Tribulation

Excerpt from Happy in Hope, Patient in Pain, Constant in Prayer by John Piper

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Tribulation is the normal experience of believers in this life. Some tribulation we share with unbelievers (like sickness and calamity and death) and some is unique to believers (like persecution for Christ’s sake). But my main point here is that tribulation is normal and to be expected in this world. It’s the setting for all our love and joy and hope and patience and prayer. Affliction is where we live. If you don’t live there now, you will. Learning that this is normal will be a great help to you when it comes.

Jesus was the best man who ever lived. None of us has any right to experience less affliction than he did. If we experience less, it is mercy. We don’t deserve the peaceful lives we have. They are merciful gifts. For Jesus it was affliction from the beginning. His birth was scandalous (conceived before marriage). It was in an animal feeding trough. It was threatened and hated by the political powers (Herod). He barely escaped death as a child and had to become a refugee in Egypt. And so it went until he was accused of sedition against Caesar and crucified.

That is the way Christianity began. Jesus said, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malignthose of his household” (Matthew 10:25). Paul taught all the young churches he established, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Peter taught the churches, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12). It isn’t strange. It’s normal. It comes with the fallen, sinful, futile world. “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23).

The affliction of our lives extends from cancer to calamity to conflict to death. These are all normal and they are part of what we must live with on our way to heaven. That is why Paul says here in verse 12, “Be patient in tribulation.” Let’s be biblically balanced in our celebration of Christmas. It is good news of great joy (Luke 2:10). A Savior has been born, Christ the Lord! But it is also a call to suffer with Christ. The baby Jesus grew up and said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household” (Matthew 10:34-36).

So the “great joy” announced by the angels is a very embattled joy. It is a joy to be fought for and a joy always under attack. Always threatened by tribulation. And the call of Romans 12:12 is not to rejoice without tribulation, but to rejoice in spite of, and even because of, tribulation.

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