Thursday, May 15, 2014

Healed By His Wounds



"Beloved:  If you are patient when you suffer for doing what is good, this is a grace before God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His footsteps.  He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth.  When He was insulted, He returned no insult; when He suffered, He did not threaten; instead, He handed Himself over to the One who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness.  By His wounds, you have been healed. For you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls." -- 1 Peter 2: 20-25.

A couple of generations ago in my family history, I had a grandmother who was Irish Catholic. In the 1930's, she married my grandfather, a Protestant. I can only imagine the shock that rippled through their town at the news of this engagement.

My Nana converted to Protestant after her marriage. If she did visit her Catholic family, that happened only on the sly, when my grandfather was at work, or away on business.

A couple of generations later, I was born. Growing up, I never knew the Catholic relatives, not their names, not their faces, nor their voices, nor their personalities. That was the "other side" of the family, the one I was not supposed to know about.

My parents took me to a Protestant church until I was 14. Then, church stopped. I was told, "We don't do that anymore.' My parents apparently took me to church because that is what "good families" do. But there was no Faith in it.

Somehow, I got the "Catholic gene", but it had skipped a generation. There is a special kind of pain for those of us who grew up with Faith in God, in a family possessing no Faith.

Author and lecturer Celia Sirois says that anytime you have Christian believers in a place of unbelievers, there will be martyrdom.

I hate to even hear that. But, this is what this Scripture is talking about. . . . being insulted for proclaiming that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; accepting wounds as part of the sacrifice of being a Christian; refusing to return sin for sin, which only boomerangs as against oneself.

My parents would openly make racist statements in front of me. But, I would remember my Sunday school lessons about how God loves everyone.

My mother would try to teach me to, in all things to put money first. I would think to myself, 'But what about God? Doesn't He come first, before all things?'

These are not theoretical differences. If I tried to make a small sacrifice to help someone else, my father would lecture me, " You think of YOURSELF first!"

One day, I came home and announced that I was engaged to a Catholic man. Then my parents fought over every detail of my wedding day; and in the end, they refused to stand in the receiving line at the wedding reception.

But I ask you, what choices do we believers have here?

I could not imagine insulting and humiliating my family back. How would that make me any better than they were?  It would not make me a peaceful, loving Christian. It would make me a sinner.

It never occurred to me to lie to myself or to God by proclaiming that I hated God. My parents had their unbelief. I could not take that on. It would not help me.

Perhaps if I had parroted my mother's mantra that the Almighty Dollar comes first, I could have appeased her. But for me, that would be a lie. Jesus never deceived anyone about who He was or what He believed. Why should we?

To get my family to believe in God and take me to church, I could have threatened them. But that is not Christian behavior either. What is the point of having to threaten someone --- to get to church?

The one miraculous thing that I almost cannot figure out? ---- How did I know that my parents were wrong and Jesus was right? I was only a little girl. I heard all these ugly beliefs coming out of my parents' mouths, and I said to myself, "No".

I was patient with my parents. I even ministered to them, helping my father to paint a room, weeding and tending my mother's garden. Maybe I thought, in my child's logic, that if they could not be loving Christians, I would become one FOR them. No matter how lovingly I behaved, though, they verbally trashed Christians---  and they were cruel and abusive to me.

This is what Peter is talking about when he says, "If you are patient when you suffer for doing what is good, that is a grace before God. For this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you." And so, my patience came from God's grace. He taught me the Truth, amidst so many lies and cruelties.

Sometimes we get bad choices in life, and worse choices. I guess somehow, out of that grace that God showered upon me, I decided that I would rather suffer for being right, than suffer for being wrong and hateful.

Then we get to the part about, "By His wounds, you have been healed." I never wanted Jesus to die for me. His sacrifice is too awful. I always thought that Jesus would do the world much more good, if He were still here.

That is the central mystery of our Christian story. If God gave us Someone so pure and holy and good, why would He take Him away?

There are so many answers to this. One very valid answer is that Jesus, having suffered so much Himself for being the Messiah, knows all about how WE suffer. He is a shining example of how it is better to suffer for being right. When we suffer, He walks right along with us. This Scripture says,
" For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His footsteps."

I also like, "Jesus Himself bore our sins in His body upon the cross, so that free from sin, we might live for righteousness [for being in right relationship with God]."  That is, His wounds, His sacrifice in going back to the Father, are what allow us to seek a good and right relationship with God for ourselves.

In the end, for an entire generation, my family had gone astray from the central message of Christianity. But in God's grace, I was returned to Jesus, "the shepherd and guardian of our soul" -- because I had heard His voice.

[Related Postings, " Where is My Flock?", April 29, 2012; " His Flock", May 16, 2014. ]

(c) Spiritual Devotional 2012. All Rights Reserved.








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