’s higher purposes are good.
Jesus knew who he was; he knew where he came from; he knew where he was going. The joy of the Lord was his strength, yet he was on a mission that could not avoid sorrow. His mission field was a world that had been ruined by sin. All were held captive by one who rejected Light and chose darkness. “Man of Sorrows” does not describe the personality of our Savior… it simply describes what he was sent to face. The Source of perfect joy hates murder and betrayal and injustice and suffering and death, but God used murder and betrayal and injustice and suffering and death to destroy sin and save us.
I am writing this on a Saturday morning, two days before the start of a new year. A dear friend just called with sad news about a precious family. The father of one of Kinsey’s classmates died suddenly in the night of a heart attack. The friend that called lost her husband to the exact same cause a couple of years ago. In my mind this is “sorrow upon sorrow.” I think of a wife and mother. I think of two high school girls who have lost their dad. I think of my friend who still grieves over the loss of her husband. I know I can ask all who read this to pray for the McMahon family. I know my friend will have special understanding as she reaches out to comfort. But there seems to be no good answers for this sorrow. My tears join countless others but the pain does not wash away.
One of my nurses at Northside Hospital went to Kenya recently on a medical mission trip. I just received a video and newsletter describing her week in Africa. This wonderful nurse, an expert in her field, faced a world she had never seen. Poverty you can’t imagine, disease, hunger, hopelessness… As she walked through a poor area of Nairobi, mothers tried to hand their babies to her to take back to the States where they believed a child would receive a better life. My nurse said she would go to her bed at the end of every day and cry and cry. When she came back to Atlanta she cried and cried. She does not know how to process what she experienced, but she knows she cannot run from it.
I just received an e-mail from a missionary friend saying they are about to have an evangelistic prayer gathering in their city. She wrote, “I want to be made uncomfortable with the sense of His painful love for the lost.” Why ask to feel God’s heart for the lost? Won’t that cause heartache? Why go to the slums of a city and witness the horrors of poverty and disease? Won’t that make you feel bad? Why enter the sorrow of someone who has lost a loved one? Won’t that dampen the New Year’s spirit? Jesus says if we are his disciples we must go where he went. He entered the pain of the grieving. He walked the streets of the poor and laid his hands on the sick and afflicted. He embraced the incredible love his Father has for the lost and laid down his life to purchase us. “Your attitude should be the same as Jesus Christ.”
“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:5-11