Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.
1 Peter 4:12-13 (NIV)
Expected, and Shared With Christ
A father and his grown son have been sitting in a parked car on level two of the garage under the hospital for twenty minutes, and the engine hasn’t been started. The son did most of the talking upstairs and hasn’t said anything since the elevator. Down here the light is orange and the concrete is damp along the wall. A car alarm goes off two rows over and stops on its own. The father told him a year ago it would probably come to this, and he was right, and he isn’t going to mention it.
The people who first read this were being insulted for the name of Christ. Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you. Peter gives the fire a job to do. It has come to test them. He heads off the reading where a believer takes the burning as evidence that he got something badly wrong.
But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. They’re inside something Christ was inside first, and Peter tells them they are taking part in his own sufferings. I can follow him as far as the not being surprised, and when he gets to the rejoicing I have nothing of my own to add to what he wrote.
The joy arrives in full when the glory does, and Peter points them at that day the way you point at a date on a calendar. Until then they have the fire, the testing, and the company. He tells them the Spirit of glory and of God rests on them while the insults are still going on.
In the garage the father says the ramp on level one is closed again and the son says he knows. Then the father says he’ll sit here as long as it takes, and that isn’t news to either of them. The engine starts eventually. Coming up the ramp the daylight arrives all at once, and both of them squint at it.
A Prayer to Remember
Somebody I know has stopped asking you why, and I understand it. He isn’t going to pray this for himself, God, so I’m doing it. Don’t let him take this year as proof that you’ve gone somewhere. Give him one hour this week that goes better than he’s braced for.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
