Advent-ure Day 5: Suffered For Our Sins

In Hebrews 2, we read about the suffering that Christ endured so that we might come into a
relationship with Him:
9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.
10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

We suffer for various reasons, and we can choose to let our suffering defeat us or to fulfill God's intent - to make us more like Jesus.  He suffered shame, pain, humiliation, and death - not that He needed character development, like we do, but so that He might be the perfect sacrifice for our sins and offer us the opportunity to come into a relationship with Himself.  In our suffering, the Lord desires to do a healing, purifying, and strengthening work in us.

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It's Day 5, and we are one-fifth through this year's Advent emphasis, 25: A Christmas Advent-ure, with the theme, "Let's Worship Jesus."  Today, we look at a passage in which the Old Testament
points to the suffering our Savior would endure. It's from Isaiah 53:
3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

The New Testament also deals with the issue of Christ's suffering - in fact, 1st Peter 2:24 states: "who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness--by whose stripes you were healed." 

In 1st Peter 4, we read:
1 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,
2 that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.

Jesus suffered so that we might be brought into the conformity of His will for us; we suffer so that He might manifest the end result of His suffering in us.  We learn through suffering - sometimes it's of our own doing, through mistakes that we make and can learn from.  Sometimes we suffer because we live in a fallen world.  Other times, we are attacked by the enemy because of our righteousness.  But, in all things, we can become perfected through our suffering.

Jack Phillips fits into the latter category.  He is the cake baker in Colorado who declined to provide a cake for a gay couple who had been married in another state and wanted to celebrate that union,. He was taken to task by a civil rights commission in Colorado and the state Supreme Court ruled against him, saying that he "discriminated" against the so-called "couple."  The case is before the U.S. Supreme Court, with oral arguments today.  According to Bruce Hausknecht of Focus on the Family, the legal team is arguing that Jack's free speech rights would be violated.  Phillips was being forced by the courts to use his art to communicate a message that violates his conscience.  Jack is suffering because of a calculated decision that he made to stand on principle.

Lysa TerKeurst of Proverbs 31 Ministries is suffering the effects of living in this fallen world and, of course, we recognize, under the sovereign hand of God. According to a piece on the ChristianHeadlines.com website, Lysa was diagnosed with breast cancer in October and had surgery almost a month ago.  She has now been declared to be cancer-free.

The story states:

After a battle with illness last summer, undergoing surgery that removed a large section of her colon, and then recently facing divorce with her husband of 25 years, Lysa says that it was hard to even share this recent diagnosis with so many supporters who have continued to pray for her through difficult days.

She announced the diagnosis on her blog, "I've sort of dreaded this moment of telling you guys, I really am fine, but I think because I've been through so much in the past couple of years...I've just kind of been dreading telling you because I think people will think, 'What in the world?"

She also wrote, according to the article:

Not one prayer you’ve whispered on behalf of my family has been wasted. God is moving and we are so thankful. Art and I are both praying for a miracle and walking the road to healing.

We are clinging to the promises of God on this journey full of twists and turns, ups and downs. There is often a process God will take people through to prepare us for the Promise.

We are a work in process. And this process is often messy and unpredictable. I don’t know exactly what tomorrow will look like but I do know who I’ll be looking to… the Lord… whose love is unfailing and whose hand is the safest place to entrust my hope.”

Through Jesus' death, through His sufferings, He became the perfect sacrifice for us.  And, through that sacrifice, we can experience, not a suffering-free life, but new life that sustains us even when we are suffering.  Remember, the trying of our faith produces patience.

We know that we suffer for many reasons - and as much as it is the result of our own missteps, we can learn that we are facing consequences and learn to do better the next time.  We can also know that God offers forgiveness to us when we sin and will empower us to walk in triumph over its power.  So suffering because of sin can propel us to rely on Christ to experience victory.

We also recognize that there is suffering that occurs just simply because we live in this world. It's an imperfect world full of imperfect people.  There will be relationships that get crossways with each other; there will be diseases that come into our bodies; we will experience natural disasters and face the deep loss of friends and loved ones.  Name it, the world has it - but in the midst of those sufferings, there is hope in the Lord; He is our refuge and strength, the Psalm says, and He is our "ever-present help" when we face trouble.

Finally, we are called to put on the armor of God, recognizing there is suffering that comes into our lives because we are doing the right thing.  We may experience persecution because we are exalting the name of Christ.  The enemy is roaming about, flexing His muscles "like a roaring lion."  But, we can exercise our own spiritual muscles and appropriate the power of God so that we might overcome the schemes of the evil one.