Nielsen’s Nook

This passage comes to my mind today as one who is feeling quite worn out by life and who faces the weight of my present situation with basically two options. On the one hand I can try and cope with my situation. I can do things that will help me get through the day - one day at a time. I can seek to ease the frustration level by splurging a little here or there. That’s coping. There is no glory in its endless monotonous cycle.

On the other hand, passages like Romans 8:37-39 are fundamental and foundational. Here we find that Paul (after alerting us to his own frustrations in the process of sanctification in chapter 7) directs us back to the lens or paradigmatic icon of the Bible and our lives, the Lord Jesus. He concludes the chapter with thoughts that describe for us something of our identity.

He tells us that we who are in Christ are winning a most glorious victory (ὑπερνικάω). Then, he explains what he sees the basis for such a statement is. It is primarily the person and work of the incarnate, crucified and risen Christ. He is the one who loved us such that he became a human being, was humiliated on the cross and vindicated in his resurrection. Not even death could conqueror this man. It is that same love that compelled the Father to send the Son, and the Son to fulfill the will of the Father, that has bound the Incarnate God to his people. Consequently, Paul tells us that we too share in the same victory as we proceed with the King in his royal procession.

Thus, coping could not be further from the Christian’s calling. Just getting through suffering is not that to which we have been called. Squeaking by does not resonate with the magnitude of this royal procession. Christ, our Divine Warrior, has fought and continues to fight for us, along with us and in us. So it is that we must know that the pain is there to be conquered, to make us stronger. Even if suffering were to waste away our bodies, the most glorious victory to which we are proceeding is sure to produce a greater nearness to Christ, the Suffering Servant, if we will not short circuit the process by methods of coping.

And so we land back in the Beatitudes where we find Christ reminding us that we are poor indeed, but that in Him we have been made rich. O God, may we hunger and thirst for righteousness, always knowing that the righteousness we need, true righteousness, is alone found in Christ. May he be the object of our appetites. Amen.