Roadkill
Roadkill
This grief has been planned. This suffering has been preordained. It serves a purpose.
I.
The other morning, I was returning from my morning walk with the dog. Up ahead, on the long driveway that leads into the Hollow, I saw a dead raccoon.
Or, at least, I thought it was dead.
As Sauce (my dog) and I walked closer, it was clear that the wretched thing was not dead.
It moved.
It stretched out its paw at us.
It moved its mouth in a silent plea.
Thinking it might be sick or rabid, I pulled on the leash and quickly walked away.
Later, I went back out to look at it. It was mostly still but occasionally moved. I took pity on this fellow creature — mortally wounded yet not quite dead.
I wanted to take my .22 and shoot it, to put it out of its misery, but I didn’t think the village ordinances would approve.
So, I did nothing. A half-hour later, after dropping my stepdaughter off at school, I drove by it again. This time, it was dead.
II.
Today’s reading from 1 Peter talks about suffering and it dares to tell us that suffering (at least the suffering of a believing Christian) is full of hope.
Peter says,
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
A few verses later he explicitly connects this hope with suffering,
“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.”
How different this is from my response to the raccoon. Yes, I took pity on a poor animal, but the only way I thought to exercise that pity was to kill it: to minister in death with death.
Such is the limit of my power.
How different is God’s power.
God has the power to minister in the midst of death with life.
III.
That racoon was not too different than you or me, mortally wounded but not yet dead.
And all the world’s well-wishers can do is pass us by.
First, in wonder and amazement. “What’s that up ahead, lying there?”
Next, in reflexive fear as we pull our children closer, direct their attention elsewhere, and walk hastily away.
Finally, in reflective pity. “I wish I could have done something. Maybe there is someone I can call.”
And maybe we do call someone. Maybe we are that someone, the Good Samaritan who crosses the road to help, but quickly find our ability to help limited and our resources not up to the task.
Because what’s needed is a power we don’t have, that the world will never have, despite all the dazzling gizmos it keeps inventing.
None of us has the power of regeneration, of new birth, of resurrection.
That power belongs to God.
IV.
God’s power accomplishes three things in the lives of believing Christians. God’s power restores us, it refines us, and it preserves us.
God’s power restores us through a new birth. Peter says, “he has given us a new birth into a living hope.”
A living hope is different from a dead hope. For a brief moment I hoped I could put the raccoon out of its misery, but I was powerless even to do that.
Such was my own condition before God gave me new birth.
I was on a downward path when God confronted me. He confronted me with a power greater than my own. The same power He used to create me, He used to recreate me.
This happened when I was 14. I mention the date because it is important to emphasize that God acts in history, not above or outside it. He is directly involved in all that happens in our lives.
Peter calls this the “determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.”
God is not surprised to find stricken sinners lying on the road. He foreknew each and every one of us and determines the very circumstances that bring about a decisive confrontation with Him.
This is the second thing God’s power accomplishes in the life of a believing Christian. What to us is a time of genuine suffering and hardship is in reality a time of proving. Our faith is like gold — in fact, better than gold — and like gold it must be purified of dross.
Does the gold ingot in the furnace say, “I wish I were I were dung, instead of destined to be a beautiful necklace on a noble lady’s neck?” If it does, it should remember that even dung gets burned.
The suffering of a believing Christian is full of hope because it is the preordained encounter with God the Father whose Son Jesus Christ is moved to pity to see us in our misery and save us.
That salvation lasts for all eternity.
This is the last thing God’s power accomplishes in the life of a Christian believer. Having refined our faith into a thing of great value, He keeps us safe in the vault of eternity.
You do no less for your trinkets and baubles, but you keep them in earthly vaults, where thieves break in and steal.
Peter says we have “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven.” He says we “are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
V.
Now it is time to apply Peter’s words. He says very clearly that our salvation is ready — that it is complete, that nothing can undo it — but it is not yet revealed.
John puts it this way,
“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.”
Once, when Jesus met a blind man, His disciples asked him,
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus replied,
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
In other words, this man’s blindness served one purpose, so that Jesus could heal him.
I cannot think of a particularly deep reason why this raccoon died in front of me other than for me to weave his story into this sermon and thereby illustrate your own plight and God’s merciful response to it.
If you respond, as I hope you will, with a new or deeper faith, then this poor animal’s death will have found its purpose.
If the story of an animal’s suffering can find profound meaning and purpose, how much more the story of your own suffering? Are you not worth more than many raccoons?
Peter writes,
“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
Peter is telling us how to respond when we are confronted by God in our griefs and trials.
We are to respond with joy and faith.
This grief has been planned. This suffering has been preordained. It serves a purpose. It is the means by which God appears to us as a Savior.
Of course, you can challenge God. You can say, “No God worth believing in would let His creatures suffer.”
You can do that. But those who do never give me a better reason for their grief.
I’m saying, “Your grief and suffering are reasons for God to save you!”
They’re saying, “We do not need saving and we would rather save ourselves if we did.”
At best, they become stoic. At worst, they become hostile and bitter as they clutch and grab at nothing, because they’ve made God into nothing and never nurture the faith that could save them.
Do not be like the ungodly. Do not be like beasts who die alone on the side of the road.
Instead, love and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the one whom you have not seen, but who watches you, waits for you, sees you fall into the pit where He waits to meet you, and carries you to safety. Amen.
Preached on April 16, 2023 at St. Peter’s Lithgow, Millbrook, New York.
Easter 2, Year A
Acts 2:14a, 22-32; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31
Questions for reflection and discussion
The suffering of a believing Christian is full of ____________.
We minister in death with ____________. God ministers in the midst of death with ____________.
How is God’s power different than human power?
How does “mortally wounded but not yet dead” describe people without Christ?
The power of re-____________, of new ____________, and of ____________ belong to God.
Why is history important?
God is ____________ involved in history.
Peter calls God’s power over history the “____________ counsel and ____________ of God” (Acts 2:23).
How does God’s power restore, refine, and preserve us?
Who meets us in our suffering?
How do the ungodly respond to suffering?
How does the Christian believer respond to suffering?
See Ps. 62:11-12.