A developing theme?

I always find it interesting the way God seems to develop similar themes in a wide variety of people and situations. Or maybe it's simply that when God begins to develop something in our lives, He also opens our eyes to see that we are not alone in our thinking.

I have devoted a lot of time, thought, prayer and study lately to the theme of God's presence in the midst of the "messy" - in the ugly moments of life, in the painful moments, in the suffering, the temptations, the situations marked by evil. God has laid this theme heavily on my heart of late. "He gives beauty for ashes."

I have been overwhelmed by the number of things I have read recently that tell me that other people are thinking along similar lines. I knew there were a few "odd ducks" like me within my immediate church community, but thought that it related to our personal experiences only. And then I read things like Renee's post that I linked to earlier today, the article by Dan Haseltine that I quoted from last week, and this post from Cameron Conant.

Conant is describing an encounter with a new friend of his and writes:
Last night he said that if you want to experience the joy of Easter, you must first experience the agony of Thursday and Good Friday.

It's like people who refuse to walk through their pain; it might be easier in the short-term, but in the long-term, it prevents them from experiencing true freedom and true joy."

As a pastor, my job is to help people fully enter into their pain," my new friend said.

That might have been the most brilliant statement on ministry I've ever heard.

It might be the most brilliant statement on ministry that I've ever heard too. Especially if we first enter our own pain, and then speak from the position of wounded healer. In Haseltine's words (and my new favorite quote!) - We must be both the walking wounded and the perpetually healed.

As I've thought about this subject over the last while, I've kept returning to the image of the suffering servant that Isaiah paints. Who knows better than Christ what it is to minister from a place of suffering, from emptiness, from both woundedness and healing? For it is out of that place that redemption is birthed. And redemption is the most beautiful, awe-inspiring thing that I have ever encountered.

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had not beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desires him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:2-5)