How are we meant to understand distressing, painful and complex moments, whether in our church life together or in our own personal stories? The most straightforward response is grief or sadness at what has happened. That is, of course, entirely appropriate. Alongside this might be anger directed at those we understand are in some way responsible. Yet it rarely stops there. After our initial reaction, we often start to try and find some meaning in the events. For the Christian, this leads quickly to questions about God: how has he allowed this to happen? Is he in charge of these things? If he is, then how can we reconcile his sovereign purpose with tragedy?
These experiences are fodder for the classic objection: if there is a good God who is in control of the universe, how come such bad things happen? He can’t really be in control, can he? Or, if he is, are his ways capricious or, at best, entirely inscrutable.
“God moves in mysterious ways” is the famous first line of an eighteenth-century hymn by William Cowper. Cowper who was no doubt inspired by Scriptures, such as “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD” (Is. 55:8) and “How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom 11:33b). It is easy to recite such verses in a fatalistic way, with little or no sense of what those ways are! God is just doing his thing, and who knows what that will turn out to be? But the Scriptures tell us a far more precise and infinitely better story as we seek to make sense of great suffering and difficulty. From beginning to end they press upon us a profound truth: God’s best work is cross-shaped.
The Cross of Christ
God’s very best work, after all, happened in what we might consider the very worst of moments—the murder of the Son of God. It is impossible to think of a more despicable act or a more tragic event. And yet this is the day that we call Good Friday! It is also the foundation of God’s most wonderful transformative work—the resurrection of Jesus and the new life that he brings to all who will trust in him. The arrest, trial and execution of Jesus was not accidental, nor was it something that God had to respond and adapt to. It was always his intent and entirely his choice. The very first Christians, reflecting on this incredible moment, had no hesitation in declaring that all those involved (Herod, Pilate, the Gentile Romans and even the people Israel through their leaders) did “whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28). God sovereignly brought about his greatest work, just as he had always intended to from before the ages (1Pet 1:19–20, Rev 13:8). This is God’s chosen way of redeeming his people. We might say it is his salvific M.O.
This grand truth brings with it a number of important conclusions.
The Cross Is the Pathway to the Resurrection
There is no resurrection without a preceding death. This true by definition, but it pushes against our fallen human instinct and so must be constantly repeated. We need to hear this in our western comfort-chasing culture just as much as the very first believers needed to heart it. We’ve just finished preaching through 2 Timothy at church and this same issue is all over the letter. Paul warns Timothy not to be ashamed of the gospel but to share in its suffering (2 Tim 1:8 and 12). There is a resurrection to come for which we wait with love and hope (2 Tim. 4:8).
It’s no surprise that the main false teaching dealt with in this letter is that of “Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened” (2 Tim 2:17b–18). They have an over-realised eschatology, more than likely claiming that the resurrection of Jesus from the grave has brought us into our final state of being. If this is true we ought to have the very best that it is possible for us to have and have it right now! It’s the false doctrine of the prosperity gospel and the wealth and health teachers. And it’s so damaging. Not only does it set up false expectations but it ultimately blinds us to seeing where God is actually at work amongst us, not in the relentless pursuit of good times but through regular cross-shaped moments and even seasons. No wonder Demas is recorded at the end of the letter as having abandoned the gospel band. Paul describes him as “in love with this present world” (2 Tim 4:10), that is, no longer patiently longing for the renewed world yet to come.
Getting clearer on this helps us view our current realities with far sharper gospel vision. Which then leads to the second conclusion.
Cross-Shaped Moments that Lead to Life and Maturity
Jesus reminds us “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24). You can’t have a harvest without first planting the grain. If the main goal is a fruitful harvest then we ought to expect much sowing of grain into death. Rather than responding to difficult moments by seeing them as anomalies and outliers, we need to begin to regard them as regular and normative. The cross is God’s salvific M.O., it’s not a surprise but rather the regular timetabled activity. Jesus’ teaching about the grain of wheat falling in John chapter 12 is bracketed before, by Jesus declaring that his moment of glorification (the cross) has come, and after, by a call to his followers to lose their own lives in the hopeful light of eternity. He calls us all to a cross-shaped life.
For Paul, too, this is the normal experience of gospel life and ministry:
For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:11–12)
This is the pattern for anyone who wants to be involved in the gospel going forward. We die so that life may work in those we share the gospel with. Next time it feels that our lives are being “given over to death” as we live for Jesus and his gospel, we should recognise the moment for what it truly is: a cross-shaped moment that God habitually uses to bring life; we should then look out for those shoots of life as the gospel beautifully works amongst us.
Cowper had no doubt this was what was going on as God moved in his mysterious ways:
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding ev’ry hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow’r.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain. (‘God Moves in a Mysterious Way’, 1774)
It’s all there: the providential hand of God, his gracious purposes, the movement from death into life and behind it all the interpretation written through all the Scriptures.
Next time we face a difficult moment, let’s see them for what they are. The bud’s bitter taste is the precursor to the sweetness of the flower. We will miss the beauty of that resurrection bloom if we’re constantly surprised by and seeking to avoid the cross-shaped hardship that it grows from.
