searing balm
It hurts. And as a calloused executioner, pain wears a mask. My inclination is to reduce Christian suffering to pure and explicit agony. The imagination goes to martyrdom, doesn’t it? But subtly, the harshest sufferings is a call to obedience. To love when seemingly justified to do otherwise and the call to endure with joy a life underhanded and uncertain. So why do it? What for? Is there fruit to faithfulness that blots out weighty adversity? The French novelist Jean Sullivan offers some strikingly honest but none the more comforting words: ““When the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God, cries out that he has been abandoned on the Cross, by what right do you seek reassuring truths?”
Along with Lewis, I’m shocked that grief so closely resembles fear. But David found the balm. “I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety,” Courage indeed is not simply a virtue in itself but a resilience of virtue in the flames. In the case of the Christian, a skirmish to the arms of the Father. ‘Drawing near’ is a pleasant hymn ‘til it becomes a struggle in the squall. Not so passive anymore, is it?
As an anguished parent tearfully demands of his frightful child to bear intense agony, there’s also violent preaching to the heart. Be still, my soul! And as the heart begins its restless submission….be still, my soul. Yet the lullaby would be in vain unless completed in consolation…The Lord is on your side. On the cross there was none of this from the Father to the bleeding Son. Instead, he turned his face away. He died not that we be free from suffering, but that our suffering may resemble his. So the flames, although searing, are warm.
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“That you will, Dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
