We need to be abased before we can be exalted. Consequently,
the greatest blessings are often preceded by intense suffering. It was this way
with Joseph and Mary. The angel had informed Mary that she would honored by
giving birth to the Savior of the world. However, her betrothed had rejected
her, convinced that she had been adulterous. How humbling, but she was
vindicated after an angel had revealed to Joseph in a dream that she had
conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18-25).
However, they had to endure a hasty and dangerous flight to
Egypt, where they were forced to live for several years as strangers in a
strange land (Matthew 2:13-15).
While generations would call her blessed, Mary had to endure
the sight of her son tormented by the most excruciatingly torture and death.
The mother of God then became a humiliated social reject as the mother of a
“deceiver” who had led Israel astray.
And the Son? He entered our world in the most humble way in
a smelly animal barn and departed in the most disgraced manner, demonstrating
that He was available to the most degraded of people in order to elevate them
to the greatest height.
It was the same for His Apostles who suffered to receive the
glory of an eternal life with their master. Paul was shown how much he would
have to suffer for His Master. He recounted his sufferings:
- Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. (2 Corinthians 11:24-28 ESV)
Even this wasn’t enough. God even allowed Satan to afflict
Paul with a painful affliction, which God refused to heal lest Paul would
become proud (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). On top of this, history informs us that
Paul and most of the Apostles had to suffer martyrdom to validate the fact that
Christ was more important to them than life itself, for which I am eternally
grateful. We should never underestimate what they had suffered for us so that
we might be reassured of the truth of the Gospel.
Jesus didn’t want to suffer crucifixion (Matthew 26:39), but
nothing was able to demonstrate His love for us as was His death on the Cross.
Consequently, this was the moment of His glory:
- And Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:23-24)
His glory was the hour of His greatest humiliation, but of
our exaltation. Somehow, they both go together.
I am now laying in bed with a crippled knee and a downcast
spirit, but I await the time when my Savior will lift me up.
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