Surprised by Suffering?

Jesu Juva

1 Peter 4:12-19; 5:6-11                                       

May 17, 2026

Easter 7A                

Dear saints of our Savior~

        I’m always surprised by suffering.  I never expect it.  Suffering seems to come out of the blue—an unwelcome intruder.  But I really shouldn’t be surprised by suffering.  And neither should you.  That’s what St. Peter reminds us in today’s epistle:  Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed.

        Suffering is a topic that most of us would rather avoid, I’m guessing.  But if you’re at all familiar with what the New Testament says about suffering, then you know that suffering accompanies every Christian—that suffering is not pointless or meaningless.  In fact, it’s just the opposite.  Suffering is the crucible of faith.  Suffering is the refining fire that burns away all the silliness, the superficiality, the candy-coated platitudes and sugary spirituality.  And what it leaves behind is nothing but the pure gold of saving faith in Jesus the Christ.

        And speaking of Jesus, He knows about suffering.  No man has ever suffered to the degree that Jesus did.  His suffering was the great necessity of His mission—it was the will of God.  It was prophesied in Scripture.  It was necessary that the Christ must suffer and enter into His glory.  The way to the right hand of the Father was the way of the cross and suffering.  He understands your pain right down to His very bones.  He experienced the anguish of God’s silence.  He was abandoned and forsaken.  He identifies with all our suffering.  He is one with our suffering; and He is one with us when we suffer.

        Contrary to what you hear from prosperity preachers with their pie-eyed promises of success, the life of faith doesn’t exempt you from suffering.  Baptism affords no detour around the valley of the shadow of death.  It’s wishful thinking to assume that because Jesus suffered for us, we are not going to suffer.  In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us just who is blessed:  It is those who are persecuted and pursued and poor in spirit.  It’s those who suffer.  Blessed are they, says Jesus.

        Peter was writing his epistle to persecuted, suffering Christians.  He calls them “exiles,” but the term we know better would be “refugees.”  They were scattered all over modern-day Turkey by persecution.  They were forced to leave their homes, their jobs, even their families.  And even in exile they weren’t safe, but were easy targets as Christians no matter how far from home they wandered.

        The suffering Peter specifically addresses is suffering for the faith.  “If anyone suffers as a Christian,” he writes, “let him not be ashamed.”  Suffering for being a Christian—for confessing Jesus Christ as Lord.  For some it meant the loss of home and family.  For others it meant arrest, imprisonment, torture, and perhaps even death.  Of all the apostles we heard named earlier in Acts chapter one, only John lived to a ripe, old age.  The rest were martyred.

        They could have spared themselves all that suffering by simply going quiet.  They could have privately treasured Jesus in their hearts while publicly going right along with the pagan flow.  But they could not and would not do that.  Their baptisms had marked them as soldiers of Christ the Crucified, and they would not betray their commander-in-chief.  They would not go AWOL.  They would not betray their Lord who had suffered and died for them.  Jesus had made them His witnesses to the ends of the earth.

        Peter wrote to prepare his readers for what lay ahead.  There was a fiery trial of suffering headed their way and they shouldn’t be surprised when it happens.  And neither should you.  Don’t be surprised when it’s your turn to endure suffering, hardship, or loss because of the Name of Jesus.  That time is probably coming sooner than we imagine. 

The day is approaching when merely speaking God’s truth revealed in Holy Scripture will be grounds to expel you, grounds to fire you, grounds to evict you—or worse.  Last week a grandmother in the Finnish Parliament was found guilty of hate crimes for something she wrote over twenty years ago, simply stating that homosexuality was not in alignment with God’s plan for life.  Don’t be surprised when the same thing happens here.  Many shallow, superficial Christians will fall away from the faith in the face of such hardship.  The devil is already on the prowl, seeking how many he can devour.

        He will tempt you to doubt and fear and waver and wonder if God is really in charge, or even whether God really exists.  He will cause you to doubt your baptism, that it saves you through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  He will tempt you to go with the flow—to follow your neighbors rather than follow Christ and His Word.  He will tempt you to do whatever it takes to avoid suffering.

        When it happens, don’t be surprised!  And remember that suffering for being a Christian is a great gift.  Blessed are you and great is your reward in heaven.  Be not ashamed.  Be not afraid! 

        Don’t be surprised by suffering.  But do remember this:  God uses persecution and suffering.  They are tools in His hand.  He doesn’t cause it in the sense of stirring it up.  The devil, the world, and our sinful flesh do that.  But God uses suffering and persecution.  He hijacks them for His purposes.  He uses the heat of persecution as a refining fire to burn away the junk, the trite, the trivial to reveal pure gold—the nuggets of genuine faith in Jesus.  Suffering is the setting in which God’s great promises resonate most clearly. 

Read through the book of Acts and see how the Lord used the persecution of the church to energize and grow the church.  When the apostles were imprisoned and beaten for preaching the name of Jesus, they rejoiced and gave thanks that they were considered worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus (Acts 5:41). 

And even in the last century, in Russia, we see what happened when Lenin tried to purge Christianity from Russia.  He ultimately couldn’t do it.  Lenin finally concluded that Christianity is like a nail:  the harder you drive it, the faster you pound it, the more violently you strike against it, the deeper it goes.  Suffering for Jesus’ sake drives faith ever deeper.  It refines and purifies faith.

Don’t be surprised:  You will suffer for Jesus’ sake.  But Jesus suffered for you first.  His suffering saves you; your suffering honors Him.  His suffering is the gold of your faith.  Your suffering brings that gold to 24 karat purity.  His suffering was for your sins; your suffering is for the glory of His holy name.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God.  For Jesus Christ was humbled—He made Himself nothing—in order to exalt you and raise you from the dead.  Whatever the suffering you face, you will be exalted, lifted up to life eternal.  As Peter concludes:  God Himself will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.  To Him be the dominion forever and ever.  Amen.

 

My thanks to Rev. William Cwirla whose sermon, “Suffering for the Faith,” was fundamental in shaping the thoughts contained in this sermon.

 

Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled

Jesu Juva

St. John 14:1-14                                                   

May 3, 2026

Easter 5A         

 Dear Saints of Our Savior~

        Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, looked His disciples in the eye and said:  Let not your hearts be troubled.  Knowing that night, that within twenty-four hours He would be reduced to a corpse on a cross, Jesus said:  Let not your hearts be troubled.  On a dark night filled with terror and trouble, our Lord said:  Let not your hearts be troubled.

        Today’s text from John 14 is a treasure trove—a gold mine of good news: deep theology and precious promises.  You’ve got questions?  Jesus has answers:  You want to know what heaven will be like?  Let Jesus tell you about His Father’s house.  You want to know how to get there?  Jesus Himself is the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Him.  You want to know about the mystery of the Holy Trinity?  Just look to Jesus, because the Father is in Jesus, and Jesus is in the Father.  You want to know more about the power of prayer?  Just ask anything in Jesus’ name and He will do it.  It’s all there in black and white—powerful, profound content from the risen Christ.

        But it all begins with six words we simply must hear:  Let not your hearts be troubled.  Don’t skip ahead. Don’t dive right into the next thing.  Just pause to savor these syllables from the Savior (because you need to hear them):  Let not your hearts be troubled.

        Who has a troubled heart?  Well . . . who doesn’t have a troubled heart these days?  We live in a culture fractured by conflict and political violence.  Reprisals, revenge, and retribution are the name of the game.  Obscenities, vulgarities, and lies are the air we breathe.   Peace-making and forgiveness are forgotten concepts.  Meanwhile, many so-called churches—which are supposed to be bastions of truth—many “churches” have become champions for all manner of immorality, decadence, and perversion.

        But into this Babylon of blasphemy the Lord Jesus speaks:  Let not your hearts be troubled. And this is no throw-away line.  It’s not a soundbite.  Jesus wasn’t just telling the Twelve to cheer up and turn their frowns upside down.  That would be cold comfort compared to the healing, hope-filled words of Jesus:  Let not your hearts be troubled.

        The context for these words is critical.  It was the Thursday night of Holy Week.  The very gates of hell were about to be unlocked so that demons might do their worst to derail our salvation and dethrone the Son of God.  And it was into the deep darkness of that night, when terrible trouble was looming large, that Jesus dared to say, “Let not your hearts be troubled.”

        What the disciples needed at that moment is the very same thing that we need at this moment.  We need comfort and clarity; and Jesus delivers both.  What Jesus prescribes for troubled hearts is faith:  Believe in God; believe also in me.  Jesus asserts His divinity here.  Jesus and the Father are one.  Jesus needed to make that clear because sometimes His power and His glory are horribly hidden from our eyes.  We can’t always see it or feel it or even understand it.  When that happens Jesus says, simply, “Believe it.  Believe in God; believe also in me.” 

        And then, the comfort and the clarity just keep coming.  For every troubled heart, Jesus gives something to look forward to—something to anticipate.  Everybody needs something to look forward to.  And Jesus insists on giving us all something to anticipate:  In my Father’s house are many rooms. . . . I go to prepare a place for you.  The old King James Version described it as a house “with many mansions.”  The point is not to imagine the largest mansion on Lake Drive or the biggest castle in Germany. 

Jesus promises that there’s plenty of room in the heavenly dwelling He’s preparing for us.  There’s room for you!  The Father’s House is no three-bedroom Colonial.  The Father’s House—the place where we all ultimately long to be—it’s designed to hold a great multitude that no one can number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.  The things that trouble your heart today and tomorrow are temporary.  But Jesus Christ, in love, has prepared a permanent place for you.  And one day He will take you home to Himself.

        Thomas was still troubled.  Thomas needed more than just comfort.  Thomas needed clarity—information—details:  “How can we know the way?” he asked.  There’s a lot of ground to cover between where we are now and where we will be forever in the Father’s house.  Thomas wanted the route laid out with certainty.  He wanted to know exactly what to expect.  Many of us would like that too.  We would like to know all the twists and turns and detours that lie ahead.  We’ll follow Jesus, for sure, but we would really like to have more information—for planning purposes.

        Why do we crave all of that?  It’s simple:  We don’t trust Him.  We have more faith in our earthly house than we do in the Father’s house.  The earthly house we can see.  The Father’s house we see only by faith.  And so we trust what we see and we doubt what we don’t see.  But when you go through life trusting in what you see, investing in what you see, centering your life around what is visible; suddenly, you’re no longer a stranger here.  Suddenly, you’re at home here; and heaven?  Heaven sounds stranger and stranger. 

        Thomas wanted a map to follow.  Do you remember maps?  I used to love a good map.  I took pleasure in plotting my course, my exits, my turns, my stops.  Planning the perfect route gave me a sense of clarity and confidence.  Of course, maps are obsolete now.  I miss maps.

        But there’s no map to show the way to the Father’s house.  There’s no map that will give you all the details you crave about the way from here to there.  Jesus gives us something better:  I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  The way to the Father’s house—the way to that heavenly mansion—the way of deliverance from sin and death—is exclusively through Jesus.  There’s no alternate route.  No one comes to the Father except through Jesus; but—through Jesus—EVERYONE can come to the Father.  Salvation is found in no one else (Acts 4:12).  That’s the kind of clarity we need.  All are invited to the Father’s house.  God desires the salvation of all people.  But there’s only one blessed way to get there.    

        Only faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, will get you there.  He alone is the way.  No one comes to the Father except through Him.  Jesus is the singular path to heaven.  His crucifixion cross has opened the way for you.  His sinless life as your substitute is what has bridged the gap between lost and dying sinners and the holy God of heaven and earth.  And His resurrection from the dead is the proof positive.  His Word is truth.  The life He gives is eternal.  In Him we have comfort.  In Him we have clarity.  In Him we have the remedy for troubled hearts.

        Jesus invites troubled hearts simply to believe in Him—to let Him bear your trouble away.  He is the way, the truth, and the life.  He has the solution.  He has the plan.  You can live without fear.  You can die without fear. 

        To troubled hearts Jesus gives comfort and clarity—and peace that passes understanding.  You will find it all right here—in the preaching of His promises, in the cleansing splash of your baptism, in the holy Supper of His body and blood, and in the Lord’s life-giving liturgy.  Here we gather in Jesus’ name, and ask Him for what we need.  Believe Him.  Trust Him.  Let not your hearts be troubled.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.