Friday, January 23, 2009

Weeping and Rejoicing

We live in a hurting dysfunctional world. As a minister, you are exposed to a great deal of that pain from week to week. This morning I shed some tears with a close friend in ministry as he shared with me a heartbreaking development in his church family. His love for those who are hurting and his leadership of the church in a compassionate manner reveals the presence of Jesus Christ. Nothing can be more healing than the revealed presence of Jesus Christ in his church.

The presence of Christ in our lives causes us to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross…” (Hebrews 12:2a). When I visited Israel years ago I noted that from Golgotha’s hill, Jesus, hanging on the cross, looked down upon the Roman road between him and the wall of Jerusalem where scoffing people passed by observing the execution. As he lifted his eyes he looked upon Jerusalem, the city he wanted to gather into his care like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. And then as he raised his head he looked over Jerusalem and the Kidron valley to the Mount of Olives, the location Zechariah spoke of when he described the second coming of Christ and declared, “Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem … Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him,” (Zechariah 14:3,4a,5b) ALL THE HOLY ONES WITH HIM – they are the redeemed – the ones for whom he suffered on the cross. His sustaining joy was the realization that you, and I, and multitudes of lost souls would be saved by his sacrificial work.

We enter his afflictions when we minister to the hurting in Christ’s name, and we enter his joy when we see the lost redeemed, the sorrowing comforted, and the wounded healed. “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.” (Colossians 1:24).

This necessary process of joining the weeping to gain the rejoicing marks the life of the servant of God and achieves God’s grand purpose. I pray you do not grow weary in well doing and that you will experience an abundance of rejoicing that comes from God’s work of grace in people you serve.