The Necessity of Pain
Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. Matthew 10:34
Sword – How inappropriate is the message of Jesus in this age! Years ago Francis Schaeffer said that the culture of the West was characterized by two things: the pursuit of pleasure and the priority of affluence. He was right. Our culture teaches us to do whatever it takes to avoid pain and enjoy pleasure. The thought is so pervasive that there is a common joke about taking a pill for everything. At the same time, the culture advocates, idolizes and is addicted to affluence. Our heroes are rich, powerful and famous. What we fail to realize is that this destroys the gospel. We preach peace at any price, but Jesus brings a sword.
Too often we spiritualize this verse. We think Jesus was talking about the division He would create between believer and non-believer. Then we comfortably tell ourselves that we are on the right side of that fence, and therefore we are justified in seeking a life of peace. How foolish we have become. The sword of the gospel brings pain to life. It cuts and wounds. It makes us feel our hypocrisy, our neglect and our misalignment. The sword is an instrument of war, not of peace. Jesus came to do battle with all the forces of evil, including our pursuit of happiness and inherent rights.
When the sword of the Lord cuts through your presuppositions, you will agonize at the injustice in this world. You will weep over the poverty on God’s green earth. You will cry out at the rape of His garden, the pointlessness of profit without purpose, the pillaging of His children, the insults hurled at His character. When the sword leaves a trail of blood behind you, your eyes will see the travesty of seeking pleasure and gain at the cost of eternal purposes. You will fall to your knees in repentance over your part in the culture of consumption, the politics of power and the arrogance of affluence. When the two-edged blade strikes your heart, you will collapse under the weight of your sin and its role in the sorrow of others. You will finally understand the crucial necessity of grace and your total helplessness. You will discover that the more you love, the more you experience sorrow, and the deeper you understand compassion, the deeper you fall into suffering. When Jesus brings a sword, He carries you to the agony of the cross where your sins and the sins of the world are seen for what they truly are.
Today we prefer disarmament. We take the sword out of the hand of Jesus and preach a gospel of silky grace. No sharp edges are delivered from our sermons. We avoid pain like the plague. We never cut deeply into the soul where we might find unsavory things. As a result, we neuter the truth and create an oatmeal Jesus. Bland, irrelevant, pathetic and boring, the fire has gone out of the church because we avoid bloodletting.
Let the rivers run red with the blood of the saints. God begins in His own house. When you are cut to the bone, then you will be useful as a wounded healer . . . but not before.
