Declare His Glory in a Suffering World (1976)

Message from Urbana 76
by Samuel Kamaleson

Why do we have a message to declare within the suffering world? Because we have that kind of God - a God who knows every degradation that people experience today and yet restores the full dignity of humanity.

The problem of suffering is too large for anyone to answer finally. Nonetheless, within the family of man, personal knowledge of suffering is universal. So my effort here is not to propose a definitive answer but to find the relevance of life in Christ in the midst of a suffering world. Within the human family a Christian member is called to declare the glory of Jesus Christ contextually. But before we can understand this contextualized declaration of his glory, we need to discuss three things.

First, other people who have looked at God from different standpoints have taken a keen, deep look at suffering, and they have come up with some propositions. We must at least have some knowledge of their proposals. Second, we must know about the meaning of suffering by listening to Jesus Christ. This is what discipleship and life in Christ is all about. Third, when we have heard the Master tell us the meaning and the message of suffering, we need to declare this meaning in the idiomatic language that makes sense to us as well as to those who have not yet known the glory of Jesus Christ.

Some Views of Suffering

There are many views of suffering. Some have termed it as part of Karma - you suffer because of wrong done in this present existence or in some existence prior to this. Your evil acts will somehow search for you and find you out. But once you accept this viewpoint concerning suffering, it saps the very springs of personal compassion within you. If everyone who suffers is somehow paying for the deeds that he has done in the past, why interfere with his suffering? Let it have its full sway. Then again, if all the good that I do in this existence is in order that I may not come into another existence after this, then the motivation, being steeped in selfishness, eats up my real desire to alleviate suffering.

Within this school of thought, there is also speculation as to how many times a soul has to come back to be recycled. Some have said it will take over eight million transmigrations. But if the memory is a faculty related to the body and if souls have no memories, then when my soul leaves my body and puts on another body it has no capacity to recall. What good does it do to undergo punishment for something I can never know the root cause for? How can I repent? Where is there hope?

Others, after a serious look at the problem of suffering, have concluded that if a person can achieve an actionless, passionless state, he will not be touched by suffering. Desire is the root of passionate action. When the root of desire, including the desire for life itself, is cut, the resulting state is Nirvana. The result is a pronounced and devastating No against life itself. This becomes escapism par excellence. Because its core is nothingness, this rationale is the end of faith in a personal God. It is a spiritual way to deny the very existence of God himself. If you want to be a spiritual atheist, this is the way to go.

Still others accept a personal God and attribute to him more than ninety-eight different names, the most important of these names being "Inexorable Will." Here nothing can be prayed for or sought after. That which must happen inevitably happens. Hence, the whole discipline is called submission. The stifling and stunning fatalism this leads to is obvious.

In Luke 7:11-17 we read about a most unusual happening. A widow's only son had died. Jesus and his disciples, on their way to Nain, met the funeral procession coming out of the city, and Jesus watched this woman cry. If someone other than Jesus had been there, he might have said, "Woman, do not weep. Your son is more alive now than before. The seen and felt tangible world is 'Maya' [illusion]. Seek consolation in that thought." And he would have gone on.

Another might have said, "Woman, desire is the cause of your pain. Desire not and you will hurt not" Yet another might have said, "Woman, resign yourself to the will of the Inexorable Will. Then you will find relief from your sorrow."

But none of these characters were there. The Son of God himself was there. He saw her agony, he addressed her personally and then he went into action on her behalf. He turned to the funeral bier, stopped the procession and spoke to the dead man, "I say to you, arise." And the dead man sat up. Jesus turned him back to the woman and walked away. There must be a way that he interpreted suffering that you and I ought to be keenly interested in.

The problem of suffering produced two basic viewpoints within the Old Covenant. First, the righteous will be exempt from the normal suffering that comes to the wicked (Ps. 91:8-10). This does not mean that the righteous will not undergo pain, nor does it mean that the righteous will not undergo physical death. It means the righteous (those who have accepted the moral law that God has written into the very basic construction of man and who do not break it) will not be exposed to the kind of heartache, the kind of brokenness, the kind of disgusting disappointment that comes to the wicked. But still the righteous get sick. They die. They suffer pain like other people.

The second viewpoint under the Old Covenant is found in Habakkuk 3:17-18. Dr. E. Stanley Jones used to say that this statement comes closest to the New Covenant tradition. What is the New Covenant tradition? One phrase occurs repeatedly in the New Testament: "in Christ." The rationale for suffering that comes through in this New Covenant view is impossible if you take your position outside Christ.

In Christ, what is the rationale? Christ himself is the New Covenant for me because he is the wisdom, the righteousness, the sanctification and the redemption. And Jesus Christ suffered: "Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered" (Heb. 5:8). Hebrews 12:6 says that Jesus suffered because he was the Son of God. Because we are sons of God in him, the same measure of love is meted out to you and me. Where personal suffering is not interpreted in Christ, the possibility of declaring his glory in a suffering world ceases.

We cannot glorify him in a suffering world if we interpret human suffering through man-made philosophies. It is impossible. In Christ the Christian accepts God as a Father who loves him. He has no question about it. No one likes pain. No one wants to suffer. If I have a headache, I immediately resort to the "four ingredients doctors recommend most." When I have a soul-pain, I have a temptation to think about God as an aspirin.

But it doesn't work that way. In the intensity of the pain that will not go away, I decide that I am not loved. And I further conclude that I am unlovable anyhow. If God has given up on me, there is no hope for me. The cold fear that God himself doesn't love me creeps in. Then I go into the tailspin of asking for proofs of his love. Invariably, the proofs that I ask of him have to do with success and pleasure - relief from pain as I would have it, not as he would have it. And the norms that determine my likes and dislikes are the norms of the world around me. Yet this is the world to which God has called me to declare his glory.

Now if I do not arrive at the conclusions he wants me to arrive at, I do not declare anything but the fact that my aspirin has failed. This is crucial. If we miss it, we miss the whole point. What is the basic understanding in the New Covenant? God, who is the Father of Jesus Christ, and who is my Father now that I am in Christ, loves me. He loves me so much that he did not spare his own Son in expressing this love. Because of that same love, he will not permit me to deceive myself now. He will work through the situation that I call agonizing pain and suffering and enable me to discover what his Son discovered. Only in this discovery will I find the possibility of glorifying his own Son.

If there was a patron saint of India, his name would be Sadhu Sunder Singh. You ought to read some of his writings. He underwent a great deal of pain and rejection, humiliation and persecution because he had chosen to stand in Christ Jesus. In thinking about his experiences afterward, he said:

Whenever I had to suffer for our dear Savior ... it gave me such a wonderful joy that I could not find anywhere else ... Suffering was suffering before I became a Christian, for at that time I had no peace. That was suffering in the real sense of the word; I felt as if I were in hell. But after my conversion I had no suffering at all. (The Cross Is Heaven by A. J. Appasamy, 46)

From his biography, however, we discover that this man suffered intensely after his conversion. Yet somehow he seems to think that this was not suffering compared to what he underwent prior to his stand in Christ. What is this? You have got to get "in" to know what this is. And unless you get in there is no possibility of declaring his glory in a suffering world. Within the New Covenant, I affirm the love of God and so come into a new understanding of the motives and discipline of love which invites me into its experience. Christ's sufficiency now becomes my true self-sufficiency.

We are part of a technocratic age. Technology has taught us to remove obstacles that impede movement toward intended goals. How does a technocratic man handle obstacles in his own personal life? In his spiritual life also he wants to try "spiritual technology" to devise "sure-fire methods for removing obstacles. If the solution doesn't work, it is back to the drawing board for another technique, as in any technological endeavor" (Fr. Francis Martin, "The Mystery of Suffering," The New Covenant, April 1976).

An obstinate obstacle, then, can lead to very limited options as conclusions. I have to say to myself, "I'm not doing the thing right, and God will not help me to correct myself." Or "God simply doesn't care for me." And I wander back into the agony of meaninglessness. Fr. Francis Martin has said that "only when we are humbled by our inability to remove obstacles, real obstacles not just spiritual trials, only then can we understand Jesus Christ," only then will we understand what the New Testament calls the discipline or the education of God. If I do not understand Jesus Christ, I cannot declare him among the suffering.

The term "in Christ" illustrates the discovery of true self-sufficiency as being Christ's sufficiency. "In-Christ" existence is the true spirit existence. Paul states this condition in Galatians 2:19-20. This status of transcendence is offered to us in documented form in the New Testament as the authentic experience of not only the individual but also the community.

To check this out, read Acts 8 where the community was suddenly stripped of all the permanency in their life. Chased out of Jerusalem, they had no land or property, no wealth. Even the degree that they had from Jerusalem University was not recognized outside Jerusalem! They were chased out with nothing. And yet when they left the city, they proclaimed Jesus Christ. They seemed to have everything although everything was taken away from them. Notice also that they had what the world was looking for. Although they had been stripped of all their possessions, life still had meaning because they knew Jesus Christ as the risen Lord. The world sought them for that one message, and there was great joy in Samaria because of their presence.

In Acts 11:19-26, God used the same community again to transcend the known, established laws in society - relationships with people, the trade laws, the inseparable separation of Greek and Jew. All these things came tumbling down because there was a community that had the courage to say, "We look upon all things only as in Christ." They had to give them a new name, and so they called them "these Christ folk."

In Acts 13 we pick them up again. Notice that they have now transcended racial, linguistic, geographic, cultural and economic barriers. The only commonality they discovered was Jesus Christ. And when they discovered this commonality, they were declaring the glory of God inside a badly mangled, suffering world. They made no reference to their personal agony. But somehow in the discipline of God's love, about which they had no question whatsoever, they discovered the capacity to declare the glory, and the glory radiated.

Dr. E. Stanley Jones used to say, "Jesus transforms suffering by using it: The victim becomes the victor; a test is turned into a testimony." Historically, those who belong to him have illustrated this over and over again. Sadhu Sunder Singh speaks about the martyr Kartar Singh. He came from a very famous, well-to-do family in the land of Punjab, in the northern part of India. When he came to Jesus Christ, his family turned him out with not even a strip of clothing on him. Suddenly he had to work to earn his own clothing and his food. He did it cheerfully, says Sadhu Sunder Singh.

Then he ended up in Tibet preaching the gospel. The Tibetans said unless you leave us, we'll have to exercise our law on you. He said that's all right, go ahead and do it. So after his refusal, they passed sentence on him - the sentence of death. It was a gruesome death. They took the skin of a yak - that is an animal that bears burden in Tibet - sewed him tightly in that skin and set him out in the blazing sun so that the skin would tighten and crush him to death. Three days this man was agonizing. On the fourth day when liberation was close, he asked for release of one hand and for a pencil to write. These are his words:

He gave me life, but given life was His own still. The truth is this: that I have not in any sense repaid Him. The full acknowledgment would be if I sacrificed myself to the glory of His dear name. I will ask from God not one but a hundred thousand lives. A hundred thousand times I may die for my Friend's sake. I pray that my love for him may not be less than the Hindu woman who burns along with the corpse of her dead husband. When for the dead husband, whom she may not hope to meet again, she does so much, how much more should I not do for a living Lord, who is moreover the Lord of Life? It is a shame for me to do less than a Hindu woman would do.

Sunder Singh said he related this story one day on the platform of a railroad station in Patiala. A neighbor was eagerly listening and he queried him and found out that he was the father of Kartar Singh. Through the witness of the glorious death of his son, the father became a believer also.

To declare his glory in a suffering world, we must understand Calvary as the ultimate model for living itself. The Word became flesh is the word that we repeatedly use. God, through Jesus Christ his Son, said Yes to you and to me. And now in turn he expects us to repeat this Yes to him. Will we turn around and say to God, "Through him we say Yes to you"?

In one village in India pressure was put on the so-called outcasts, who were Christians, by the majority of citizens of that village. They burned their homes. When a YMCA secretary heard about this atrocity, he became very angry. So he called the people together and found out what kind of injustice had been done. He discovered that when one of the men went to put out the blaze his hands were cut off because he tried.

This infuriated him even more. And so he began to gather money to go to court to fight for his cause. The man who had lost his arms came to this learned YMCA secretary and said, "Iyya, you taught me the Christian gospel, and the Christian gospel teaches us to love our enemies and pray for those who despitefully use us and persecute us. Now you are telling me something else. You are telling me to prosecute. How can I? You introduced me to Christ, and he teaches me to forgive. I am sorry, I cannot take the money." E. Stanley Jones says, "The handless Christian took the hand of Jesus and walked into the future with his head up and his heart up in victory. I can never forget him."

Let me introduce you to two Scripture passages and tell you what they mean to me, and then I will move to my conclusion. Matthew 16:13-20 speaks about the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. Inside the city of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked his very humble looking band of disciples, "Who do men say that the Son of man is?"

What about the city of Caesarea Philippi? It was a city with a cafeteria of gods; you could pick and choose any you wanted. From the ancient Babylonian gods to the most recent fad of Caesar worship, everything was available. Jesus in effect said, "Look around. Shop around. Then decide what identity you will bestow on me."

After they had spoken about the world's identification of him, he turned to his intimate disciples and asked, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus immediately said, "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."

What did he mean? Did he mean that the rational should not be used to come to this conclusion? No. He meant that a truly rational person will know that to know his true identity he needs help from beyond his own reason. That's a rational conclusion, because Jesus transcends all known human categories; you cannot call him apostle, you cannot call him just a good man. Simon said, "You are ... the Son of the living God." Jesus said, on this confession I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. What kind of gate of hell am I thinking about tonight? The hell of fear.

The gate that slams shut between good intention and good action. Most of us are moved with compassion when we think about the world that is suffering, but we are kept away from action because something tells us that poverty is contagious like leprosy. It can jump on me. We've been taught that way. We've been told ever since we were young that to be poor is to be subhuman.

Then I look at the one in the city of Caesarea Philippi. He didn't wear a double-knit suit, not even one from Montgomery Wards. He wore a homespun robe. And he stood there and all the power in the world could not take away from his majesty. If I am in Christ, that capacity is given to me. The gates of hell cannot slam shut on me. I am not afraid of the contagion because he has given me a humanity that nothing in this world can ever take away from me. Poverty, agony, pain, and suffering - nothing can remove this humanity. He has given it to me, never to be pulled back.

Charles Wesley's hymn "And Can It Be" expresses this fearlessness delightfully:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray:
I woke; the dungeon flamed with light!
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

When God has so broken the chains you need not fear poverty or suffering any more. The humanity God restored to you cannot be cut off.

Now let us move on to the freedom of the spirit that the Christian enjoys. Let me illustrate this with a story taken, with gratitude, from HIS magazine. It is about the coming of Christ.

There was a revolt up in heaven. A small band of people got into a huddle and they said, "The one who is in charge here doesn't know what's happening down below. How can he ever properly govern it? We ought to go and talk to him." And they began to talk about things he did not know.

One said, "He doesn't know what poverty is."

Another said, "He doesn't know what it means to be in a refugee camp in Bangladesh."

Another said, "He doesn't know what injustice is."

And then a small man who had been silent until then suddenly jumped up. He was the kind of character who finds words inadequate to give vent to emotion. Every time he spoke his nostrils punctuated his emotions by dilating. He spoke emphatically, "Does God know about death? What does he know about the threat of non-existence?"

So they said, "We'll go and talk to him."

As they began to move, a little child came close to a very tall, beautiful woman, clad in a lovely sari. And she pulled at the end of the sari and when the woman bent down to listen, the child whispered, "I'm too small and too young to talk to God. But when you get there would you ask him a question for me?"

And the beautiful woman said, "What do you want me to talk to God about?"

"Would you ask him if he knows anything about being illegitimate?"

The beautiful woman in the beautiful sari was considered a "fallen woman," so she bent down and picked up the little girl and said, "Honey, I'll carry you. You ask God."

So they went to the presence of God. And God said, "What is it that you want?"

And they said, "God, you don't know anything about what's going on on earth. You don't know what it means to suffer. You don't know what pain is."

And the little girl jumped up and said, "God, do you know what death is? Do you know what illegitimacy is?"

God said, "What do you think I ought to do?"

They said, "You should spend at least a week in Bangladesh." And God had a friend on earth whose name was Isaiah. He called him and said, "Isaiah, proclaim it." And this is how Isaiah proclaimed it:

For unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder. These will be his royal titles: "Wonderful," "Counselor," "The Mighty God," "The Everlasting Father," "The Prince of Peace." (Is. 9:6, LB)

But this incarnation of God creates a very great and scandalous concreteness. It is one thing to say God came near, but it is another thing for him to expose himself to all the problems of this nearness. Let me illustrate with a fictional story. Neil Armstrong is a household name, even in India. If Armstrong were to visit us in Madras, we would roll out the red carpet to receive him. Millions would turn out. Was he not the first man on the moon? Should we not treat him with respect? And I would be there among the millions.

In this sea of humanity, my little boy standing at my feet says, "Daddy, where is this man who landed on the moon?" So what do I do? I lift him up above my shoulder and then ask him, "Do you see that big, black limousine way out there?" We have a strange notion in India that if a dignitary is coming we have to get a big black limousine to put him in.

"Yes, I see it."
" Do you see the man who is the chief minister of the state?"
" Yes, I see him."
" Do you see that speck beside him?"
" Yes, I do."
" That is the man who landed on the moon."

My son will have no problem about his identity. Why? Because people who have gone to the moon must be way out of the reach of ordinary people. You shouldn't be able to get near them. They are beyond human, don't you see?

I go home that evening feeling satisfied that I have seen him. I can't be sure what gender he is, but I am absolutely satisfied. Let's say, then, that that same afternoon I get a splitting headache. So I go to the corner drug store. This is now my turf. This is my area of Madras. Everybody knows me and I know them. I ask the druggist, "Hey, can you give me a packet of Anacin?" And he gives me a packet of Anacin.

While I'm about to put it in my mouth, a very nice-looking friendly American in a short-sleeved shirt, tails hanging out, comes up, smiles and says, "Hey, I want the same thing. But he couldn't understand my accent. Could you get one for me?"

"Sure," I tell him. (I haven't been to the United States for nothing.) "I'll get it done for you." So I speak the word and the man gives it to him. As I give him the Anacin, I turn to this man and say, "Hey, your face looks very familiar. Did anybody ever tell you that you look like Neil Armstrong?"
He smiles from ear to ear and says, "I am Neil Armstrong."

Do you think I'll believe him? No, sir. You know why? Why would Neil Armstrong walk around barefoot? Maybe he wants to see the city of Madras. That's true. But there are more beautiful parts of the city that he could go to than my neck of the woods. All right, he comes to my part of the world, why does he come to my drug store? You tell me. Or if he came to my drug store, a man who has been to the moon, will he ever get a headache? It blows my theory to pieces. I have one more question: If the man who has been to the moon gets a headache, will they not prescribe something more romantic than Anacin for him?

Is this not the scandal of the Incarnation? Is this not the problem of the Word becoming flesh? He didn't drive around in an Oldsmobile, but then he says the Father judges all things by him. He says he is the measurement of the coming order. Then he tells me that in the coming order they pave the road with things like gold. Nobody kills another while robbing asphalt from the streets of New York.

What a drastic difference. But why did he ever become flesh? And if he had to become flesh, should he become flesh like this? Every Christian must face this issue. But if I accept it, he gives me the right to become a son of God. Liberated. No gate of hell can hold me back.

You say, "All right, Sam, give me some creative handles. How can I work it out? I want to." It looks like an impossible task. What do you do when 600 million people compose one nation, and eighty per cent of those have never known what a full, satisfying, nutritionally programmed meal is? Do you give up? We can't afford to. The day of small beginnings will never end as long as there are disciples of Jesus Christ. What about the 17,000 at Urbana? Because this Word has become flesh and lived among us in this fashion we must do something. What can we do?

What We Can Do

Three simple things all of us can do. First, we can decide not to squander or waste. This includes mother's admonition that we ought to eat the helping of spinach because people in India were dying without it. We could very readily tell her, "Please let them have it, I don't want it." But I mean another thing beside that: There is waste in overindulgence: We eat when we know we don't need to eat. A huge helping satisfies our ego, but is too much for our stomach. Will you courageously refuse to waste like that?

Second, refuse to try to satisfy your spiritual hunger by going on a buying spree. How often the advertising agencies know our inner, spiritual anxieties and prompt us to buy promising, "If you buy this, you'll be satisfied." But you never will be. A $1,000 stereophonic system will never satisfy the inner hunger you have for Jesus Christ. A perfectly acoustic room will never satisfy the need you have to listen to the voice of God. Will you and I have the courage to refuse to be sucked into this? When there is a spiritual need, I go alone to him and let him meet the need.

Third, what you have saved by steps one and two, take to the Lord and say, "Lord, what do you want me to do with it?" In

What Do You Say to a Hungry World? Dr. Stanley Mooneyham, the president of World Vision International, tells of an ethics professor who spoke to his class in Long Island about the basic ethical problem all humanity faces. He asked if they would place a $5.00 value on modern man. Not $6 million, but merely $5.00. Most of them said that even with inflation it is possible to value man at $5.00. Then he asked, "When you hear about the suffering, the hunger, the poverty in other parts of the world or next door to you within your own city, will you be willing to evaluate human beings at $5.00 a head and do something about it?" There was silence in that classroom. That is a job for the government, they agreed; we are not involved.

But the 17,000 at Urbana cannot do that, can they? Why? Because the Word became flesh. And embarrassingly he became that kind of flesh. As long as I look upon human suffering as something that can "catch" on me, I will never give dignity to the one whom I go to serve. I will always be condescending in my compassion, and that is not Christian compassion. But if, as Mother Teresa says, I see the Lord himself in the suffering, then it is not the wounds of that suffering person that I'm binding, but the very wounds of the Lord. In this way I somehow restore dignity not only to the one to whom I go but to myself. Declare his glory in a suffering world.

Some will hesitate when called to action: "You know I've done this several times before, but I'm not able to sustain myself in this kind of commitment." And they will withdraw.

But that is sad, for Jesus said, "I'm the good shepherd.... I lay down my life for the sheep." We can trust him to keep us to our commitment. Sheepdogs are ingenious in the ways they keep sheep from straying. They will bark at them. They will pretend to bite them, but they never injure the sheep. All they want is to corral the sheep in a safe area. If a sheepdog knows enough to keep sheep straight on the path, how much more capable is the Savior, who died and now lives for us? What kind of a God do we serve? Can we trust him to keep us straight in our commitment? What kind of a commitment is called for tonight? A Yes to end all Nos. If Jesus Christ is God's Yes to me, then he is my Yes to God tonight. And what am I saying in that Yes? I am saying, "God, if I'm ever tempted to say No, I give you the right to turn me every way but the wrong way. And don't let me sit on my No. Move me out of it. I trust in you implicitly."

Our world is a suffering world. That is no secret. The God to whom I belong is faithful. He will fulfill that for which he has called you and me. And then we will be declaring his glory contextually.

The Ethics that Document Freedom

[The material which follows is the final section of Samuel Kamaleson's manuscript. Because he did not have time to include it in his Urbana address, Mr. Kamaleson requested that it be included in the print version.]

The Macedonian Christians "first gave themselves to the Lord and then to us by the will of God" (2 Car. 8:5). The paragraph within which this verse is found speaks about the response of those who knew what poverty was to those who were now suffering in poverty. They first gave themselves to the Lord. And their response became the will of this God because he is that kind of God.

After all, if they were to know the power of his resurrection they had to share the fellowship of his suffering. And he suffers where his people suffer.In Luke 10:25-37 we read about the Samaritan. There are three different laws in operation here. The law of the jungle operates when the bandits get what they want by brute force. The law of diplomacy expresses itself when the religious pass by and get by rationalization the apathetic indifference they want. But the law of love gets what it wants by self-giving, because love must always give.

It is this love that liberates man from inhibiting, paralyzing fear. Fear is never without its own rationale. In the Samaritan story there are at least three strong roots for this rationale - the root of irreconcilable race distinctives and discriminations, the irresistible drive to retaliate and hate, and the economic impossibility of repayment.

But Calvary love liberates from these fears. In Romans 8:2 this rationale is called the "law of sin and death." As the warrior proves himself in the battle, the Christian enacts his claim and perfects it in martyrdom. It happened in Uganda on June 3, 1886. More than a hundred young men walked nine miles carrying the wood that eventually would be used to burn them to death. They were page boys in the court of Kabaka Mwanga. They were Christians. They had found it necessary to take a strong stand on moral issues. The Kabaka interpreted this as a challenge to his authority. So the options were plain - submit or die.

They walked nine miles under the pressure of these options. They made their choice. During the final hours these young men, who were in their late teens and early twenties, sang their way to victory.

The axe cuts the wood. But when sandalwood is cut, it imparts a fragrance to the cutting edge of the axe. The young men did not die in vain. Virtually hundreds, who had been waiting for an evidence of this kind of liberation, now saw the light. And their chains fell off. And there was a mass movement to Christ triggered by the choice of those young men.

I know a lady in South India. All day with a curved knife she cuts grass to sell in order to make a living. Even under inflated prices her whole day's earnings may not be more than 75 cents. But she tithes this every day and contributes to missions.

Some years ago I knew of a student in the university in Jakarta, Indonesia. He considered himself more fortunate than others because while he was in school he had the opportunity of a job. He earned much more than others were capable of making so he sat down and calculated his earnings and his needs. He restricted his needs and found an extra amount in his hands. This he shared prayerfully and lovingly with those on the campus who had none.

The ethic that endorses spiritual freedom is not what we do to save ourselves, but it is what results from the assurance of our personal salvation. And just as salvation is the ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ, so the expression of it also increases in understanding and depth and confidence.

Let me retell another story from HIS magazine. A long time ago there was a king. He invited all his subjects to a feast. A beggar wanted to go, but when he read the small print in the invitation, he was disturbed. For the king's all-inclusive invitation demanded that the guests be properly dressed. How can a beggar ever be clothed properly for the king's table?

So they ushered him into the presence of the king and he made his complaint vocal. The king heard his case patiently. Knowing the contradictions that validated the rationale of the beggar's complaint, the king decided to do something about it. He called his son, the crown prince, and sought his help.
The prince obeyed his father. He took the man to his room and offered him a choice of any one of his princely robes. The beggar (who was a beggar like me) could not bring himself even to imagine such a possibility.

So the prince himself made the choice and fitted the beggar in a purple suit (the beggar was a beggar like me). He bent down to pick up his rags, which he had now shed, and carefully bundled them up.

"Oh," the prince said, "you won't need them. The suit of clothes you wear is miraculously made. It is mine. It will never wear out!" (But the beggar was a beggar like me.) He couldn't believe it. After all, all the clothes he had ever owned eventually wore out. Why shouldn't this suit do the same? He begged to retain his bundle of rags. He said he would feel more secure and comfortable! Just in case! And the prince had to let him go.

Everyone in the village laughed at the beggar, who, though robed in purple and princely robes, still carried a bundle of filthy rags! What a fool!

The day of the dinner arrived. Everyone including the beggar was there. He gained admittance and sat at the table with a bundle of rags on his lap. Every time a delicacy came by, he received the plate with one hand and with the other he held on to his bundle of rags so it wouldn't slip off his lap! Since he didn't have a third hand, he saw the food, smelled the food, watched others being fed with the food, but, unable to help himself, he sat there, lean and hungry, holding onto his rags.

He left the dinner at the king's table more hungry than he had been when he came in. But he still had his rags!

One day word went round that the beggar was dying. The king said, "He is my friend and I should visit him." When the royal visitor bent down to enter the humble hut, there was the beggar in his last moments, laid out on a torn mat on the floor. He was still robed in the princely robes. They were as new as on the day when he received them. But, at his head and close beside him, he still had the bundle of rags.

The king wept! He wept for what could have been and was not.

The ethic that documents freedom is not our effort to work out our Karma. It is the result of the salvation that he has already given to us. To the one who is so liberated in spirit, the practical ways of expressing such an ethic are unending. The innovating Spirit opens them up to us contextually.

Today, in almost every nation of this world, there are those who belong to the witnessing community. They too want to declare his glory among the suffering. They know the context. But their resources are limited. And this is part of their ache. The demands of love and the need are unlimited.

The same Lord whose resources are placed under our control is also Lord of the almost limitless need. When we find the ethic of obedience, he relates the resource to the needs. Since it is the risen Lord who relates the resources to the needs, they who are contextually declaring his glory among the suffering are no longer under bondage to any mere human whim and fancy that would like to have the controlling patronage. The expression of love now is theirs. They must think it through. They must act it out. And it must be the expression of their compassionate love. That is the only way that the declaration of his glory can be contextualized.

But we must go further. We must go beyond declaration. In Romans 8:22-23, 26 (AV) we read about three "groanings." Creation is groaning because the awaited new order is coming into being. It is like childbirth pangs. The new order is Jesus Christ. But until the fruition of all known human relationships, the groaning of the old created order continues.

The children of God who are the first fruits of this new order also groan. They groan when they perceive the tension between what is and what is yet to be. They groan because what is already actualized in themselves leads them to plead for what is yet to be actualized.

But then, within this creaturely groaning, the Creator also groans. This groaning of the Holy Spirit gives direction. He groans creatively and contextually. William Wilberforce heard this groaning in the eighteenth century and obeyed. Mother Teresa has heard it and is obeying. Today can be a historic day for you and me. Could God be saying something to us about the extreme injustice of wastefulness? Could he be saying something to us about the rat race of trying to quench spiritual hunger by mere material means? Could he be speaking to us about creative channeling of resources - personal and material - to those who have need of them, who suffer and have been rejected, who have been beaten down, robbed and left to die (1 John 3:17)?

To declare his glory among the suffering does not mean to prove that pain and suffering are palatable. It means rather that in Jesus Christ pain can become purposeful, because in him all things become purposeful. Dr. E. Stanley Jones used to say, "Yourself in your hands is a pain and a problem. Yourself in Christ's hands is a power and a possibility."

In the old days of the Sultans, there was a man called Jaffer. He was a good man. Everyone loved him. But the Caliph became jealous of his popularity. One day he found a reason to have Jaffer executed and ordered it. He also proclaimed that within his kingdom nobody should even mention the name Jaffer again.
An Ethiopian slave whom Jaffer had set free at one time stood up in the marketplace that same day and prayed for Jaffer. The soldiers of the Caliph caught him. Standing bound in chains, the Ethiopian slave was challenged by the Caliph to give an answer for his absolutely stupid behavior. The slave lifted his hands and jingled his chains and said, "Oh, Caliph, from chains worse than these Jaffer set me free."

And the Caliph thought, "What a brave spirit. I must win him for myself." So he called his bodyguard and asked him to cut the slave loose, and give him one of the crown jewels while he walked into his new freedom. "Let the dog know to whom his gratitude now belongs," said the Caliph. They cut the slave loose, gave him the jewel, and thought he would now praise the Caliph. But the former slave lifted up his head and raised the crown jewel in his hand toward heaven and, in the presence of the court and the Caliph, said, "Jaffer, even this I owe to you."

Comments

Be the first one to add a comment.

To post a comment, please login or register

Declare His Glory in a Suffering World (1976)

God's Word

Urbana Stories

35 days until

December 27-31, 2009