BEULAH-NCF: September 2007

“DECLARE HIS GLORY IN THE SUFFERING WORLD.”

The theme for the month of September and October is “Declaring His glory among the Nations”. As the Jubilee Celebration and Conference nearer and nearer I am more and more excited and looking forward.

Today, the theme I want to speak is “DECLARE HIS GLORY IN THE SUFFERING WORLD.

“I think today the world is upside down, and is suffering so much because there is so very little love in the home, and in family life. We have no time for our children, we have no time for each other, there is no time to enjoy each other.”

- Mother Theresa

The problem of suffering is too large for anyone to answer finally. Within the human family a Christian member is called to declare the glory of Jesus Christ contextually.

If there was a patron saint of India, his name would be Sadhu Sunder Singh. You ought to read some of his writings. He underwent a great deal of pain and rejection, humiliation and persecution because he had chosen to stand in Christ Jesus. In thinking about his experiences afterward, he said:

Whenever I had to suffer for our dear Savior ... it gave me such a wonderful joy that I could not find anywhere else ... Suffering was suffering before I became a Christian, for at that time I had no peace. That was suffering in the real sense of the word; I felt as if I were in hell. But after my conversion I had no suffering at all. (The Cross Is Heaven by A. J. Appasamy, 46)

From his biography, however, we discover that this man suffered intensely after his conversion. Yet somehow he seems to think that this was not suffering compared to what he underwent prior to his stand in Christ. What is this? You have got to get "in" to know what this is. And unless you get in there is no possibility of declaring his glory in a suffering world. Within the New Covenant, I affirm the love of God and so come into a new understanding of the motives and discipline of love which invites me into its experience. Christ's sufficiency now becomes my true self-sufficiency.

Fr. Francis Martin has said that "only when we are humbled by our inability to remove obstacles, real obstacles not just spiritual trials, only then can we understand Jesus Christ," only then will we understand what the New Testament calls the discipline or the education of God. If I do not understand Jesus Christ, I cannot declare him among the suffering.

To check this out, read Acts 8 where the community was suddenly stripped of all the permanency in their life. Chased out of Jerusalem, they had no land or property, no wealth. Even the degree that they had from Jerusalem University was not recognized outside Jerusalem! They were chased out with nothing. And yet when they left the city, they proclaimed Jesus Christ. They seemed to have everything although everything was taken away from them. Notice also that they had what the world was looking for. Although they had been stripped of all their possessions, life still had meaning because they knew Jesus Christ as the risen Lord. The world sought them for that one message, and there was great joy in Samaria because of their presence.

In Acts 11:19-26, God used the same community again to transcend the known, established laws in society - relationships with people, the trade laws, the inseparable separation of Greek and Jew. All these things came tumbling down because there was a community that had the courage to say, "We look upon all things only as in Christ." They had to give them a new name, and so they called them "these Christ folk."

In Acts 13 we pick them up again. Notice that they have now transcended racial, linguistic, geographic, cultural and economic barriers. The only commonality they discovered was Jesus Christ. And when they discovered this commonality, they were declaring the glory of God inside a badly mangled, suffering world. They made no reference to their personal agony. But somehow in the discipline of God's love, about which they had no question whatsoever, they discovered the capacity to declare the glory, and the glory radiated.

Dr. E. Stanley Jones used to say, "Jesus transforms suffering by using it: The victim becomes the victor; a test is turned into a testimony."

Historically, those who belong to him have illustrated this over and over again. Sadhu Sunder Singh speaks about the martyr Kartar Singh. He came from a very famous, well-to-do family in the land of Punjab, in the northern part of India. When he came to Jesus Christ, his family turned him out with not even a strip of clothing on him. Suddenly he had to work to earn his own clothing and his food. He did it cheerfully, says Sadhu Sunder Singh.

Then he ended up in Tibet preaching the gospel. The Tibetans said unless you leave us, we'll have to exercise our law on you. He said that's all right, go ahead and do it. So after his refusal, they passed sentence on him - the sentence of death. It was a gruesome death. They took the skin of a yak - that is an animal that bears burden in Tibet - sewed him tightly in that skin and set him out in the blazing sun so that the skin would tighten and crush him to death. Three days this man was agonizing. On the fourth day when liberation was close, he asked for release of one hand and for a pencil to write. These are his words:

He gave me life, but given life was His own still. The truth is this: that I have not in any sense repaid Him. The full acknowledgment would be if I sacrificed myself to the glory of His dear name. I will ask from God not one but a hundred thousand lives. A hundred thousand times I may die for my Friend's sake. I pray that my love for him may not be less than the Hindu woman who burns along with the corpse of her dead husband. When for the dead husband, whom she may not hope to meet again, she does so much, how much more should I not do for a living Lord, who is moreover the Lord of Life? It is a shame for me to do less than a Hindu woman would do.

Sunder Singh said he related this story one day on the platform of a railroad station in Patiala. A neighbor was eagerly listening and he queried him and found out that he was the father of Kartar Singh. Through the witness of the glorious death of his son, the father became a believer also.

To declare his glory in a suffering world, we must understand Calvary as the ultimate model for living itself. The Word became flesh is the word that we repeatedly use. God, through Jesus Christ his Son, said Yes to you and to me. And now in turn he expects us to repeat this Yes to him. Will we turn around and say to God, "Through him we say Yes to you"?

What We Can Do

Three simple things all of us can do.

W First, we can decide not to squander or waste. This includes mother's admonition that we ought to eat the helping of spinach because people in India were dying without it. We could very readily tell her, "Please let them have it, I don't want it." But I mean another thing beside that: There is waste in overindulgence: We eat when we know we don't need to eat. A huge helping satisfies our ego, but is too much for our stomach. Will you courageously refuse to waste like that?

W Second, refuse to try to satisfy your spiritual hunger by going on a buying spree. How often the advertising agencies know our inner, spiritual anxieties and prompt us to buy promising, "If you buy this, you'll be satisfied." But you never will be. A $1,000 stereophonic system will never satisfy the inner hunger you have for Jesus Christ. A perfectly acoustic room will never satisfy the need you have to listen to the voice of God. Will you and I have the courage to refuse to be sucked into this? When there is a spiritual need, I go alone to him and let him meet the need.

W Third, what you have saved by steps one and two, take to the Lord and say, "Lord, what do you want me to do with it?"

What Do You Say to a Hungry World? Dr. Stanley Mooneyham, the president of World Vision International, tells of an ethics professor who spoke to his class in Long Island about the basic ethical problem all humanity faces. He asked if they would place a Rs50/-value on modern man. Not 5lakhs but merely Rs50.00. Most of them said that even with inflation it is possible to value man at Rs 50/- Then he asked, "When you hear about the suffering, the hunger, the poverty in other parts of the world or next door to you within your own city, will you be willing to evaluate human beings at Rs50/- a head and do something about it?" There was silence in that classroom. That is a job for the government, they agreed; we are not involved.

Our world is a suffering world. That is no secret. The God to whom I belong is faithful. He will fulfill that for which he has called you and me. And then we will be declaring his glory contextually.