- It is people taking up their cross, it is the suffering that is producing more believers.
As Christians journey towards Easter, many of us are contemplating the Cross. As well we should.
In high school, I had just become interested in reading at a deeper level when our English teacher assigned Chaim Potok’s My Name is Asher Lev. To this day, I am not sure why. But, to her credit, I still can’t get that novel out of my head.
In Potok’s work, Asher Lev is a Hasidic Jew and a child prodigy in art. His father is dubious of this endeavor while his mother tries to maintain the angle of supportive parent. The older Asher gets, the more his mother finds herself trying to make peace between the two.
One day, an art teacher decides to expose Asher to portrayals of the crucifixion of Jesus. The instructor explains that if one is ever going to know, understand, and be able to communicate suffering, it is essential to observe – at a deep level – the Cross.
This leads to a climactic scene where Asher produces a piece titled “The Brooklyn Crucifixion,” portraying his mother herself on a cross. In Asher’s mind, there was no other way to describe the peacemaking agony his mother continually interposed between Asher and his father.
The father erupts, the Hasidic community exiles Asher, and the universal symbol of the Cross has its impact.
But it was an offensive impact – a response which, throughout Christian history, has been quite prevalent. Paul wrote to a struggling church in Corinth:
…we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Cor. 1:23-25)
Malcolm Muggeridge, the British journalist, imagined Paul consulting a public relations strategist with the idea for a campaign to promote the gospel. Told he would need a symbol of some sort, Paul says he does indeed have one – “I’ve got this cross.”
“You can’t popularize a thing like that. It’s absolutely mad!” laughs the public relations expert.
“But it wasn’t mad. It worked for centuries and centuries, bringing out all the creativity in people, all the love and disinterestedness in people, this symbol of suffering; and I think that’s the heart of the thing….The only thing that really teaches one what life’s about – the joy of understanding, the joy of coming in contact with what it really signifies – is suffering, is affliction.”
On a radio talk show years ago, I interviewed a Chinese Christian. As the program wound down to its final moments, I asked how I might pray for the Chinese Church. Should we, I asked, ask God to alleviate the suffering of persecuted believers in that area of the world, where Christianity seemed to be growing daily, by leaps and bounds? Oh, no, he replied. It is people taking up their cross, it is the suffering that is producing more believers.
“People see us suffering and, for whatever reason, want to commit their lives the God of that suffering and to the house churches where these believers gather. Pray that we might endure with joy. But please, don’t pray that the suffering ends.”
The foolishness of God, indeed, is wiser than humankind.
