Talking Out Of Turn

Like others, I’ve been following the story about the mistaken identities of the Van Ryn and Cerak daughters.

I’m sure many have already said this or similar things, but I want to add my small voice to the mighty throng. But I’m a bit scatter-brained so bear with me.

I’m so humbly impressed with how both of the families glorified and continue to glorify Christ in and through their ordeal. In the midst of such hurt and loss, such pain and suffering, each family nevertheless trusts and rejoices in Christ their Lord and Savior. My soul praises the Lord for their witness!

What’s more, each family is the embodiment of Christ’s love to the other — and to the world. The one encourages the other when the one’s joy turns into sorrow and the other’s sorrow turns into joy. Truly, by living like this all people will know that they are Christ’s disciples, as they have love for one another.

For it has been granted to the Van Ryns and Ceraks that for the sake of Christ they should not only trust in him but also suffer for his sake (Phil. 1:29). Their suffering through such a horrible ordeal (and make no mistake: it is horrible) is, first, a gift which has been granted to them by God himself; and, second, it is for the sake of God’s Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. What an honor and a privilege to have been granted the gift to suffer for the sake of Christ!

Or does this statement shock you? Perhaps it should. But, I don’t mean to make light of their or anyone else’s suffering. Suffering for no reason is meaningless at best. And gratuitous suffering is cruel. But suffering for the sake of Christ is God’s gift of grace to the believer, to refine him and allow him to share in God’s holiness, to present him blameless before God’s presence with great joy, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that the believer might be holy and without blemish. And that the believer might be a living testimony of Christ himself.

This is what the Lord is doing with the Van Ryn and Cerak families. As each of them is sanctified through suffering for the sake of Christ, and as the world witnesses their growing love for the Lord and their growing love for one another, Christ is glorified all the more. Whether they confess it now or whether they will confess it on the last day, the world looks at how the Van Ryns and Ceraks handle their suffering and grief and sees Christ and his love. The two families are Christ’s living epistles or letters to a sin-sick, evil, and rebellious world, written not with pen and paper but with the blood of the Lamb of God on the parchment of pain.

(For the Christian, suffering focuses us like nothing else. It focuses us on what’s most important in life. Is what’s most imporant in life our status in society? What sort of job we have or how much money we make? Is it where we live or who we rub shoulders with or where we’ve been or what we’ve experienced? Is it our homes or cars or other things we own? Is it whether we are married or single? Is it anything to do with “us”? No. We count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord. What’s most important is to love God and others. For we have come into this world naked and we shall leave naked. The only things which will cross over the threshhold to heaven or hell are our souls and the souls of others. And thus we must live the whole of our lives for the Lord and his people — whoever they are and wherever they might be. Indeed, because suffering so palpably sets the Lord our God and his eternity before our eyes, we see with such compelling clarity that we must live for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Only one life and it will soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.)

While the Bible might arguably be read as a book about suffering, suffering is not its end. Joy is the end. Joy in Christ. Joy in Christ because he has rescued us!

But rescued us from what? From sin and its consequences. From death itself.

Thus, when we ask, where is God in our suffering? We answer, he is on the cross, bearing our griefs, carrying our sorrows, dying for our sins. The Man of Sorrows, intimately acquainted with grief, was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, and killed so that we might live. God’s holy and righteous wrath against sin met God’s gracious and merciful love for sinners in the cross upon which his one and only Son Jesus Christ was crucified.

And God is not only sovereign, he is not only good, but he is also redemptive. So for Christians, no matter how consuming the pain or suffering, no matter how piercing the hurt and anguish, and no matter how many wrongs were committed against us or even how many wrongs we have committed (which perhaps brought us to our ordeal), Christ causes all things to work together for our good and his glory. Thus by the grace of God shall we glorify him and enjoy him forever.

The Van Ryns and Ceraks do not know whether there is to be more heartache in the next chapter(s) of their lives. No one knows. But since they are Christians they do know one thing. They know that the last chapter of their lives has already been written and that it is a glorious one. They know that the last chapter of their lives is but the beginning of a new and far better book. Or, as C.S. Lewis put it, “All their life in this world . . . had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

What a marvelous testimony to the grace of God in their lives! And what a marvelous testimony to the grace of God in the midst of our fallen, broken, and sinful world!

May we ever praise our gracious Heavenly Father for the Van Ryns’ and Ceraks’ testimonies of the power of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in their lives!