"Is it Possible to Have Joy in Trials?" Second Sunday of Easter Philip and James, Apostles May 1, 2011 1Peter 1:3-9
Is it possible to have joy in trials? The answer is yes but another question comes to mind: How? How can we have real authentic joy when our entire being is crying out for relief, even removal of the trials we are experiencing? The answer of how is that we are guarded by God. Think about a guard. A guard guards something or protects something. A guard is stationed at his post. What is behind a guard? What is the basis for a guard to do what he does, which is to guard and protect? It is power. We normally don’t associate peace with power. Military power, with all of its armaments and threats of use of those armaments if necessary, may not seem to go hand in hand with peace. But in Philippians Paul makes the case: the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds. The word he uses for guard is a military term. Maybe this is why Solomon in all his wisdom and being inspired by the Holy Spirit said in Ecclesiastes 3 that there is a time for war and a time for peace. Sometimes the way peace comes about is through war. We might think of a military as existing for the purpose of war. But really what a military does is guard. It must have power in order to enforce its ability to guard and protect. The use of force is sometimes necessary. God protects us. He keeps us. He guards. God has power. He is almighty. He uses that power to protect and guard us. In the Epistle reading Peter uses the same military term Paul does. He says that you “by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” This is extraordinarily important. What we’re facing is an enemy. What we’re in is a war. On the Sunday after Easter we see the reality of things as they are. Christ is risen, but we’re still in this mess. The world is in a mess. Society is a mess. The economy is in a mess. For some of us our lives are a mess. For some of us our spiritual walk with Christ may seem to be in a mess. We sin daily. We are bound to the sinful nature in which we were born. Christ rose from the dead but He stepped out of the tomb and back into the very same world He died in, a world that is in a mess. It’s good to see things as they are. If you don’t know you’re in a war you’ll become a casualty of the war. If you know you’re in the war then you can know that you are guarded and protected by God. The Sunday after Easter always gives us the account of Thomas. You know Thomas, the one who is always known as Doubting Thomas. The guy who wasn’t there when Jesus showed up on Easter Sunday. The guy who wouldn’t believe. The guy who set his conditions. Unless I see. Unless I touch. Unless I can have proof, I will not believe. Thomas. Doubting Thomas, if you will. Thank God for Thomas. Thomas is a real life example of the mess that often characterizes our lives. We believe, but Lord, help our unbelief. Sometimes we may simply feel like Thomas, though. I can’t see it. I can’t understand it. I don’t believe it. Notice how Peter said that we are guarded by God’s power *through faith*? How does this apply to us in our lives? Let’s just say that without God’s power guarding and protecting Thomas he would have been overtaken by the enemy. He was not strong enough on his own. He didn’t have enough power. Only God does. Fortunately, He’s the one who guards us. That it’s through faith shows us how it’s by God grace and mercy and power that we are kept and protected by Him. If faith were something we must produce or sustain then where would Thomas be? He spoke his own condemnation when he said, “I will not believe.” But faith is always stronger than our doubts and our attempts at packaging God into our boxes we can easily contain. That’s because faith is from God and sustained by Him. Thomas was extremely weak, but he was being guarded by God Himself. Thomas was putting himself in the place of God even as God was protecting him from his sinful nature and the devil. This is of tremendous comfort and encouragement to us. It means that in our weakness as well as in our strength God is protecting us. He keeps us in His grace. He is guarding us. Whether we are struggling as Thomas was or we are steadfast like the apostles were in the First reading in rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer on account of Christ, we are being guarded by God’s power. When Peter talks in the Epistle reading that we rejoice even in the midst of suffering, he knows what he’s talking about. He’s not just spouting platitudes. Christianity is never about telling people: “Everything will be okay. Stay strong, things will work out.” People see right through this. What people need is the truth. What they need is substance. That’s what Peter gives. God. Power. Protection. Being guarded by God. The very presence of evil and sin and hardship shows us our need to be guarded by God. If we weren’t being attacked by an enemy there would be no need to be protected by God. But we are in this mess. In His mercy God keeps us in His care through the trials we experience. We could think of this in terms of the cosmic battle that it is. Satan is seeking the downfall and eternal suffering of as many people as he can get. God is fighting back. But the cosmic battle is often played out on a smaller scale. Thomas in his weakness refusing to believe. The mother falling into depression because she’s diagnosed with terminal cancer and will not be able to see her children grow up. The college student who is bombarded by professors and fellow students with reasons why they think the Bible is a bunch of fairy tales. The child who is listening in his bed at his parents fighting over their bleak financial outlook. The employee who is struggling over his wanting to not forgive his co-worker for cheating him out of a promotion. Maybe you can add yourself to this list, in the words of Peter, if “you have been grieved by various trials.” Perhaps we think of Christianity and our Christian life too much as being on a grand scale. Maybe we too often forget that it’s in the day to day things we do in which the war is engaged. In the Collect of the Day we prayed our almighty God to grant that we who have celebrated the Lord’s resurrection by His grace to confess in our life and conversation that Jesus is Lord and God. Christianity is not just here in God’s House or in Bible Class or in daily devotions. It’s in your life and in your conversation. Thomas declared: My Lord and my God! The First reading gives us a glimpse of his life and conversation after that. Declaring it in his life and conversation. To his brother and sister Christians. To the enemies of the Gospel. His family and his neighbors. This doesn’t mean that he was now a super-Christian. He certainly had moments of weakness again, probably doubts again. Certainly he still sinned and daily needed the strength and power of God to keep him in His grace and mercy. Peter and Thomas and the other apostles weren’t super-Christians. They were men like you and me, who were, as Peter said in the Epistle reading, “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” The picture we have of them in the First reading of rejoicing in their suffering isn’t because they were super-Christians but because God was keeping them in His care. They saw that their only hope was in Him. They saw beyond the suffering to an inheritance that is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.” They believed that nothing in this life could cut them off from God’s eternal care of them and the salvation He had brought them into. Appearances could not change the fact that that salvation would be revealed in all its glory on the Last Day. Is it possible to have joy in trials? Yes. Peter doesn’t say, Don’t worry, be happy. He doesn’t say, Smile, everything is going to turn out all right. What he says is, In this we rejoice. What he says is that we have joy. The joy we have is not what we feel. Our emotions in trials go all over the place. To a certain extent, that’s good, if not simply reality. But joy and rejoicing go beyond feelings. Joy is not what we feel but rather what we know, knowing in the sense of belief and trust and hope. Peter heard the words of Christ on Easter Sunday and eight days later: Peace be with you. They were glad when the saw the Lord. And you know what else? A couple months later when He was no longer among them walking and talking with them and they were being persecuted? They rejoiced. They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ. It is possible. Not of ourselves. We will always be weak and will fall into sin. It is possible because the one who gives us peace and joy does so through all the might and power of God who guards us and keeps us. It is possible because Christ suffered not simply trials but the condemnation for our very sins. It is possible because He has Baptized you and you are His. In His care. Guarded. It is possible because He doesn’t just say, Peace be with you, He gives it to you. He gives it to you by giving you Himself, His body and His blood in His holy Meal. Here, at this Table, for you. In this you greatly rejoice. In this you have peace and joy and eternal salvation. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. 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