BitterSweetLife

Light from a Hidden Sun



In a way, what strikes you about Saint Peter’s words to a bunch of exiled disciples is something he doesn’t even say. Something glaring in its absence.

He writes about their bright future—a future dramatically altered because of Christ—and then notes, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials” (1 Peter 1:6, The Bible).

Celebrating in the middle of unfounded suffering has always been a Christian trademark. At the time Peter wrote, his friend Stephen had already been stoned to death, “his face like an angel” (Acts 6:15). Paul and Silas had been beaten and thrown in jail—where they commenced to sing rousing praise songs. Later (Acts 26:29), Paul would display an unquenchable sense of humor en route to his execution in Rome. Peter himself would prove irrepressible at the moment of his death. These, and other episodes, quickly set the standard of “happy Christian misery.”

This being the case, Peter might have been expected to try and guard the paradigm. Keep it safe, this treasured legacy. We almost expect him to nudge these exiled friends down the proper path: Hey guys! Psssst. Little tip for ya. We have this tradition, uh…when you’re getting shot down right and left, treated like dirt, physically attacked…um, SMILE. Just so you know. A little thing we do…

Instead, Peter merely remarks that the tradition is still going strong. “In this you rejoice,” he observes. Rejoicing is the obvious fact, “various trials” the extenuating condition. These exploited refugees are living out a strangely bright reality.

In a way, I’m mystified. It’s as G.K. Chesterton wrote:

“Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.”

I guess most of us are at least a little pagan. As for me, I own this “gigantic secret,” comprehend it partially anyhow, but I’ve called upon the services of the “small publicity” department too. Clearly, there is a paradoxical way in which undeserved suffering changes from something to be sworn at to something in which we sing. Why? Here is the clincher.

Ridiculous, unfounded trials—encountered for the sake of Christ—are a sign of favor. Peter and Paul, both eventual martyrs, were clear on this point. God uses “various trials” as a way of testing his people—“testing” them in the old-fashioned way (as opposed to the modern way, which is perpetrated by students upon their teachers). God’s testing proves us, shows us what we’re made of, nudges us, shoves us, spurs us, burns us—until the spiritual gold at our cores begins to gleam through. We may not realize that the gold is there, but God knows, because he buried it.

To distil it in one strange fact: Affliction for Christ is grace. God mercifully doesn’t take suffering away until we have been adequately changed by it. We are given a point of decision, a crucible to form our faith, a moment to say a vital Yes to Christ. And on top of that, another factor is in play. Call it Glory.

After his initial observation, Peter’s next breath adds luster to the believers’ strange situation: “…you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7).

"Tested genuineness” is one thing. “Praise and glory and honor” is something else, something directly related but different. If proven character is indeed its own reward, this glory is pure gratis. Somehow, Christ is awarding it to us apropos our “testedness.”

As I see it, this is a kind of divine double-bonus. The most unfair ridicule or abuse I could conceivably experience would, in Christ’s economy, have a purifying effect inside me; and all the while AJ the human was being refined and enhanced, I would be accumulating glory.

Suffering for Jesus may hurt, but it makes us bigger and better—makes us the kind of creatures who can live in the vivid, heavy world of heaven, able to breathe the rarest air anyone ever can. And all the while we grow in this way, glory is accruing. Christ’s favor is piling up, and we’re growing strong enough to bear its weight. Happy misery.

At this point, we ought to pause and catalogue our paradoxes so that none of them escape.

1. In 1 Peter: The disciples instinctively celebrated in their pain.
2. This fact was obvious to onlookers.
3. Suffering, while undeniably present, got a low billing.
4. After all, it could only “improve” the believers.
5. And glory was on the table.
6. They could “win” it; we can too.
7. Christ will award glory to us.
8. Christ will praise us.

Happy misery.

It seems almost impossible—from the startling surface fact to the mind-bending conclusion. Somehow, Jesus commending us will point up the invincible power of his glory all the more. He will praise us, and we’ll reflect the power of his own person back. Perhaps the impossibility of this theme, top to bottom, has helped to keep it, in pagan minds (and therefore many of ours)—a “gigantic secret.”

What is left to say?

As Peter summarized, “Though you have not seen [Christ], you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

The “glorified joy” is what I’m after, the kind that lasts. Delight kindled by close proximity to the source of all glory. Joy infused by Christ’s light, which catches us in its beams, radiating outward, rays in the true sense, repercussions extending infinitely. Glory for now and later.

We cannot say what its final end will be, for in fact there will be no final end, only progressive stages of a story. In the end, perhaps all we can really say is that the story is Christ’s—and therefore worth any price to get into.

In view of this story, happy misery hums with logic. Suffering casts flimsy shadows, and one sees why the dying disciples smiled. They had a hidden sun in view.

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