The Stature of Waiting by W. H. Vanstone

Author:W. H. Vanstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Church Publishing
Published: 2006-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

5

The Road to Gethsemane

When a Christian believer is going through any distressing or disquieting experience, it can be a source of comfort and encouragement to him to remember that the Lord Jesus ‘knows all about it’—that He Himself went through the very same experience. So when such a person is severely tempted he may be helped by the remembrance that Jesus also was tempted; and when he is, let down or deserted by friends he may be consoled by the thought that this same thing happened to Jesus. It is especially in the experience of acute physical pain that believers—and perhaps some who are not formally believers—find strength and courage in the thought that Jesus went through the same experience—in the thought of the nails and thorns and the pain that He must have experienced on the cross. History tells of Joan of Arc strengthened in the flames by the cross of plaited straw held before her eyes; and memory records a young man dying of cancer who, in the half-hour of agony when each injection of morphine was losing its effect, would slowly move his right hand across his body and cling to the Palm Cross tucked in his pyjama pocket. That Jesus went through pain is a continuing source of comfort and courage to pain-stricken people.

One might, when one is free from pain, raise questions about the logic of such comfort—about why it is that pain should be more bearable or more bravely borne for the knowledge that Jesus—or indeed anyone else—has borne similar pain. But questions of logic do not arise for a person in acute pain: it is enough that he should find it good and strengthening to turn his thoughts to Jesus in His pain or to rest his eyes or fingers on a representation of the cross.

So it may be that the thought of the handing over of Jesus—of His transition from action to passion—can be of practical help to people who must face, or have already faced, a similar transition in their own lives. We have already stressed that the word ‘passion’ does not mean, exclusively or even primarily, ‘pain’: it means dependence, exposure, waiting, being no longer in control of one’s own situation, being the object of what is done. So the passion of Jesus ‘connects’ not simply or even primarily with the human experience of pain: it connects with every experience of passing, suddenly or gradually, into a more dependent phase or area of life—with going into hospital, with retiring or losing one’s job or having to wait upon the actions of other people and other factors beyond one’s control. If the thought of the passion of Jesus is helpful at all, then it may be helpful not only to the person who is bearing the ‘cross’ of pain but also to the person who feels that he is ‘on the sidelines’, that he has become useless or ineffective, that he is no longer making his mark in the world or his contribution to it.

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