The week of truth is coming
This next week, Christians will have the realities of the faith set before us. Well, we have the realities of the faith set before us every Sunday when we gather for worship, as Christians do on Sundays; but during Holy Week, which begins this Sunday, shall we have the realities of the faith presented to us in particularly painful clarity, that the faith is not some fantasy about how it’s a wonderful life, and people are basically good at heart, and all will be well if only you count your many blessings and pretend that all things evil and ugly in this world are not there.
This Sunday shall see our Lord Jesus riding into Jerusalem, celebrated by a crowd waving palm branches and singing praises, all so wonderful; but as that vision is set before us, we will know that another tree lurks in the shadows. And Good Friday will set the most appalling image before us: the Son of God exposed to the most dreadful sufferings.
And so we shall see, once again, that there is in fact, suffering in the world, and sin, or rather, we shall be reminded of this, for we knew already, and the faith is very well aware of it, although many seek to suppress our knowledge, and refuse to acknowledge it, and perhaps even pretend that the lies they tell themselves to block real life out are the Christian faith.
In His sufferings we shall see the truth about ourselves, that such severe evil is what our kind inflicted upon Him who gave us life itself and all things good in life, and we ourselves, as it was for our sin He suffered, on account of the disobedience and disregard for His goodness with which we reward Him for His goodness. And we shall see in Him the judgement of God upon ourselves and our sin, our unbelief and ungodliness.
We shall see just how good God is, how great His love for us sinners, that He who is Himself God from eternity would bear such sufferings for us. And so we shall see how great a love it is that we despise and disregard by the way we live and behave, the way we treat Him, and other people, loved by Him. And so we shall see that it is indeed only good and right that when “the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire” as He has had His holy Apostle Paul write it, He will “take vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
May He Himself give us grace to seek and also see our salvation in Him: that He who shall come to judge the living and the dead has Himself suffered all judgement for us!
(Jais H. Tinglund is pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, Greybull/Zion Lutheran Church, Emblem.)