Recently, a friend asked me to share some advice for how to be a caring presence for people experiencing deep emotional pain. He didn’t ask this because I’m a trained counselor or therapist — I’m not. He asked because, even from my high school days, people have sought my help in dealing with all manner of difficult, complex, and sensitive afflictions.

As I thought back over decades, dear faces and names came to mind — most of them remarkable, loving, spiritually earnest, bright, kind Christians — who at some point found themselves facing the kinds of tribulations that afflict and sometimes overwhelm us as fallen humans. I’ve had the painful privilege of walking alongside them as they endured debilitating depression, suicidal despair, tormenting mental illnesses, deep inner wounds from past sexual abuse, various kinds of undesired and dismaying sexual dysphoria, spiritually dark and disorienting faith crises, and more.

I mean it when I say it’s been a privilege. It is no small thing when others entrust us with some of the most tender, vulnerable parts of their souls.

None of this, however, qualifies me to speak as some kind of expert soul physician — because I’m not one. This is something I think I can speak to not because I’m an expert, but because I have some extensive experience. And since we’re all called at times to the ministry of being a caring presence for someone in pain (as well as receiving such care when we’re in pain), we can share lessons we’ve learned with each other. So, what might I say to my 20-year-old self if I had ten minutes to counsel him on how to be a caring presence for sufferers?

Caring Presence

In the Christian sense, a caring presence is someone who listens carefully and sympathetically to troubled souls in order to accurately understand the nature of their affliction and struggle, and then eventually seeks to help them put it in biblical perspective and see (or remember) how their suffering fits into God’s redemptive, providential purposes. In other words, the primary care we’re called to offer a suffering saint is hope.

“The primary care we’re called to offer a suffering saint is hope.”

When our souls are in turmoil, we all crave peace. And the peace we crave doesn’t come from having all our why questions answered, but it’s a peace that surpasses understanding, a peace that comes only from the God of peace (Philippians 4:7). This peace comes from the hope that God is working all things, even (especially!) our suffering, together for our ultimate good (Romans 8:28) — a hope that comes only from the God of hope (Romans 15:13). Good Christian soul care always aims to help a hurting person “hope in God” (Psalm 42:11).

In such a short space, I can’t give much specific advice on how to counsel a suffering soul, because so much depends on what someone is suffering and why. I can share some brief reflections about being the kind of caring presence a hurting person can turn to in dark moments. And to do that, I’ll use Micah 6:8 as a framework:

He has told you, O man, what is good;     and what does the Lord require of youbut to do justice, and to love kindness,     and to walk humbly with your God?

A deeply just, kind, and humble person has the fundamental qualities required to be the caring presence a suffering person needs. But for reasons that will become clear in a few moments, I will address these requirements in reverse order: humility, kindness, and justice.

Discernible Humility

I’m beginning with humility because of these words from Jesus:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28–29)

Weary, burdened souls didn’t come to Jesus just because he proclaimed himself “gentle and lowly.” They were already coming to him because they could discern, from observing and listening to him, that he was someone who offered them the rest and safety they craved. Jesus had a gentleness about him that sprung out of a fundamental lowliness that made him approachable — a safe person to come to for those longing to escape the burdens they bore from external oppression and internal sin and disorders.

A fundamental humility is also what makes a disciple of Jesus approachable. A disciple who walks humbly with God shares with Jesus a high view of God’s holiness (Psalm 130:3–4; Hebrews 12:28–29), the doctrine of sin (Romans 3:23), the fallen nature of the world (Romans 8:20–21), and God’s fathomless mercy in the gospel (Romans 5:6–11). This disciple “can deal gently” with other struggling souls “since he himself is beset with weakness” (Hebrews 5:2). Having a clear-eyed grasp of our own depravity and desperate need for God’s mercy means we won’t be shocked when we’re confronted with someone else’s.

If weary souls burdened by false teaching, disorders, and sin discern in us, as many did in Jesus, an authentic humility that manifests in the ways we gently deal with others, they are likely to come to us for the help — the hope — they need.

Loving Kindness

In 1 Corinthians 13, what were the first words Paul chose when describing the nature of Christlike love? “Love is patient and kind” (1 Corinthians 13:4). Scripture, of course, teaches that love is far more than patience and kindness, but it’s worth keeping in mind that these were foremost on the apostle’s mind as he, under the Spirit’s inspiration, wrote his profound, beautiful description of what it looks like when we love one another.

Such descriptions of Christian love are laced through Paul’s writings. For instance, Colossians 3:12 says, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” It’s clear that God’s children are to love kindness.

That’s because God loves kindness. Not only do we see this in Jesus, but we see it in God’s most famous Old Testament self-description: “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth” (Exodus 34:6 NASB 1995). It is, after all, the kindness of God that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4).

So, if distressed souls discern that we, like God, love kindness, that we have a disposition to extend mercy, grace, and patience to those who need them, they are likely to come to us for the help — the hope — they need.

Judicious Counsel

What does it mean “to do justice” to a person experiencing significant emotional pain? One crucial thing it means is to be as judicious — as wise, prudent, honest — as possible with any counsel we give. What does this look like?

A judicious counselor is careful. Whenever we are ministering to another soul, especially a suffering soul, we must remember that “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). Our words can heal or wound, reveal truth or obscure it. Therefore, it’s imperative that we be “quick to hear [and] slow to speak” (James 1:19). I’ve learned from experience that there is often more going on in a person than I initially perceive. To adequately understand the nature of someone’s struggle and situation requires patient listening and good clarifying questions.

A judicious counselor is truthful. There are many dimensions to truthfulness, but I’m going to focus on one common pitfall for counselors: the temptation to speak more than we actually know or to claim that we identify with the sufferer’s experience more than we actually do.

“When others come to us for help, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re the best person to help them.”

When others come to us for help, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re the best person to help them. Perhaps God has equipped us to provide them some helpful insight, or perhaps our calling is to guide them toward someone better equipped to help them. Either way, we must be honest and forthright about the limits of our knowledge and experience and not speak authoritatively about topics of which we have little understanding. This is why I addressed the qualities of humility and kindness first. Humility helps guard us from the pride of presuming we are wiser than we are or of desiring the admiration of suffering people more than we desire their well-being. And kindness helps us keep the well-being of sufferers — their finding hope in God — our foremost priority.

Lastly, a judicious counselor is trustworthy. As I said earlier, it is no small thing when others entrust us with tender, vulnerable parts of their souls. Therefore, we must vigilantly guard what they share with us in confidence, even if it requires us to “swear to [our] own hurt” (Psalm 15:4). For “a gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret” (Proverbs 11:13 NIV). Only in the most extreme and rare cases, when someone’s safety is at stake, do integrity and love demand that we share necessary information with the appropriate parties and authorities.

If souls in anguish over sensitive kinds of suffering discern that we are a judicious counselor and will handle what they confide in us carefully, truthfully, and in a trustworthy way, they are likely to come to us for the help and hope they need.

Where Care Begins

Obviously, volumes more could be (and have been) written about how to care well for those suffering significant emotional pain, but it all begins with being the kind of person that others can trust with their suffering. That kind of person hopes in God, is discernibly humble, loves kindness, and is judicious in the ways he or she treats suffering saints. That kind of person is very likely to be a caring presence for weary, burdened souls and to help them find the peace and hope that only God can provide.

As you grow older, you increasingly find yourself at milestones that feel a bit surreal. For instance, this July, John Piper and I will mark three full and wonderful decades of ministry partnership that, by God’s grace, resulted in the birth of the mission we call Desiring God.

Why does the milestone feel surreal? Well, for starters, it’s strange to think that John and I have now been working together for the majority of my life. It’s also strange to realize that I’m entering the fourth quarter of my vocational career (should the Lord sustain my life and abilities). And a strange dimension of seeing the end of my vocational ministry on the horizon has been preparing for and experiencing the natural, necessary series of ministry disappointments.

What I mean by disappointments is not what you probably think of as disappointments. What I mean are the times when the Lord “dis-appoints” us from roles and responsibilities to which he had once “appointed” us. For every appointment, there will be a corresponding disappointment; for every calling we embrace, there will eventually be a corresponding calling to release.

Preparing for our eventual disappointment is a crucial aspect of faithful Christian stewardship. But in my observations over the years, it’s also often a neglected aspect. We find plenty of resources aimed at helping Christian leaders enter their leadership seasons, but it’s surprising how comparatively few there are to help leaders exit those seasons — despite the fact that how we end often says more than how we begin (Ecclesiastes 7:8; 2 Timothy 4:10).

“For every calling we embrace, there will eventually be a corresponding calling to release.”

I don’t claim to be an expert in leadership disappointments, but I can share with you some core values I gleaned from Scripture that helped prepare me for the disappointments I’ve experienced. And to do that, I need to provide you with a little historical context.

Appointed and Disappointed

In 1993, when John Piper graciously extended me the offer to become his first full-time administrative assistant, he didn’t know he was hiring Desiring God’s first CEO — because Desiring God (DG) didn’t exist yet (we launched it together the next year). This was fortunate for me because I likely wouldn’t have gotten the CEO job. I didn’t have a degree in theology or business. I was an anthropology major with no experience leading an organization. God does like to choose unlikely people.

What I did have, when John and I decided to start this ministry, was his trust. He knew that we shared the same theological vision and passion for spreading it. And despite my deficiencies, God had equipped me with enough leadership ability, creativity, risk tolerance, and resourcefulness to be an effective catalyst — to get things up and going and recruit other gifted people to join us as the ministry rapidly grew.

I realized in those first years, however, that if God granted DG growth and longevity, I would need to hold my leadership role with open hands. God had appointed me to steward it for a season, but sooner or later seasons change. The ministry could outgrow my ability to lead it effectively, or God could choose to redeploy me somewhere else. At some point, God would disappoint me from my leadership role and appoint someone else to lead. So, all along I asked our board to watch me carefully and help me discern when a change needed to be made.

Though I served as the founding CEO for about twenty years, much of my tenure was comprised of a series of delegated disappointments, of handing off responsibilities and initiatives I started or conceived to others more gifted than I was. Eventually, this included handing the role of CEO to someone who could fill it more effectively than I could. Looking back, these disappointing decisions were among the most consequential I ever made as a leader. And the most consequential of those tended to sting, since they required me to assess and discuss my deficits honestly with colleagues and board members. This forced me, though, through repeated practice, to internalize and be guided by the following four core values.

1. Love Jesus’s increase supremely.

Over the years, John the Baptist became one of my biblical-leadership mentors, mainly because of the way he responded to his disciples who were concerned that the crowds were leaving him to follow Jesus.

You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, “I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.” The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:28–30)

I love this man. John was more in love with the God of his calling than his calling from God. What gave him joy was seeing the bride increasingly drawn to the bridegroom. And when his role in helping make that happen began to diminish, it didn’t diminish his joy. He quietly and happily began to step aside.

“John the Baptist taught me to love the increase of Jesus’s glory more than my role in that increase.”

John the Baptist taught me to love the increase of Jesus’s glory more than my role in that increase. And he taught me that the way a leader relinquishes his role for Jesus’s sake might just speak loudest of his love for Jesus.

2. View yourself as a steward.

The apostle Paul also became a leadership mentor for numerous reasons, but I’ll focus here on one. When it came to the ministry he received from the Lord Jesus, Paul viewed himself primarily as a servant of Christ and a steward of the gospel entrusted to him (1 Corinthians 4:1). And since “it is required of stewards that they be found faithful,” the way he carried out his ministry was shaped by his constant awareness that someday he would “give an account of himself to God” (1 Corinthians 4:2; Romans 14:12).

Consequently, Paul’s example profoundly shaped how I came to view myself and my role. I am a servant-steward tasked with laboring for the joy of others (2 Corinthians 1:24), and I must labor in such ways as to avoid giving unnecessary offense to my Christian brothers and sisters as well as to unbelievers (1 Corinthians 10:32).

3. Watch for and support your successor.

Leaders often keep their eyes peeled for possible successors — and often for the wrong reasons: to eliminate the competition. Which is what Saul tried to do when he saw David’s star begin to rise in Israel (1 Samuel 18:9–11).

But Saul’s son, Jonathan, the heir apparent to Saul’s throne, saw something very different in David: a kindred God-entranced soul (1 Samuel 18:1). Eventually, Jonathan discerned that God had chosen David, and not himself, to be the next king. And the way he responded is why he became another mentor for me:

Jonathan, Saul’s son, rose and went to David at Horesh, and strengthened his hand in God. And he said to him, “Do not fear, for the hand of Saul my father shall not find you. You shall be king over Israel, and I shall be next to you. Saul my father also knows this.” And the two of them made a covenant before the Lord. (1 Samuel 23:16–18)

Jonathan’s humility and faith is stunning, and so rare in this world. He didn’t merely step aside for David, but he loved, comforted, defended, and encouraged him in God’s calling on his life.

If, out of “bitter jealousy [or] selfish ambition,” we feel threatened by a potential successor, it’s crucial that we recognize this Saul-like response as “earthly, unspiritual, demonic” (James 3:14–15) and repent of it. Because it poses a clear and present danger to whatever mission we serve.

I learned from Jonathan that, when circumstances allow it, a Christian leader can and should befriend his successor and do everything within his power to help him launch well into his season of leadership.

4. Love them to the end.

Jesus is, of course, the perfect model of leadership, but we never see him disappointed from his role because he is the Lord himself. However, this description of the way Jesus loved his disciples made a huge impact on me as a leader: “He loved them to the end” (John 13:1). Whatever circumstance resulted in the end of my leadership season, I wanted the same to be said of me. A faithful Christian leader loves those he leads to the end.

In 2010, I knew that DG had outgrown my abilities to lead it effectively. And to put simply what wasn’t simple in experience, the Lord made it clear that my colleague, Scott Anderson, was the leader he was raising up for the next season. So, we worked with our board to create a transition process that culminated in Scott being installed as our CEO in 2015. And I officially took a role as a member of DG’s teaching team.

Due to Scott’s leadership, as well as the remarkable team he has assembled, the ministry is more fruitful, more focused on our mission, more efficient, and healthier than it’s ever been. And my profile within the ministry is as small as it’s ever been. The next generation has taken over, and they are doing everything better than I ever could.

Humble Joy of Heaven

How do I, as the founding leader, feel about all this? Honestly, it’s hard to imagine being happier. This is what I had prayed for in the early days. I think it’s a taste of the humble joy of heaven, where every saint overflows with joy as they see Jesus increase and remember how God so graciously gave them each a small, temporary role in that increase.

I wish I could say I embodied these values perfectly through my disappointments. I didn’t. But they nonetheless shaped and guided me. And I believe the Lord honored my imperfect striving and blessed my friendships with the men who were appointed to take over after me.

Why do Christians find it so hard to love one another? I don’t ask the question as just one more critic of the church’s failures — I have trouble enough addressing the log of lovelessness protruding from my own eye. And of course, the question has as many different answers as there are Christians — many times more, actually, since we each have multiple reasons for why we find it hard to love God and others the ways we should.

We’re not surprised that humanity as a whole finds the kind of love described in 1 Corinthians 13 so difficult. Humans are fallen; it’s impossibly hard for sinful people who are separated from Christ to “bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things” as love does.

But what can surprise us is that Christians have such a hard time with love. How is it that we who have been born again, have received a new heart, and have the Holy Spirit empowering us still find loving God with our whole being, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and loving our fellow Christians as Jesus loved us so difficult? Shouldn’t it be easier than we experience it to be?

“The Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to love like Jesus loved, which is impossible without him.”

Both the New Testament and two thousand years of church history say no. One reason for this is that the Holy Spirit isn’t given to us to magically turn us into people who love like Jesus. He is given to us as a Helper (John 14:26) to teach us how to follow our Great Shepherd along the hard, laborious path of transformation into people who love like Jesus. The Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to love like Jesus loved, which is impossible without him. But he provides us no easy shortcuts to God-like love.

Easy Yoke, Hard Way

What’s all this talk about a “hard, laborious path of transformation”? Didn’t Jesus say, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” and “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30)? Yes, he did. But he also said, “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:14). These two statements aren’t contradictions; they are two different dimensions of what it means to repent and believe in the gospel.

When it comes to the dimension of reconciling us to God, Jesus does all the impossibly heavy work required to “[cancel] the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands” (Colossians 2:14). In this sense, Jesus’s yoke is easy: he pays the debt in full for us. The only light burden required of us is to repent and believe in the gospel.

But when it comes to the dimension of God’s conforming us to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29), of “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18), the way is hard that leads to life. In this context, for us to repent and believe in the gospel means learning to walk in “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5) — learning to “walk by the Spirit, and . . . not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16), learning to “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him” (Colossians 1:10).

Our learning to walk in the way of Christ is no less a work of God’s grace in us than our learning to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. But it requires us to exercise our faith in Christ through actively obeying Christ contrary to the sinful desires that still dwell in our members (Romans 7:23).

It’s Supposed to Be Hard

According to the New Testament, learning to walk in the obedience of faith looks like the following:

Denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following where Jesus leads (Matthew 16:24)
Putting to death what is earthly in us (Colossians 3:5), and not letting sin reign in our mortal bodies, to make us obey its passions (Romans 6:12)
Dying every day to sin, personal preferences, and even our Christian freedoms out of love for Jesus, our brothers and sisters in the faith, and unbelievers (1 Corinthians 15:31)
Doing nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility counting others more significant than ourselves (Philippians 2:3)
Putting on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven us (Colossians 3:12–13)
Repaying no one evil for evil, but always seeking to do good to one another and to everyone (1 Thessalonians 5:15)
Rejoicing always, praying without ceasing, and giving thanks in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18)
Loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44)
Wrestling against spiritual rulers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness — the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12)

“The transformational way of love that leads to life is hard. It’s supposed to be hard.”

And these are just a sampling. But it’s a hefty enough sample to give us a sense of how humanly impossible it is for us to obey the greatest commandments — for these are all expressions of love for God, our neighbors, and other Christians. Everyone who takes these imperatives seriously realizes that the transformational way of love that leads to life is hard. It’s supposed to be hard.

But why does the way need to be as hard as it is? Here’s one way Jesus answered that question.

Only Possible with God

Do you remember the story of the rich young man in Matthew 19? When forced to choose, he couldn’t let go of his wealth in order to have God, which revealed that he loved his wealth more than God, that his wealth was his god. As Jesus watched the man walk away, he said, “I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And do you remember the disciples’ response? They asked, “Who then can be saved?” When they saw where Jesus placed the bar, it hit them: no one can possibly jump that high. Which was precisely Jesus’s point: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

All we disciples must come to this realization. However morally beautiful and admirable we find Jesus’s love commands in the abstract, we cannot and will not obey them in our own strength. It’s impossible. Our flesh is simply too weak and our remaining sin too strong.

That bears repeating. It’s impossible to love like Jesus without being empowered by the Holy Spirit. Because striving to love God and others like Jesus exposes and confronts every unholy, sinful, selfish impulse of remaining sin in us, requiring us to daily put to death what is earthly in us and regularly deny ourselves for Jesus’s sake and the good of others.

None of us will consistently, continually walk in this hard way unless, by the Spirit, we truly “[behold] the glory of the Lord,” and see all the hardship as “light momentary affliction” that is transforming us from one degree of glory to another and “preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 3:18; 4:17). We will not walk this hard way unless we see that living according to the flesh leads to death, but putting to death the deeds of the body by the power of the Spirit leads to life (Romans 8:13) — that choosing the hard way is choosing the abundant life (John 10:10).

‘You Follow Me’

This doesn’t answer a host of questions that puzzle us along the path of love. Many of them, when viewed from our very limited perspective, may not seem to make sense. I know. I’ve pondered questions like these for a long time.

But when I get overly discouraged and critical of the church’s failures to love, something Jesus once said to Peter often helps me refocus on my own log of lovelessness — the failures to love that I’m primarily responsible for and can, by the power of the Spirit, do something about. When Jesus revealed to Peter the unpleasant way he was going to die, Peter essentially asked, “Well, does John have to die an unpleasant death too?” Jesus essentially answered him, “How I choose to deal with John is not your concern. You follow me!” (John 21:21–22).

God has woven so many mysterious purposes into the way he’s ordered reality, and I continue to learn just how unreliable my perceptions are when it comes to deciphering them. I am wise to heed Paul’s words: “[Do not] pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart” (1 Corinthians 4:5); I am wise to heed Jesus’s words, “You follow me!”

As Christians, our primary calling today is to follow Jesus, in the power of the Spirit of Jesus, on the hard way of self-sacrificial, God-glorifying love that leads to an incomparably glorious, abundant, and eternal life. We are not responsible for the loving witness of the whole church, or even of our whole local church.

But if we are willing to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus — as imperfectly as we all love this side of glory — then we will increasingly experience the result of the Spirit-born fruit of love: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

On a street not far from where I live, there’s a pottery studio with an attractive little storefront that displays beautiful clay works for sale by local artisans. Now, let’s imagine that you and I are in this little shop browsing and admiring the craftmanship, when suddenly in walks a grim-faced man wielding a baseball bat.

Before we can respond, he strides up to a beautiful, delicate-looking pot on the central display and takes a hard swing. Both of us wince, expecting the pot to explode into smithereens. Surprisingly, it takes the blow, slams against the back wall, and drops to the floor — intact. The man growls in frustration as he marches over, picks up the pot, and throws it against the entry wall. Again, it refuses to break. After shouting an expletive, the man stomps over and gives the pot a hard parting kick as he storms out. It skids and rolls across the floor, but comes to rest unbroken.

With the bat-man gone, you and I walk over and carefully examine the pot. It’s clearly made of clay, but there isn’t a crack or even a chip. I ask, “What kind of clay is this thing made of?” You shake your head in wonder and reply, “Who’s the potter?”

Indestructible Resilience

Why would you and I find this pot so perplexing? Because everyone knows this kind of pottery is not resilient. It’s fragile — it breaks easily. Fragility and resilience are antonyms. Something is either fragile or resilient, either brittle or bendable, not both.

And yet, resilient pottery is precisely the paradoxical metaphor the apostle Paul chooses when describing Christian resilience:

We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. (2 Corinthians 4:7–10)

If you and I are Christians, we are such perplexing pots. We are fragile jars of clay that ought to shatter under the blows we receive from the various kinds of destructive afflictions we suffer. And yet we have the capacity to be indestructibly resilient, leaving observers wondering what kind of mysterious strength is baked into us. They’re left asking, “Who’s the potter?”

“Our resilience (or lack thereof) depends on where we look for hope.”

Now, if you’re like me, you don’t feel indestructibly resilient. But our capacity to be “afflicted in every way, but not crushed” does not depend on our self-perception or self-determination. According to what Paul says just a few verses later, our resilience (or lack thereof) depends on where we look for hope.

Before digging into these verses some more, let’s look at a living example of indestructible Christian resilience.

Resilience in Real Life

When Joni Eareckson Tada was only 17, she discovered just how fragile her clay-jar body was when, on a warm summer day in 1967, she dove into Chesapeake Bay and became a quadriplegic. Every day since, her wheelchair, her dependence on others to help her with basic life tasks, her experience of nearly constant chronic pain, as well as additional afflictions like cancer and COVID, have been stark reminders of her bodily weakness.

Yet, more than fifty years later, millions around the world would describe Joni as among the most resilient, industrious, fruitful, contagiously joyful Christians they could name. She’s an influential author and speaker, she’s an accomplished artist, and she’s the founder of an international organization that ministers to disabled people and their loved ones all over the world.

When you read what Joni writes, however, or hear her speak, or listen to her sing, or even exchange informal emails with her (as I’ve been privileged to do), her quadriplegia and her impressive achievements become eclipsed by her unquenchable love for Jesus and her indomitable faith in Jesus. She exhibits an otherworldly strength of heart, enabling her to withstand blows that might send the fiercest soldier or MMA fighter fleeing for dear life. After each blow, she still sits in her wheelchair, radiating joyful hope.

Joni is a personification of that clay pot we imagined at the beginning. After all the blows she’s taken, how can she still be in one piece? Who is this Potter that she talks so much about?

Where Do We Find Resilience?

To answer that question, let’s first return to 2 Corinthians 4 and hear Paul describe where Christian resilience comes from:

We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16–18)

Do you see it? What strengthens a Christian’s “inner self” and keeps him from losing heart even though his “outer self” is wasting away? Where he chooses to focus the gaze of his heart-eyes.

Paul knows that what Christians choose to look at has the power to either fill or drain the reservoir of hope in their “inner selves.” If we focus on the transient, visible realities of futility, sin, and suffering, we will lose hope (lose heart) and not be able to withstand the afflictions we suffer. But if we focus on the eternal, unseen reality, what Paul calls “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6), then the “God of hope [will] fill [us] with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit [we] may abound in hope,” even while enduring the worst kinds of afflictions (Romans 15:13).

“Indestructible Christian resilience comes from looking to the right reality.”

In fact, this focus has the power to so transform our perspective that even severe afflictions become “light” and “momentary” compared to the glory we will experience. Indestructible Christian resilience comes from looking to the right reality.

Secret of Joni’s Strength

This exercise of faith is why Joni is still in one piece, so to speak. She’s not in some special class of superhero Christians who are simply blessed with extraordinary stamina or an extraordinarily joyful temperament. Read any of her books, listen to any of her talks, and you’ll hear her candidly describe just how dark life can feel for her — how similar she is to you and me. The secret to her resilience is where she chooses to focus the gaze of her heart-eyes.

Joni recently wrote a devotional book, Songs of Suffering: 25 Hymns and Devotions for Weary Souls. This is not your run-of-the-mill devotional; it is a manual for building Christian resilience. In one of the entries, she writes,

I have lived with quadriplegia for more than half a century and have wrestled with chronic pain for much of that time. I struggle with breathing problems and am in an ongoing battle against cancer. All this makes for a perfect storm of discouragement.

Yet when my hip and back are frozen in pain, or it’s simply another weary day of plain paralysis, I strengthen myself with Jesus’s example [of hymn singing] in the upper room [just before his crucifixion]. My suffering Savior has taught me to always choose a song — a song that fortifies my faith against discouragement and breathes hope into my heart. And so I daily take up my cross to the tune of hymn. (18)

So, Joni’s incredible resilience comes from . . . singing songs? No. Joni’s incredible resilience comes from seeing her affliction in the context of ultimate reality. But she uses substantive songs of faith to help her see.

Where Will You Look?

Anyone can admire Joni’s resilience, but what we might miss is that her resilience really can be ours, through whatever trials we face. If our afflictions are less severe than hers, that doesn’t mean we are less in need of daily spiritual renewal, and that renewal is possible — every day. We share with Joni the same faith and the same hope. The same power from the same Holy Spirit is available to us. Which means we can be as indestructibly resilient in our afflictions as Joni is in hers — and as Paul was in his.

Joni’s example of singing her way to gospel hope is a strategy that has been used by millions of saints over the centuries (and why we have a book of Psalms in our Bibles). But that’s just one strategy of many available to us. We each must learn ourselves well enough to know which strategies are most effective in helping us focus the gaze of our heart-eyes on the unseen, eternal reality revealed to us in Scripture. And then, like Joni, we must cultivate them into habits of grace so we can wield the armor of God in the fight of faith with resilience.

[Better is] the day of death than the day of birth.

I realize that’s an abrupt way to begin an article, but that’s how the Preacher begins Ecclesiastes 7. No easing in; he just pushes us into the deep end of the existential pool. So, here we are. What do you think about the Preacher’s statement? Do you agree with him?

The statement becomes more disturbing when we realize that the Preacher isn’t talking about our deaths, but about the deaths of people we know and love — deaths we experience as losses. He’s talking about the deaths of our grandparents, parents, siblings, spouses, children, extended family members, friends, colleagues, and neighbors.

Think about that for a moment. Is the Preacher — and God through the Preacher — really saying that the day we weep over a loved one’s death is better than the day we laugh for joy over a loved one’s newborn baby? Yes, he is. But he means it in a limited, specific sense.

What Death Has to Say

We can see what the Preacher means by reading more of the context:

A good name is better than precious ointment,     and the day of death than the day of birth.It is better to go to the house of mourning     than to go to the house of feasting,for this is the end of all mankind,     and the living will lay it to heart.Sorrow is better than laughter,     for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,     but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. (Ecclesiastes 7:1–4)

This clarifies the Preacher’s point. The day of death is better than the day of birth in the sense that death speaks to us in ways birth does not. For death says,

You too are going to die, perhaps sooner than you think. And so will every other person you love and every mourner who pays his respects to this loved one whose final earthly end has come. If you are wise, you will take this to heart and live with your end in mind.

That’s not a message anyone hears at a baby shower.

Wisdom’s Counterintuitive Way

When we read through the wisdom literature of the Bible, we see this strange motif: we gain wisdom by paying careful attention to and learning to embrace things we would rather avoid.

We would rather avoid the significant discomfort that discipline requires, yet we see that “whoever loves discipline loves knowledge” (Proverbs 12:1).
We would rather avoid the unpleasant, humbling experience of being corrected, yet we see that “whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence” (Proverbs 15:32).
We would certainly rather avoid the more painful correction of being rebuked, yet we hear a wise man say, “Let a righteous man strike me — it is a kindness; let him rebuke me — it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it” (Psalm 141:5).
And we would really rather avoid afflictions of any kind, yet we hear another wise man say, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71).

“We gain wisdom by paying careful attention to and learning to embrace things we would rather avoid.”

The way of wisdom is often counterintuitive. We must learn to love instruction from teachers we intuitively fear because they have lessons we cannot live without. That’s why, when it comes to baby showers and funerals, the Preacher says, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth” (Ecclesiastes 7:4).

But he doesn’t mean that we’re fools if we ever celebrate a baby’s birth. For the Preacher also says, “For everything there is a season,” including “a time to be born, and a time to die,” and God “has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:1–2, 11). There’s a time to enjoy the beauty of a new life. But the Preacher does mean that we’re fools if, because we fear death, we avoid listening to its depressing instruction by keeping ourselves distracted and entertained in houses of mirth. For the wise discover that essential springs of life flow from what we learn in houses of mourning.

What Endings Reveal

The Preacher also wants us to know that we’re wise to listen carefully not only to what a death has to teach us, but to what every significant ending has to teach us. That’s why he widens his focus from death to include endings in general: “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning” (Ecclesiastes 7:8).

“The end of a thing reveals what its beginning conceals.”

He says this not only because every significant ending in our lives carries the echo of death’s message, but also because the end of a thing reveals what its beginning conceals. Whereas a beginning makes us hopeful by promising a better future, we discover only in the end whether the promise, or the promise-maker, was truly worthy of the hope we had. And significant endings also often reveal the true spiritual state of our hearts — what we truly trust in, what truly gives us hope, and what we truly treasure.

Here’s one example of a revealing end.

Death of a Promise

One day, years ago, when my brother and I were washing windows to put ourselves through college (me) and seminary (my brother), we were working at the home of a well-to-do elderly couple. The husband had attained remarkable career success as the founder of a company that ran a large regional chain of supermarkets, which he then handed over to his children when he retired. He had achieved the American dream.

But he turned out to be a dour, depressed, angry, bitter man. At one point, after he’d said something needlessly harsh to us and trudged off, his wife came over and apologized. She turned out to be just the opposite: buoyant, joyful, gracious, and kind. As we talked, we discovered she was a sister in Christ and had an earnest, vibrant faith. She discreetly shared with us her deep heartache over her husband’s rejection of Christ and her concern over his severe depression, which had set in when his declining capacities and health forced him to relinquish his leadership and influence in his beloved company. When his career ended, so did any meaningful purpose to his life. When we finished the windows, we prayed with her and for him.

The following year, when the woman hired us again, she was alone. Her husband, having nothing more to live for, had died. She was grieving. But her hope in Christ was strong, and her peace surpassed mere human understanding.

No doubt, this man began his career with the hope-fueled energy of a promising future. But its end revealed that the expiration date on this promise was the same as the career’s. When it was over, his remaining prosperity and prestige were hollow, having been emptied of a future and a hope.

Are You Paying Attention?

The Preacher knows how attracted we are to the hopeful siren songs wafting from the houses of mirth, and how repulsed we are by the fearsome dirges emanating from the houses of mourning. But he also knows how deceptive those siren songs can be and how those dirges can lead us to the Source of the springs of life.

So, in Ecclesiastes 7, he pushes us into the deep end of the pool by declaring that the day of death is better than the day of birth, and the end of a thing is better than its beginning. In other words, “You would be wise to pay careful attention to what your endings are telling you, especially when you encounter a death. These fearsome instructors will make you wise if you listen to them, but you ignore them at your peril.”

The Preacher leaves each of us with an implicit question to answer: What are your endings revealing? For if we pay careful attention, they will reveal to us what we’ve truly placed our faith in, what is truly our ultimate source of hope, and what is truly our greatest treasure. They are important lessons to learn. For all we will carry with us beyond our death is our faith, our hope, and our love.

After nearly two decades, the memory is still vivid: standing in the living room with the phone to my ear, listening as my friend and pastor, Rick, described to me through sobs how one of the young, vibrant couples in our church had just been in a terrible car accident. The husband had survived. But the wife had not. And neither had their unborn son — their first child, whose birth they had been anticipating with so much joy.

I stood stunned, trying to process this new reality. I could see her laughing with a group of people after church the previous Sunday. Now, she was suddenly gone — taken, along with her child, in a violent event that unfolded in a few seconds. Rick asked me, the leader of the worship ministry, to begin thinking and praying over possible music for the funeral that would likely be held the next week.

If my memory is accurate, the first song that came to mind, almost immediately, was one of my favorite hymns: “Be Still, My Soul.”

Song for Deepest Sorrow

I have loved this hymn since my late teens. When sung to a beautiful arrangement of the tune “Finlandia,” it has, to my ear, perfect prosody — that’s the term musicians use to describe how “all elements [of a song] work together to support the central message of the song.” And the central message of “Be Still, My Soul” is the resurrection hope Jesus gives us in the face of the devastating death of a loved one.

The powerful lyrics come from the pen of a German woman named Katharina Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel and began appearing in German hymnals in 1752. Little is known about Katharina. Some believe she may have been a “Stiftsfraulein,” a member of a female Lutheran “stift” (convent) in the town of Köthen (one hundred miles southwest of Berlin), and that she had been significantly influenced by a pietistic Christian renewal movement.

No record survives of the specific event(s) that inspired her to compose this deeply moving hymn. But such specifics aren’t necessary since we all experience the kind of devastating losses she writes about. And when they come, we often find ourselves enduring an internal hurricane of disorienting grief, in desperate need of the peaceful shelter of hope. And the gift Katharina has bequeathed to us — in the four verses most English hymnals contain (she wrote six) — is this profound poetic reminder of the one shelter for our sorrowful, storm-tossed souls: the faithfulness of God.

‘The Lord Is on Thy Side’

She begins in verse one by reminding us of the unshakable foundation on which we stand by faith:

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.Leave to thy God to order and provide;In ev’ry change, He faithful will remain.Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heav’nly friendThrough thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

The first line is a near quote of Psalm 118:6: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear.” But the rationale for why we have any right to make this otherwise audacious claim is gloriously stated in Romans 8:31–32:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

In the swirl of grief, we may wonder, “All things? Then why did God not spare my loved one from death and me from such anguish of separation?” To which the Holy Spirit, through the great apostle, graciously, hopefully, and gently replies,

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37–39)

Soul, be at peace: your faithful Lord is on your side. And he will lead you through this vale of deep darkness to the eternally Son-lit, joyful land of everlasting love (Psalm 23:4, Revelation 21:23).

‘All Now Mysterious Shall Be Bright at Last’

In verse two, Katharina reminds us of the great promise purchased for us when the Father did not spare his own Son for us: freedom from the curse of living with the knowledge of good and evil — the knowledge we insisted on having, while lacking the capacities to comprehend or mange it.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertakeTo guide the future, as He has the past.Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;All now mysterious shall be bright at last.Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still knowHis voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Now, God’s purposes in allowing evil to wreak such grievous havoc are largely shrouded in mystery, and so can appear senseless. But it will not always be so. For Jesus came to undo all of the effects of curse. First, he came into the world to undo the curse of death (Genesis 3:19). And then, when we finally experience life free from remaining sin and beyond the threat of death, we shall be given knowledge more wonderful than what we sought from the Edenic fruit: we shall know fully, even as we have been fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Soul, be at peace: your faithful Lord will soon make all you now find so mysterious bright at last.

‘Jesus Can Repay All He Takes Away’

In verse three, when the sword of grief has pierced our hearts at the deaths of our dearest ones, Katharina applies the balm of gospel promise to our throbbing wound.

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,And all is darkened in the vale of tears,Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repayFrom His own fullness all He takes away.

That last line echoes the great faith-filled, worshipful declaration Job made upon the news of the deaths of his dear children: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). But Katharina’s words declare the biblical promise of a greater restoration than Job experienced on earth. For God has promised that even the severest losses will someday seem like “light momentary affliction” compared to the “eternal weight of glory” they produce (2 Corinthians 4:17).

“Your faithful Lord will never depart and will repay from his own fullness far more than all he takes away.”

But this verse also describes a Christian’s paradoxical experience in the very anguish of bereavement. For those who, while grieving, place their trust in their best and heav’nly friend receive a foretaste of the riches of Jesus’s fullness as they come to “better know His love, His heart.” They often experience new dimensions of the reality of what Jesus meant when he said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5), and “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Soul, be at peace: your faithful Lord will never depart and will repay from his own fullness far more than all he takes away.

‘We Shall Be Forever with the Lord’

One week after that tragic car accident, we gathered in the sanctuary to remember the lives and grieve the deaths of that young wife, daughter, sister, friend, and expectant mother, and the baby boy she and her devastated husband had looked forward to bringing into the world. But we did not grieve as those “who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

My clearest memory of the funeral was being so deeply moved and comforted by the way I heard my brothers and sisters sing “Be Still, My Soul,” especially the last verse:

Be still, my soul: the hour is hast’ning onWhen we shall be forever with the Lord.When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.Be still, my soul: when change and tears are pastAll safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.

“There is coming a day when ‘we will always be with the Lord.’”

Here is every Christian’s “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13), the reason Jesus is for us “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). Katharina’s words helped us encourage one another in the hope that there is coming a day when “we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17–18). They helped us together preach to our souls,

Soul, be at peace: your faithful Lord will soon gather us all together again, safe and blessed, in his presence — where his full joy will be our full joy, and where all that gives him pleasure will be all that gives us pleasure forever (Psalm 16:11).

Then, having done our best to still our souls through faith in God’s faithfulness, we escorted the earthly remains of our sister and baby brother to the cemetery, where we sowed their perishable, weak, and natural bodies into the ground in the hope that Jesus will raise them with imperishable, powerful, spiritual bodies (1 Corinthians 15:42–44). And upon the grave’s marker, the loving husband and father, whose loss had been incalculable, yet who in faith believed Christ had greater gain for the three of them, had this text inscribed:

As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;
     when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. (Psalm 17:15)

If you primarily think of God as your Father, and if you usually address God as Father when you pray, you have Jesus to thank. For prior to Jesus, no one — not in Judaism or in any other religious tradition — spoke of God or to God as Father in the personal ways Jesus did.

It’s true that Old Testament saints occasionally referred to God as Israel’s father (Deuteronomy 32:6; Psalm 103:13) and even less occasionally called him their Father when they prayed (Isaiah 63:16). But the fact that they rarely did so reveals that they didn’t relate to God primarily as a Father. Certainly not in the way Jesus did — which was also the way he taught all his followers to relate to God.

‘Abba, Father’

In all four Gospels, when Jesus speaks about God, he typically refers to him as his Father. And when the Gospel writers allow us to listen in on Jesus praying, we hear him addressing God as Father.

“If you usually address God as ‘Father’ when you pray, you have Jesus to thank.”

This wasn’t merely an endearing metaphor to Jesus. God as his Father was a fundamental relational reality to him. This is clear when, as we hear him pray in Gethsemane, he cries, “Abba, Father” (Mark 14:36). Abba was the most common term Aramaic speakers used when speaking to their earthly fathers — Jesus and his (half) siblings would have used it when addressing Joseph.

This familial way Jesus referred to God scandalized and outraged the Jewish leaders. They understood God as their Father the way a potter might be called the father of his clay creation (see Isaiah 64:8). But Jesus viewed God as his “Abba, Father” the way a child views the paternal parent who begot him. To the Jewish leaders, this led to blasphemy worthy of capital punishment, because “he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18). Indeed, he was God’s own Son — a reality they tragically failed to discern.

And astoundingly, Jesus, the “only Son from the Father” (John 1:14), wanted all of his disciples, we who are not sons of God the way he is, to also relate to God as our “Abba, Father.” For when Jesus provided us a model or pattern for how to pray, what Christians down through the ages have called the Lord’s Prayer, the first thing he taught us was to address God as “our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9).

‘Our Father in Heaven’

In quoting Jesus here, Matthew remarkably uses the Greek word pater, the equivalent to Abba in Aramaic — the common, everyday term that everyone used for father. Pause and ponder just how astounding the phrase “our Father in heaven” is, considering the reality it represents: God as our heavenly Pater, Abba, Father.

Unless you were raised in a different religious tradition, addressing God as “our Father” probably doesn’t strike you as presumptuous or offensive. It probably sounds normal, something we take for granted, like calling our earthly paternal parent our father. If we have lost our wonder over calling God our Father, it’s time to recover it.

‘Holy Father’

Keep in mind that observant Jews have always considered God’s covenant name, Yahweh (Exodus 3:14), to be so holy that they dare not speak it aloud. When they write it, they abbreviate it to YHWH, so as not to profane God’s holy name through unholy human lips or hands. Even in English, many will write “G–d” instead of “God.” They consider it no small thing to speak of or to the “Holy One of Israel” (Psalm 71:22).

“It is no small thing for us to have the right to call the Holy One of Israel our Father, and ourselves his children.”

Indeed, this One whom we call “Father” is the One before whom the four living creatures “day and night . . . never cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!’” (Revelation 4:8). He “is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see” (1 Timothy 6:15–16). For no mere human can see him and live (Exodus 33:20).

Even the only begotten Son — he who “in the beginning was . . . with God and . . . was God” (John 1:1), he who is the very “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), he whom God has “highly exalted” and on whom he “bestowed . . . the name that is above every other name” (Philippians 2:9) — this holy Son of God (Luke 1:35), who called God his “Abba, Father,” also addressed him as “Holy Father” (John 17:11).

What gives us — we “of unclean lips, [who] dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5) — any right to call the Almighty “our Father”? Our holy Father himself and his holy Son, our Savior, give us this unfathomable privilege.

See What Kind of Love

It is good for our souls to pause and ponder the astounding fatherhood of God to us, especially if the reality has become too familiar, so we can see with fresh eyes the father-heart of God for us. That is what the Holy Spirit, through the apostle John, wants for us:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. (1 John 3:1)

And what kind of love has the Father given to us?

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9–10)

The Father so loved us that he gave his only begotten Son, that through believing in him we should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). And the Son so greatly loved us that he willingly laid his life down for us (John 15:13) to become the propitiation for our sins.

To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12–13)

It is no small thing for us to have the right to call the Holy One of Israel our Father, and ourselves his children. For at great cost,

the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1:3–6)

See with fresh eyes what kind of wonderful love the holy Father and the holy Son have given to us, that we should be called children of God.

‘Pray Then Like This’

This ocean of gracious love, this vast miracle of substitutionary atonement, this profound and mysterious gift of being both adopted by and born of God, is why when Jesus’s disciples asked him how they should pray to God, he began,

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” (Matthew 6:9)

God does not want us to relate to him as a mere subject relates to a king, or as a mere sheep relates to its shepherd. Fundamentally, he wants us to relate to him as a child relates to a loving, generous father who loves to give good gifts when his children ask him (Matthew 7:7–11). As Michael Reeves writes,

When a person deliberately and confidently calls the Almighty “Father,” it shows they have grasped something beautiful and fundamental about who God is and to what they have been saved. And how that wins our hearts back to him! For the fact that God the Father is happy and even delights to share his love for his Son and thus be known as our Father reveals just how gracious and kind he is. (Delighting in the Trinity, 76)

If you primarily think of God as your Father, and if you usually address God as Father when you pray, you have Jesus (and the Father) to thank — not only because he taught you to do so, but because he (and the Father) has given you the right to do so. And both Father and Son have provided you with the Holy Spirit — “the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8:15). Make good use of this grace. For your Father in heaven delights in his children.

“Noël, Noël, Noël, Noël, born is the King of Israel” is a glorious refrain from a much-beloved Christmas hymn. And of course, it’s true: Jesus, as the Messiah, was born a king.

Israel had hoped for a king to liberate her from her enemies. The people had long been expecting the Messiah’s arrival, and when he appeared, they expected him to ascend as their ultimate king. When the wise men reached Palestine, their first question was, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:2). Herod slaughtered the Bethlehem innocents because he feared this new King of Israel. Jesus himself, in so many words, declared himself to be the King of the Jews to Pilate (John 18:36).

But when Jesus came into the world the first time, it was not, as his disciples had earnestly hoped, to “restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6). He had a more pressing mission. Before his coronation, we need consecration; before his complete reign, he must complete our righteousness; before he becomes our Sovereign, he must become our sacrifice. Though Jesus truly was born our long-awaited King, he had appeared first to do the bloody work of a priest.

Prophet Then Priest Then King

This caught most people off guard. But Scripture foretold the pattern. When God delivered the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage to establish them as a holy nation, he did so in a specific progression. First came the great prophet (Moses) to proclaim the good news of liberation and call out the people. Then came the great priest (Aaron) to mediate the mercy of God by providing means for forgiving the people’s sins and cleansing them from unrighteousness. Then, quite a while later, came the great king (David).

“Though Jesus truly was born our long-awaited King, he had appeared first to do the bloody work of a priest.”

This old-covenant progression foreshadowed Jesus’s new-covenant progression. First, he revealed himself to be Israel’s great Moses-like Prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15; John 7:40), “proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction” as he began to call out his people (Matthew 9:35). Then he revealed himself to be Israel’s great Melchizedek-like Priest (Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 5:9–10), as well as the sacrificial “Lamb of God” (John 1:29), providing the ultimate forgiveness for the people’s sins and cleansing them from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). And though Jesus bore marks of kingship throughout his ministry, and reigns now as king on heaven’s throne, we are still waiting for his full revelation to the world as Israel’s great David-like King (2 Samuel 7:8–16; Matthew 22:41–45).

In other words, though Jesus simultaneously occupies all three offices of Prophet, Priest, and King fully and eternally, on earth we are still living in the era of Jesus’s prophetic proclamation of the gospel (Matthew 28:19–20) and Jesus’s priestly mediation of God’s mercy toward sinners. Although everything is in subjection under his royal feet, “at present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him” (Hebrews 2:8).

Altar Before Scepter

We all, like our ancient forebears, long for our righteous King of kings to finally put an end to the evil that is the cause of such misery and grief in our lives and in our world. As we celebrate the first coming of Christ, we join Zechariah in praise as we look to the future grace of Jesus’s kingly reign:

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,     for he has visited and redeemed his peopleand has raised up a horn of salvation for us     in the house of his servant David,as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,that we should be saved from our enemies     and from the hand of all who hate us . . .     that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear,     in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. (Luke 1:68–71, 74–75)

“If a merciful priest doesn’t precede a righteous king, a righteous king’s reign is not good news to us.”

However, if a merciful priest doesn’t precede a righteous king, a righteous king’s reign is not good news to us. Because on our own, we are not holy and righteous, as God is. We are sinful and wicked. We all know this deep down. To stand before God with our sin unatoned for is destruction.

That’s why we all need to encounter Jesus our High Priest before we encounter Jesus our High King. We need him to mediate God’s mercy to us by making “an offering for [our] guilt” (Isaiah 53:10) before he comes to “execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jeremiah 33:15). We need him to serve at the altar before he wields the scepter (Hebrews 1:3).

Tender Mercy of Our God

Zechariah, being a priest, knew this. Which is why I think, as he turned his words to his infant son, the forerunner of the Messiah (Luke 1:16–17; Malachi 4:5–6), he ended his declaration of praise this way:

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;     for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,to give knowledge of salvation to his people     in the forgiveness of their sins,because of the tender mercy of our God,     whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on highto give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,     to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:76–79)

He knew the Messiah’s appearance wasn’t merely about God’s people being saved from their enemies, but about God’s people being saved from being God’s enemies because of the guilt of their own sins. The Messiah was coming to mediate the tender mercy of God, as well as his holy righteousness, that he might ultimately deliver us from all our danger.

Born Is the Priest of Israel

It is right for us to long for Jesus’s reign over all rebellious reality. It is right for us to “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies,” which will come when Christ returns for his great earthly coronation (Romans 8:23). So, it is right for us to sing and celebrate the Advent of the “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16).

But it is also right to think of Christmas as a day to overflow with gratitude and celebrate with feasting the fact that Jesus came to consecrate us before his coronation. He came to make us righteous before assuming his reign. He came to become our sacrifice before becoming our Sovereign. In the tender mercy of our God, Jesus “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away [our] sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26).

So, I don’t think the anonymous hymn writer would be at all offended if we sometimes adapted the refrain and sang,

Noël, Noël, Noël, Noël, born is the Priest of Israel.

Having first come as our Priest, we now have every reason to look forward to when our King “will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:28).