“Save your people and bless your inheritance; be their shepherd and carry them forever,” (Psalm 28:9, NIV).
In Psalm 28 there is no verse more encouraging yet terrifying, convicting yet freeing, than verse 9. It begs the question: Do we let Jesus carry us? And, if so, where does/will He carry us?
At first read, I found that verse a fitting encouragement at the end of a Psalm of David begging for rescue. Who wouldn’t like to be embraced and carried forever by the Creator of all? But in this season of Lent, where we are grieving over the Passion of Christ, His life, betrayal, trial, and crucifixion; asking the question of where Jesus carries us becomes a lot scarier.
We can look at the Gospels and see where Jesus goes and carries His disciples. Some of the first examples that come to mind are a Samaritan well, a dinner with tax collectors, a wilderness with not enough food, countless times where Jesus and his followers are mocked and humiliated by the ruling elite, and finally, to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus is abandoned by His disciples and journeys to the cross without them.
All of the sudden being carried by Jesus forever maybe sounds not so fun. If that is where Jesus went and carried His followers when He was on the earth, where will He carry us now? As much as I wish sometimes it was straight into the clouds, that is not the story of the Bible. So today in our current context, where will Jesus carry us? The answer seems not to be away from suffering, but into suffering. Following Jesus means allowing Jesus to carry us into loss, rejection, and humiliation, all things He first suffered on the cross. After all, Jesus tells his disciples immediately after predicting His death the first time, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me,” (Matthew 16:24).
It is easy when talking about something as uncomfortable as suffering to immediately jump to Jesus’ return, when all things are made whole and there will be no more tears (Revelation 21:4). But that is not where we are right now. Right now, we are in a world heading towards wholeness, yet surrounded by brokenness. We cannot forget this crucial piece of the cross, of the season of Lent: God suffered for us, not just so we can be free from suffering, but so that He is with us in ours. To be carried by God forever is to know that there is no circumstance, no situation, where God will not carry us, and where God will not suffer with us.
But that is not the end. Because Christ suffered for us, He is with us in our suffering. AND, because God is with us in our suffering, we are with others in theirs. Perhaps the Kingdom of God is not found through freedom of suffering, but through sharing in suffering with our neighbors.
- Dylan F.