Jesus Submitted to Being Hurt by the One/Ones He Loved

What Did Jesus Do?

Jesus Submitted to Being Hurt By the One/Ones He Loved

“Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to

Jerusalem and suffer many things…”

                                                                        Matthew 16:21

Pop songs are not always the best source for truth, but some times they get it right. Take, for instance, the Mills Brothers’ song, “You always hurt the one you love.”  Biblically, I would have to say that song is absolutely on target.  Of course, if I had collaborated with Doris Fisher (who wrote the music), my lyrics would have been a little different than those actually written by Allan Roberts.  My song would go like this: “Your sin ALWAYS hurts The ONE who loves you.”  Think about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cTxNlxPasw

It’s one thing to rejoice and give thanks that Jesus went through hell for us (literally).  It’s another thing to confess and repent of our putting him through hell (literally).  If we get the one thing, but not the other, than we’re really not getting it/Him.  And, though we might enjoy the rejoicing and thanksgiving a whole lot more, the confessing and repenting is just as, and very likely more, important.  At least if we care about hurting our Lord.

Oh, I know, Christ indeed completed the work of atonement on the cross, and so declared, “It is finished” (John 19:30), but in a way that only God and maybe Einstein can understand eternity and time, the suffering of Jesus goes on even as it was finished two thousand years ago.  Paul was not employing hyperbole when he told the Colossians that there was something lacking in Christ’s afflictions which he (Paul) was determined to fill up  in his (Paul’s) flesh by suffering for the sake of his (Christ’s) body—the church.

You see, Paul got it/Him (Boy did he get it!).  And so Paul set out to not hurt the One who loved him, but rather to intentionally and consistently position himself to be afflicted for the sake of the beloved (That is, for Christ’s sake, and for the sake of the one/one’s [His Church/disciples] Christ loves).  (Colossians 1:24)  In fact, Paul understood that the wisest and most worthy eternal investment he, or anyone, could make was to give up/lose all for the sake of sharing in the Lord’s sufferings (Philippians 3:7-10).

Not that Paul was exhorting anyone to be a masochist for Christ!  But the knowledge that our sin indeed hurts the One who loved/loves us should act in us in the same way that antabuse works in alcoholics, which is to say we develop a physical and spiritual revulsion to sinning.  And, at the same time, in the power of Christ’s own righteousness imputed to us by the Holy Spirit, we, like Paul (Who sought to follow the example of the Lord) do well to interpose ourselves between others and suffering, to accept in our bodies (And even in our pocketbooks!) pain and sacrifice in order to spare another.  It’s a turn-the cheek/cross-bearing thing, and Jesus would have us understand that in this way alone can we sincerely and truly follow him.

Jesus did not come to add to the world’s suffering, but in his flesh to bear it away.  Every day each of us gets to choose to add to or take away from suffering.  Only one choice glorifies our Savior.

Christ IS All!

Jim

Marion, NC

PS 37.4