I’ve got a problem. Someone has
said, “Many want God’s anointing… But they don’t want the crushing that
produces the oil.” These words are set up in front of an olive being crushed in
the background, with oil dripping from it.
My problem is multidimensional.
First of all, NONE of us want the crushing. None! Nobody in the Bible wanted the
crushing. Not even Jesus — “Father, let
this cup pass from me… but your will be done, not mine,” he said. That’s Jesus! No sane human being
wants the crushing, and indeed it’s only those who truly have suffered who know
this. Suffering ought never be trivialised or set up as some legalistic
qualification to do ministry for God. Sure, it does qualify many, but not all.
To trivialise suffering in this way
sets those who suffer well as superior in their ability to bear suffering —
that superiority is not virtuous, it’s pride. How does the person feel who
doesn’t suffer well? Is there encouragement for them in this?
Second, God doesn’t bring the
crushing as if he is some sadistic growth-forcer. That’s the opposite of our
God in Jesus — who took the crushing for us per Isaiah 53. This quote subverts
the good theology of the cross with something that sounds biblical but isn’t.
Never have I seen Scripture treat suffering crassly. There’s allowance for
lament and I read empathy and encouragement for the suffering. That’s why
verses like Romans 5:1-5 and James 1:2-4 are always uplifting when we’re at our
rock bottom.
Third, what does this say for abuse
and trauma victims who are sometimes more or less bound to suffering for life?
They’ve had their identities malformed and restoration takes not only time, and
in many cases is a life work, it regularly takes them into the despair that can
cause them to self-harm and suicide.
Fourth, in our very-me world, there
is such a hunger to find ways of meaning around suffering. It’s as if
resilience through suffering is as important today as the topic of heaven and
hell was in the 1970s and 1980s. It skews our theology, because we have grown
to idolise the comfortable life.
Fifth, the quote makes out that gaining
God’s anointing is to be something of a conquest — that it must be hard won by
crushing, for how else can the oil of God’s cup come? This not only sets God up
as the ‘crusher’ (supposedly for our own good), which is a potentially abusive
theology, it makes faith something to be acquired, i.e. what other
purpose does faith have but to receive God’s anointing? Let me say that in my view,
anyone who has faith in Jesus Christ already has God’s anointing. It’s not about us and what we do or don’t do,
it’s all about Jesus and what he’s done. There is a danger that’s crept into Christianity,
where it’s become about what we can get out of God. True Christianity is about
what God can get out of us as we live for God’s glory. Now, the word “crushing”
can too easily be distorted as a good thing, and potentially, and more probably
I’m sure, a justification for abuse.
Don’t anyone dare trivialise
suffering. Jesus went to the cross so that we would be relieved of the ultimate
in suffering — he took care of the eternal judgement of hell for the true
believer.
We cannot afford to be flippant
about the idea of suffering, for there are far too many people who suffer and
have no simple recourse to it being alleviated.
What do we say to the person in
chronic pain? With ongoing clinical depression? With trauma from sexual abuse?
Or, someone facing the end of life as it was through loss? And what about the person
who has special needs? The list runs on. Come on, Christian, get a grip, and
deal with these matters with the utmost respect and empathy.
The olive tree or branch as much
stands as a symbol of peace. Pray that those who are suffering would have peace
— don’t tell them to just bear their crushing as if it’s nothing!
When we say, “bring on the crushing, Lord, I
want your anointing” we make an idol of our suffering and what we can get from
it. Can God use it? Yes. But it only works when we magnify God, and not our suffering, ‘the crushing’, and ‘our
anointing’.
I find that the
most important anointing people can receive from God is evident through their
compassion. And compassion, I find, is formed in the person acquainted with
suffering, who neither glorifies nor despises it, but has endured it or perhaps
continues to endure it, and the person who frequently fails to endure it but
endeavours.
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