Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
No, I am not going to “joyfully” accept the sufferings of this present time. I will endure suffering. I will accept suffering. I will acknowledge suffering. I will appreciate that not all suffering is bad. Hard work may be painful, but if it gets us to where we’re going, or produces what we are striving to produce, then fine; I’ll joyfully accept such suffering. But I find no nobility in suffering as such.
The thought of Jesus passively giving his body to be whipped and face to be spat upon is surreal. Yes, his body was whipped. Yes, his face was spit upon. Yes, his beard was likely ripped out by the handful, and other tortures and indignities endured. He no doubt knew resistance would be futile. The one who taught us to go the extra mile and to pray for those who abuse us no doubt walked the walk. I’ll confess, I would not have been so passive, but that’s why God called Jesus to this peculiar ministry, and not me.
I already fail at life, let alone in imitating Jesus in any significant way. Yet, knowing how far short I fall, helps me understand just how tall Jesus stood.
The point is, I don’t need to fear facing the trials Jesus faced. There is somewhere near zero percent chance of me being arrested for my preaching. There will be the occasional troll I may have to face when posting on social (or anti-social) media, but those will mostly just be words. The pain is only felt by the poor spelling and worse grammar skills of those trolls. I may find a bit of proverbial egg on my face, but no spittle.
Jesus faced far worse than I ever will, and set his face toward Jerusalem when the time came, rather than traipsing around the relatively safe environs of the Galilean hills. That’s the point. He could have played it safe. He could have avoided going to Jerusalem, but then he would have had no impact on the world at large. He’d have just been another nice man saying nice things. Instead, he chose to make an impact for God’s sake, even though it was the life-threatening way.
“(C)onfident of the glory that shall be revealed …”
It isn’t our glory that will be revealed, but the glory of God. Doing the right thing may have its downside, but God is always the upside of those decisions. What a person or group of people may do is nothing compared to joining with Christ in his suffering, that we may rise with him in his resurrection. His glory will be revealed in the "sign of Jonah" in the days to come. Amen
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