The Cross
Suffering, Redemption, and Church Unity: Chapter Five in "How Lovely is Your Dwelling Place"
Every personal loss has a cost.
The costs range from sadness to trauma. The existential payment for the loss will come due. To preoccupy oneself with busyness to avert the payment is like letting the phone ring when the bill collector calls. The fact that you ignored the call doesn’t cancel the bill. In fact, the overdue bill begins producing fees. Loss without attention produces a pathology of the human soul. Thus, unattended spiritual wounds fester and infect other areas of the soul. In time, the spiritual pathology multiplies to the degree that the infection migrates through the invisible but real membrane between spirit and body, and physical sickness follows. Mercifully, to acknowledge a loss and bring it to the Lord Jesus Christ, receiving His touch through Word, Sacrament, and Prayer, is to begin to know healing. When a community of the Church is captivated by the novelties of the surrounding culture, it not only forfeits its distinct identity before unbelievers, thereby diminishing its witness but also forfeits its healing capacities for believers, thereby diluting its ministry. Conversely, when a believer fails to avail himself of the means of grace in a faithful Christian community, that believer forfeits channels for healing. For loss that is identified with the passion, the cross, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus becomes gain.
"But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:7,8 ESV).
Bonhoeffer, as usual, offers needed insight on the matter:
I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world (John 16: 33). We must form our estimate of men less from their achievements and failures, and more from their sufferings. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945), Prisoner for God: Letters and Papers from Prison1
When I lost my Aunt Eva, I experienced a loss that seemed to awaken an earlier loss—better put, previous losses. Having been entrusted to my late father’s sister during early childhood trauma—a de facto orphaning—I was blessed with a tremendous intervention of love and care that alleviated the adversity. When I lost Aunt Eva—we were in Overland Park, Kansas, where I was senior pastor of a Christian community we had founded, Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA). I had a world of healing available to me in my immediate family and in that local church and larger Christian community, but I failed to bring the loss to the Christ I was offering to others. In some way, this is akin to the medical doctor’s children who are always sick or the shoemaker’s wife with no shoes. When pastoral ministry to others becomes a shield against needed spiritual care for oneself, the distortion inevitably induces decay. Mercifully, between denial and decay, I was helped. Once again, I experienced the dynamic of the Gospel motif: namely, the things that would destroy us become the things that deliver us.
When pastoral ministry to others becomes a shield against needed spiritual care for oneself, the distortion inevitably induces decay. — M. A. Milton
And so the years after her death were filled with preaching, teaching, counseling, and conducting services of worship. I recited Psalm 84 to myself, in my seat in the chancel, waiting to preach, or at the Table as I set apart the Bread and the Cup. I remembered the Psalm as I gave the Call to Worship and the benediction. I am now writing from a place physically removed, removed by the piercing rupture of a deeply deposited “thorn.” The thorn, at length, progressed to a place where my autonomic system began to show a marked decline. Like a free-spinning steering wheel disconnected from its steering column, unchecked by the neurological cords meant to automate the unseen yet essential physiological functions, my blood pressure fell—and with it, so did I. For those with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) or neurocardiogenic syncope (NCS, viz., vasovagal syncope), you know the sensation of an inconceivable force pulling you down, defying your resistance until darkness rises like a black pool over your consciousness. You might even have experienced a frustrating series of misdiagnoses (it doesn’t help that dysautonomia is defined differently by cardiology and neurology, the former specialists using the diagnostic monicker to refer to the actual physiological phenomena—autonomic dysfunction—and the latter often referring to a specific familial disease associated with people of Jewish lineage). A viral infection of the vagus nerve, the largest nerve in the body, supporting the life-supporting autonomic functions, creates a condition that can eventually impact many ordinary but invisible functions necessary for ordinary function and, eventually, life itself (I write as a patient not a professional; if you have symptoms, see your cardiologist or seek help from the UNC-Chapel Hill Autonomic Center or Vanderbilt Autonomic Center or other centers now forming across the nation. According to my cardiologist, there has been an uptick in reported cases since COVID-19 vaccinations.
When a community of the Church is captivated by the novelties of the surrounding culture, it not only forfeits its distinct identity before unbelievers, thereby diminishing its witness but also forfeits its healing capacities for believers, thereby diluting its ministry. — M. A. Milton
Soon, my hands shook as I administered Holy Communion. I grew dizzy in the pulpit. Yet, in a severe grace, I felt more liberty than ever in preaching. It was either a cruel taunting of Hell or a pride-shattering Providence of Heaven—I should think it was both. In 2013, a virus acquired on a trip to South Africa left me with dysautonomia (that is, quantitative variables demonstrating autonomic dysfunction). A year before, an Army doctor found a different, unrelated problem—fatigue from a hidden flaw in my mitochondrial valve. It was a slow drain on my strength. Then came a drop in heart rate and blood pressure and headaches, as I'd never known. My body, once dependable, betrayed me with fainting spells, cutting into my abilities just after I'd become chancellor of a well-known graduate school of theology (I was elected to chancellor of RTS in 2010). The foreboding dark and dreaded creature in the blue-gray distance had struck at last. I saw myself in John Donne’s Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624).2 Donne saw the deathly disease that came upon him as a sharpening of dulled senses and an awakening to the condition of Man in a fallen world:
“Thou hast imprinted a pulse in our Soule, but we do not examine it; a voice in our conscience, but wee doe not hearken vnto it. We talk it out, we iest it out, we drinke it out, we sleepe it out; and when wee wake, we doe not say with Iacob, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not: but though we might know it, we do not, we wil not.”3
For the preacher-poet of Saint Paul’s in London, the illness would bring spiritual renewal as God wrote new “passages” in Donne’s life story:
“And, O my God, who madest thy selfe a Light in a Bush, in the midst of these brambles, & thornes of a sharpe sickness, appear unto me so, that I may see thee, and know thee to be my God, applying thy selfe to me, even in these sharp, and thorny passages.”4
I felt that Donne’s “beast” was like mine, unseen but expected. It had struck John Milton, our most esteemed ancestor, with blindness. Yet Milton created Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, despite his affliction (or because of it), dictated to his daughters. His blindness led to the greatest epics in English. Thus, the cross.
The creature paces in uneasy wonder at the sight of the carnage. But the story was not finished. When we are in Christ, in His Church, and part of His family by grace, there is always another chapter in the “passages” of our lives. For so Almighty God inspired the Preacher:
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NKJV).
Figure 4: Orson Welles (1915-1985). Dramatic reading selections from John Donne on the program Reading Out Loud, September 3, 1943. https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2079
Questions for Reflection
These questions are designed to help you interact with the sacred text, Psalm 84. Consider its profound insights into longing for God's presence, trust in His provision, and the beauty of dwelling in His house. Read. Be still and quieten your spirit before the Lord. Come into His presence with reverence and wonder. Pray that you may receive, obey, and be renewed.
1. Longing for the Presence of the Lord:
How does the Psalmist’s intense longing for the courts of the Lord and the beauty of His tabernacle inspire you to seek a deeper relationship with God? Reflect on moments in your life when you have felt a similar yearning for the living God. How can this deep-seated desire influence your daily walk with Him, and in what practical ways can you cultivate a heart that continuously seeks His presence?
2. Journey Through the Valley of Baca (Weeping):
The psalmist talks about passing through the Valley of Baca and transforming it into a place of springs. This symbolizes the journey through trials with the strength found in God. Take a moment to reflect on a period in your life that felt like a Valley of Baca. How did you experience God’s strength during that time? Think about how these experiences have prepared you to appear before God in Zion. Also, consider how you can encourage others who are currently walking through their own valleys.
3. The Ultimate Reward of Trusting in the Lord:
The psalm concludes with the statement, "Blessed is the man who trusts in You," emphasizing the blessings and protection that are bestowed upon those who put their faith in the Lord. Take some time to contemplate the importance of trusting in God during difficult times and despite the flaws of the Church. How do you demonstrate this trust in your life, particularly when faced with uncertainty or conflict within your faith community? What steps can you take to strengthen your trust in God's promises, and in what ways can you serve as a witness to His faithfulness to those around you?
GRANT, O Lord, that, in all our sufferings here upon earth for the testimony of thy truth, we may steadfastly look up to heaven, and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed; and, being filled with the Holy Ghost, may learn to love and bless our persecutors by the example of thy first Martyr Saint Stephen, who prayed for his murderers to thee, O blessed Jesus, who standest at the right hand of God to succor all those who suffer for thee, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen. — A Collect (gathering prayer) for St. Stephen’s Day, the Book of Common Prayer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Prisoner for God; Letters and Papers from Prison (New York: MacMillan, 1954), 20.
To hear a reading of Donne, consider Orson Wells
John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and Seuerall Steps in My Sickness Digested into me. Meditations Upon Our Humane Condition, 2. Expostulations and Debatements with God, 3. Prayers, Vpon the Seuerall Occasions, to Him / by Iohn Donne, Early English Books Online (London: Printed for Thomas Jones, 1624), 13–14.
Donne, Devotions, 39.