Winks From Scripture: God’s Subtle Work Among UsSample

God Winks in Our Way of Suffering

Suffering is the way of Christ. This statement can disturb us. No one likes to suffer. Who wants to imagine that sorrow is an essential component of the faith we have chosen?

To clarify what I mean by suffering, I am referring to the cost of following the way of Jesus. Christian suffering means rejection, persecution, and a separation from the status quo.

Yet in the Gospel of Mark, the Scripture winks and shows us that suffering with Jesus is the way to glory—how to know Him most intimately. In Mark 10:32, Jesus and the disciples are on their way to Jerusalem. James and John approach Jesus and make a request. They perceive this procession to Jerusalem as a march to magnificence and a path to splendor. In their estimation, Jesus is headed to take political power. They want to join in on His reign and sit on either side of him in His glory.

Jesus tells James and John that they do not know what they are asking. Their idea of how He will achieve glory is all mixed up. Jesus informs them that they will suffer like Him because they follow Him.

As the narrative moves forward, Jesus goes into Jerusalem. Here He is crucified as He said He would be. There is a unique scene in here that Mark is careful to record. The subtle language he uses calls us back to Mark 10:37, where James and John requested to sit on either side of Jesus. This is where the Scripture winks at us. It tells us that Jesus’s real moment of glory was not found in a political triumph, but at the height of His suffering and His death.

Mark 15:27 points out that two criminals are crucified with Jesus, “one on his right and one on his left.” Ironic, isn’t it? To be at Jesus’s right hand and left hand in His glory means to join Him in His suffering and in His death.

Glory is not found on a throne in a palace; it is found on a cross at Calvary. While the rest of the world vies for glory through conquest, the follower of Christ yields to the suffering of his Master. Where is God today? He’s near the suffering. That is where He’s found, and where He winks.