“ The power of the Cross is not exemption from suffering but the very transformation of suffering .”
“ poured out His soul unto death ,” became broken bread and poured out wine for the life of the world . We live because He died . The power of the Cross is not exemption from suffering but the very transformation of suffering .
Christianity is not a complete coverage insurance policy . Jesus suffered “ not that we might not suffer ,” wrote George MacDonald , “ but that our sufferings might be like His .”
“ The power of the Cross is not exemption from suffering but the very transformation of suffering .”
The Way of the Cross for George Matheson was heartbreak . God ’ s power could have spared him that , but God ’ s love chose instead to give him something far more precious than the happiness he had lost – the Oil of Joy . God gives that oil to those who need it , to those who mourn . Its price , in other words , is mourning . If he had not entered the lonely wilderness , George Matheson would not have found His sweet treasure . Would you say the price of that was too high ? Your answer depends on where you set your sights – on the short range or the long one . Think what Matheson would have missed . Think what the world would have missed had he been given the form of happiness he hoped for . Denied that , he looked for something better . God never denies us our heart ’ s desire except to give us something better .
With what misgivings we turn over our lives to
God , imagining somehow that we are about to lose everything that matters . Our hesitancy is like that of a tiny shell on the seashore , afraid to give up the teaspoonful of water it holds lest there not be enough in the ocean to fill it again . “ Lose your life ,” said Jesus , “ and you will find it . Give up , and I will give you all .” Can the shell imagine the depth and plenitude of the ocean ? Can you and I fathom the riches , the fullness , of God ’ s love ?
Because the thing that he longed for , the joy of his life , was gone , he cried out in his desperation to another joy , to the Source of Joy itself :
O Joy that seekest me through pain .
I wonder if , for a moment or two , he might have felt as I sometimes do : I will not relinquish this misery , not right now . God has taken away what I most wanted . I have a right to feel sorry for myself I have been wronged . I will refuse , for a while at least , any offer of comfort and healing . Don ’ t speak to me of joy . You pour salt in my wounds . Let me lick them for a while . If any such quite natural thoughts entered Matheson ’ s mind , God understood , for He too had been a man . In His mercy He helped him to put them away and to write ,
I cannot close my heart to Thee .
That is the response of a humbled heart , one that admits its poverty and recognizes the gentle Love that waits , the Joy that is seeking him precisely because he is in such pain that he can hardly seek anything but death . Then , although he is blind , he sees with the eye of
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