Today's Reading: 2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9
Daily Lectionary: Job 6:1-13; John 3:1-21
And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Let's get something straight. Jesus didn't come into this world to lay the uber-powerful-lightning-blasting-consuming-fire smackdown on people. He came to be weak. Despised. Shamed. Ridiculed. Mocked. Beaten. Killed like a common worthless, human refuse criminal. Think about that. Jesus did lots of amazing things: He healed, walked on water, was transfigured with bright shining glory and so on.
But when Jesus was most powerful for us, when He was saving us, when He was paying for our sins and taking them away, He was weak and the weakest of all. He was nailed to the Cross, bloody and disgusting to look at. And He didn't shine His glory or do anything that LOOKED miraculous. But there He was, taking away the sins of the world. In that weakness, in that shame, God is most powerful because it was at that moment that salvation was accomplished for a sinful world.
So don't expect your life as a Christian to be different! Don't expect, like the TV preachers love to say, that as a Christian you can have wealth and healing and a trouble-free life of victory and success! No, you're going to suffer. You're going to hurt. You're going to be ashamed and in pain.
But when you are, when it's no longer about you and your strength, then remember the good news—that it's exactly at that point that Christ's power is made perfect. When you suffer, He is strong. When you are weak, He is triumphant. That's because He has already overcome this world and its evils, by your Baptism into Jesus, so that whatever seems like weakness and humiliation in this life is really the glory of Christ at work in you. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
Why should cross and trial grieve me? Christ is near With His cheer; Never will He leave me. Who can rob me of the heaven That God's Son For me won When His life was given? (LSB 756:1)