We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. – 2 Corinthians 4:8-12 (NRSV)
My car took living out Holy Week a bit too literally last week. I left the house on Wednesday afternoon, and immediately there was a loud thumping sound. I hopped out to take a look, and the rear passenger tire was completely flat. I back into my driveway and called to a tow-truck, because I clearly was not going to be able to drive anywhere. The side of the tire had been pierced by a very spear-like 3” spike.
It is amazing how quickly everything went from a happy bright sunny day to a complete crisis. It is very much like the narrative of Holy Week, as the Last Supper quickly deteriorates into the arrest and crucifixion. Life can immediately shift without warning. Thankfully for me in this case, the mechanic I go to is a member of Lord of Life Lutheran Church, and so understood that my car needed to be the first one he dealt with on Thursday morning so that I could make it to worship that day. The nail also went straight in so that he could patch it rather than have to replace the tire entirely.
Yet not everything always turns out so well. When life takes a sudden turn, there is no guarantee that an easy solution will present itself. Yet as we hear the story of Holy Week, we receive a testament that God is with us in the surprise crises of life. In Jesus, God has entered into the deepest pains of this world. Then in the resurrection, we get the promise that we are not abandoned in that pain. We have no guarantee that there will be an easy solution. We do have a promise, though, that we can have eternal hope that God’s love overcomes even the deepest of life’s challenges. Our God will not abandon us, but instead will lead us to live in the joy of the faith that we are not alone in our struggles. God brings no life out of even hopeless situations. That is indeed Good News!
As we bask in the joy of the Easter season, we know that it is not the easy joy of a promise that our every need will be taken care of. Rather, it is the grizzled hope of having endured the challenges of the death-dealing ways of this world and coming to find that through it all the life of Christ fills us and brings us to a deeper faith and hope.