Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

Today we come to the last of our Epistle Readings that work through St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, which he wrote to respond to their concern for him when they found out that he was in prison. In his own time of suffering St. Paul took the opportunity to teach them about the place of suffering in the life of the Christian.

 

Three weeks ago we heard how this suffering, which seems like an alien invasion into the life of the Christian, actually serves for the advance of the Gospel. Then we heard that we can work out the puzzle of Christian suffering by remembering the humble sufferings of Jesus Christ and that we are united to Him. Last week we heard St. Paul declare that he could press on through his sufferings because he had a righteousness not his own, but that of the Lord Jesus. He knew that he could not endure or be delivered from his sufferings through any of his own efforts or accomplishments, but he had the righteousness of Christ’s innocent sufferings and death for his salvation—and so do we. In the righteousness of Christ we can press on toward the call of God to eternal life and glory.

 

After writing in his Epistle to the Philippians about (1) how suffering serves for the advance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, (2) that we each need to work out our salvation in light of the humble suffering of Jesus, and (3) that we can press on through suffering in the righteousness that we have in Jesus; St. Paul concludes that (4) therefore we always rejoice in our salvation even while we are suffering.

 

“Rejoice in the Lord always,” and because he knows it is not always easy or even apparently possible: “and again I say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). Joy is more of a complicated emotion than we might at first think. If someone is skipping along the sidewalk with a smile on their face and doesn’t seem to have a care in the world, we might say that they are full of joy. That is what we gather from their outward appearance.

 

But joy is an inner emotion, and sometimes our outward appearance does not reflect what we feel inside. That person so joyful on the outside may be just having a moment of happiness or hilarity in an otherwise miserable life. They may be under the influence of an intoxicating substance. They may have pushed everything serious and sobering in their life to the side in a survival attempt to just make it through the day, or even to just give the impression to others that they are doing well in their emotional life, when really they are not.

 

On the other hand, I have had the experience and perhaps you have as well, to be in the presence of people whose life circumstances are quite miserable, and yet they are strong and resilient and have a hope and patient endurance about them that causes just the weakest of smiles to come to their face. They have what is rightly called joy and not a mere hysterical moment.

 

St. Paul describes what joy really looks like in this letter to the Christians who are so anxious and worried about his situation in prison. He does not ask them to put a smile on their face so that they appear to be strong and confident and real-life projections of the people we see in advertisements. Rather, he turns us away from that kind of superficial light-heartedness and describes the manifestations of joy in the following terms:

“Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (4:5-7).

 

“Rejoice in the Lord always” is not a call to be hysterical, but reasonable. Your response to suffering with joy is not to make light of it, but to be reasonable about it. Take it seriously for its intensity and its effect on your life and on those around you. But also take seriously the unequivocal truth that “the Lord is at hand.”

 

God is near to you in your suffering. He is not far away, but right there with you. He is present to uphold and strengthen you and to deliver you. So you do not have to be anxious and consumed by worry. Rather, you have the opportunity to talk to the Lord about it, because He is near. You have the opportunity to ask Him for His help and strength and salvation, because that is why He comes near to you.

 

We have a God who is no stranger to suffering. He does not hide Himself away from it. He came into this world in order to conquer it. We heard from this letter how the holy Son of God “emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (2:7-8).

 

He suffered and died for our sins upon the cross, even the sins of trying to make light of our sufferings and the sufferings of others, our attempts to pretend that they don’t really matter because we believe that our sins don’t really matter, that our fallen condition in this cursed world doesn’t really matter, and therefore that His sufferings and death for our salvation don’t really matter. Even those sins have forgiveness through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

 

So take it all seriously, viewing them in a reasonable way according to His great promises of deliverance for you, and let other people know that is how you see your sufferings. That is the way that your sufferings will serve for the advance of the Gospel. Other people will see your faith and hope and joy and will ask you how you are able to persevere and press on. And you can point them to Jesus.

 

This isn’t just God’s evangelism strategy by which He uses people in their darkest times in order to send a message to others. But this is precisely how He gives to you His peace to guard your hearts and minds in the one truth and saving faith. It is for the sake of your salvation that He comes near to you in your suffering. It is for your peace of mind and heart that He makes His presence known to you through His Word and Sacraments. He is there for you in answer to your prayers, to such a degree that even as you make your requests you can do so with thanksgiving, knowing that He is in the midst of answering them even before they are on your lips.

 

It is hard to remember that the Lord is so near to us in our sufferings. It is often in our sufferings that we feel the most alone. We can acknowledge that Jesus has experienced suffering and done so for us and yet still feel abandoned by God and by family and friends and all manner of support. That is the great temptation that comes along with the suffering of the body and makes it also a suffering of the mind and of the spirit, and a challenge to our faith. The devil knows this very well and he makes use of every opportunity to try to convince you that you are alienated from God, that the Lord is not near, and that He does not hear your prayers.

 

Humans are susceptible to a conceptual blindness. Studies have shown that we do not actually see everything in the room. Our eyes focus very quickly from one point to another and our brain fills in the gaps between the points with what it expects to be there. You have probably had several of those “I didn’t even see that” moments, where you inexplicably missed something that should have been quite obvious. The more that our brains are trained to take in the full picture and to be diligent in filling in the gaps based on what is truly present, the more we are able to see and acknowledge what has been there all the time.

 

That is the kind of thing St. Paul wants to train us to do so that we learn to see that the Lord is near to us in times of suffering. Train your mind and your spirit to notice the godly things that most people don’t see. “Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things” (4:8-9).

 

This kind of training yields results. It opens you to see what most people miss. It helps you to notice things even when the ordeal of suffering would diminish your ability to focus on them. And the blessed result of it is that you see “the God of peace will be with you” all your days, those of suffering and those of relief. “The Lord is near.”

 

In prison Paul was focusing on things that were true, honourable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable. He was mindful of the concern of the Christians in Philippi for his well-being while in chains. And he had come to know that even before their gifts to him had arrived, they were concerned for him and offering prayers for him, and so caring for him even when he had not yet had any evidence of it. That was something in which he could rejoice in his time of suffering.

 

So Paul concludes his letter not by saying that he has made it through and his time of suffering is over, but that he has learned how to press on through such times, which he knows will come again and again until he dies and the Lord takes him to heaven. But he does claim to have apprehended the mystery of Christian suffering. He had discovered the secret of rejoicing always and praying in distress with thanksgiving.

 

“I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content. I know how to be brought low and how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need” (4:11-12). What is the secret? By the time we get this far into his letter we should know it too. He has been telling us the secret all along. “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (4:13).

 

This conclusion applies directly to the mystery of Christian suffering. It does not refer to the ability to become an astronaut or to perform feats of superhuman physical strength. It does not refer to a blanket permission to do whatever you want without concern for the boundaries that God sets for you as a parent, child, employee, employer, citizen, or member of the government.

 

It refers to pressing on through the suffering that comes into your life as one of God’s Christian people. You can get through illness, grief, unemployment, depression, disability, confusion, and despair—whatever it is that has come upon you in this life. Because you are a Christian you can press on knowing that “the Lord is near... the God of peace will be with you.” You can celebrate Thanksgiving even when you are struggling.

 

It is never easy to suffer. It is never pleasant to suffer or to watch someone else suffer. We should never glory in our suffering, but we should see Jesus and His glory there. We should be reminded of His suffering for us and for all upon the cross. We should be reminded of His glorious victory and His resurrection from the dead. We should take to heart the promises that He has given to us of our deliverance and resurrection, and contemplate the mystery that “it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him but also suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29).