Jesus Knows Trouble

Our circumstances say something about us. And the circumstances of the family we are born into and our upbringing can say a lot about us. The candidates for president of the United States in 2008 are being scrutinized for who they are. And who they are is at least partly determined by who they have been: Barack Obama, a black man raised by white grandparents in Hawaii; Mike Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist minister raised in Hope, Arkansas; Mitt Romney, member of the Mormon Church; Hillary Clinton, wife of the former President. Some of their stories are mundane, others inspirational, but all of them, significant.

Don’t overlook this basic truth that the circumstances of Jesus’ birth and early life carry significance as well. We do well to note the rough manger and lowly birth. There are reasons why his birth was not to worldly royalty and power. What if Jesus’ had been Herod’s son? What if he had been the son of a Roman Caesar? It’s very difficult to imagine that now. Our understanding of Jesus is powerfully shaped by his whole story, not the least, the story of his birth.

Jesus the Christ was of humble birth, but the Gospel writers, especially Matthew, the Jewish historian, are carefully to point out the connection between Jesus and the line of David and the prophetic announcements. As unlikely as this Messiah seems, his birth was no fluke or accident. His coming was foretold, repeatedly.

And this, too, was foretold – he would be “acquainted with grief,” in words of the prophet Isaiah. Jesus was born in trouble.

No sooner, seemingly, than he was out of the womb, Jesus was being whisked out of town. If you believe the angel, Egypt was safer place for the holy family than Herod’s Judea. They were soon on the run and would stay nomads for several years. Of course, lots of people have to move. Lots of people have enemies. Trouble is relative. We all got trouble.



Our troubles are very real to us. But it’s always helpful to keep perspective on things. Consider the Christmas Eve Robert Schoff of Des Moines, Iowa, had. The Associated Press reports that the 77-year-old man spent part of his Christmas Eve stuck upside down in the opening of his septic tank. What happened was, Schoff opened the tank last Monday and reached inside to try to unclogged a blockage in the system. Let me pause here, and maintain that if you have to open your own septic tank and reach in with your own hands and touch stuff, you’re already on your way to trouble. So it was with Mr. Schoff. He lost his balance, fell into the opening with his body and got wedged there, yes, I remind you, face first. Mr. Schoff “hollered and screamed for help but it was an hour before his wife, Toni, walked by a window and saw his feet in the air.

What did Mr. Schoff have to say about his trouble?

“It wasn’t good, I’ll you what,” said Schoff. “It was the worst Christmas Eve I ever had.”

You thought your Christmas stunk. Indeed.

Trouble always comes. Some of the most serious comes innocently enough at first, in the mundane commitments of our lives. John Ortberg calls this “commitment creep.” Commitments multiply without our permission and are “non-biodegradable.” They hang around longer than Styrofoam cups. We stick to certain commitments even when they no longer make sense; even when they become injurious to our health or the well-being of our souls. This goes on until we hit a crisis. And that’s when we find time to change.

A busy father whose neglected daughter runs away from home and gets sucked into a life of a addiction suddenly finds time to scour the country for her and spends weeks looking for treatment clinics.

A couple who were too busy for each other suddenly find massive amounts of time for counseling and lawyers and legal bills and apartment searches when a marriage falls apart.

A workaholic, rushalolic, compulsive overachiever suddenly finds twenty-four hours a day to ask what life really means when a lab report comes back from the doctor’s marked “malignant.”

Trouble will come our way, always. But it is better not to wait for it. Better to live more boldly and prevent what you can.

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. . .”

Sometimes we see people in crisis turn to God and the church with a passion and abandonment they never had before. They are desperate for help, desperate for God. I find nothing wrong with this and everything right.

Not everyone responds to crisis this way. Some turn their back on God and the church. They might wonder what God would possibly do for them if he hasn’t already done x, y, or z. Some ask, what does God know or care about my troubles?

Jesus knows trouble. His early childhood was marked by slaughter of brutality and scale rarely seen, thankfully. Jesus is no fragile flower. And the God Jesus reveals to us is no distant potentate or unfeeling spirit.

“In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.”

And. . .

“Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

The Herods of our lives will die. Trouble will not always hold sway. Jesus calls us out of fear and into joy. Let us, brothers and sisters, do our best to put our troubles behind us. And let us embrace the coming year with joy and faith and hope in the One who does all things well.