How Low Can You Go?

I've been reading Mark in my quiet times lately, and appropriately enough for the week leading up to Easter, I've been in chapter 15. Mark tends to be short and to the point, and even in his account of this last week of Jesus' life, he's very economical with his words. What caught my attention this week was his decription of the two thieves on the crosses next to Jesus'. Just two verses (27, 31):

   And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.

   Even those who were crucified with him were reviling him.

That's it. No mention of what they said. Nothing about how one of them pleaded with Jesus and how He promised him entrance into His Kingdom that very day. Just: they flanked Him in crucifixion and mocked Him in the process. That promise Jesus gave the one is pretty important, but Mark skips right over it! (Mark is also the one who leaves the Gospel narrative hanging in suspense, so apparently he didn't have the same need of closure that I do.)

I'm intrigued by this minimalist treatment of the thieves. Mark could have written more, but didn't. So I assume he wants us to focus on what little he did write: two robbers, while being crucified, reviled Jesus. Two dying robbers mocking Jesus along with the rest.

In this paragraph, Mark is careful to note that the chief priests and the experts in the Law mocked Jesus. Those who passed by mocked Him. In the previous paragraph, the soldiers mocked Him. And these two robbers being crucified.

In other words, Jesus was mocked, not merely rejected, by the religious authorities, by the military authorities, and by the general population. And these two robbers being crucified. He was mocked by not only the establishment, but also by the lowest of the low!

You can't get much lower than a convicted felon presently suffering a languishing death penalty, publicly displayed for full humiliation. They were rejects, mere rubbish to be disposed of. Those who society rejected rejected Jesus. How low can you go?!?

Easter is about the resurrection of Jesus, who died for our sin in a way that required Him to be utterly rejected, even by the lowest of the low.

I'm stunned by how complete His rejection had to be, so that His resurrection would be that much more victorious. I suspect Mark left out part of the story to focus us on that very point.

In all things, rejoi... you've got to be kidding!

The weekend was one of those rare weekends filled with almost entirely positive events. We had a great time with my folks and my oldest brother visiting, we made great progress on several very important decisions involving my parents, we had a great time in the car driving them to Branson and spending the night playing cards and talking with them. They finished their journey home safely, and we had a fun, casual time away from responsibilities and demands for a few days.

"Almost entirely positive events." When we came back to the car after one last sight-seeing diversion, we found that someone has smashed out one of the car windows and stolen Lynne's purse - right in broad daylight in a parking lot that has frequent traffic. They could have stolen my computer bag, they even could have stolen the entire car, and no one got hurt, but still, we've lost some money and we've inherited a whole lot of hassle. The cost to restore things will be more than the money the thieves netted out of this.

The entire weekend, Lynne had been very careful to put her purse in the trunk. This was the only stop where she thought that hiding it on the floor under a sweater in broad daylight at a busy attraction outside the city would be OK. I certainly thought leaving my computer bag up on the seat in plain view was OK. And it was the last stop of so many stops on this trip. How the thieves found an opening to smash a window in, and then the rest of it out is beyond us. (This also surprised the manager of the facility, who, by the way, was extraordinarily helpful - he even vacuumed out our car for us.) We were gone from the car about 90 minutes, and by no means did our car even look like a cash-rich target.

So, what to make of this? I don't believe in pure accidents. I'm already hesitant to take vacations because they are so much hassle and so expensive (we did OK on both counts, until this event exploded both of them). We had such a positive weekend up until the very last thing. And we almost went to a different attraction than this one. Plus ... I'm already 2 1/2 days behind this week because of the vacation, and now I'm going to lose one or two more days just getting things restored.

God never promises us that we'll understand every event that happens to us, whether "good" or "bad." But He does promise that He has a purpose for every event that happens to us. We sometimes are left with nothing but trust that this is always, always, always true. God never promises that he'll use this somewhere down the road in a way that it'll be obvious that He turned this event into something good, like the person later coming to faith in Christ. But He does promise that He is always, always, always with us in every event, and that He never gets caught by surprise by the things that happen to us.

I want an answer. But I might not get one. Will I still trust that He's always working together things for good for us? Will I praise Him only when events please me? Will I maintain a Christlike attitude when maliciously aggravated for no good reason? Will I try to make myself feel better with some lame platitude, or will I allow God's purpose to be a mystery for as long as He wants?

And I say all of this knowing full well that there are some in our own church family who persistently suffer worse than this one setback, let alone the living conditions of our orphans in Kenya.

I long for heaven, where this stuff will never bother us again. But God has us here now on purpose. I might not always know what the purpose is, but I know that there is one. And I know it's a good one.