Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

The dying of the night

Sunday, March 18, 2018

From Jeremiah 31
All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the Lord, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.

Jesus knows his farming. A grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, and "if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternity. And where I am, there also will my servant be" (John 12).

Jesus invites. "Come with me to that promised land." But Jesus' song is not a siren song; it may be true but it does not seduce. And although American preachers load up the front end of salvation with abundance and blessing, Jesus does not. "Come and die with me," he says.

What Jesus says is what he would have me repeat. "I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? 'Father, save me from this hour?' But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name."

Here is an important point. This "hour" is not the hour of resurrection but the hour of death. It is in dying that Jesus, along with his fabled grain of wheat, bears fruit. What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grief to bear.

It will forever be strange to us that in spite of our salvation we shoulder loads of grief all through life. And the more we allow ourselves to be the Body of Christ, we bear each other's burdens and weep with those who weep. There is no end to suffering. The poor you will always have with you.

Jesus would not offer his easy yoke if we did not already carry heavy ones. But I struggle to understand what yoke on earth he is talking about. It's not the easy yoke of comfort, because my comfort always comes at the expense of someone somewhere. "Structural" sin always involves me, as my eyes turn inward and turn away.

"But you will not always have me." And "believe on the one that God has sent." And "I am the resurrection and the life." And maybe most important, "Whoever loves his life will lose it." Jesus himself shines into my life and illuminates the darkest corners, shows me the nature of my sin and then invites me to follow him into the way of life. God gives me more than enough.

A loving theology can lead me toward the love of God. Poetry does as good a job or more, and here's a part of a poem by Welshman R. S. Thomas:

Enough we have been given wings
and a needle in the mind
to respond to His bleak north.
There are times even at the Pole
when He, too, pauses in his withdrawal,
so that it is light there all night long

Advent is a time of waiting in the darkness. And Lent? We wait now too, wait to watch the Lord under his crown of thorns stumbling down Jerusalem streets toward his death. But we need not get ahead of ourselves. Sunday's coming, but not before Friday, and not before today.

Lord, you hold the sun close and then release it, and it rises. Without fanfare and silently, the darkness fades in the dawning of the light. And this is your way in me too, Lord, as you rise up and wash away my sin. Remove the darkness from me. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Devotions Archive

The dying of the night

Sunday, March 18, 2018