Heather J Jonsson

The Echoes of Easter

With Easter just behind us, I have been lost in the lingering echoes of Holy Week. While reading the Bible demands we place ourselves in the context of the narrative, the echoes of the text allow us to extrapolate the Biblical stories into our current life. Then these echoes act as a bridge, bringing the stories of the past to lessons for our present. 

So as the tumult of Holy Week reverberated within, I thought of our own turmoil, both of a personal nature and on a global scale. In many ways, this is but an echo of what transpired 2000 years ago. Fickle crowds still shift with the changing winds. Suffering still pierces. Followers deny and doubt.

One might think that faith on this side of the resurrection would somehow be more simple. We are resurrection people after all!

Or do we sometimes forget?

How often have I, like Peter, denied my friend Jesus?

Like Mary, does my despair sometimes blind me to Jesus’ presence beside me?

Or perhaps, with shadows of doubt flickering in my mind, am I, like Thomas, slow to believe?

While our life on this side of Jesus’ resurrection is a far cry from that of Jesus’ followers, I can’t help but wonder if we share in the identical struggles as we await Jesus’ final return. Think of those who physically walked beside Jesus. Their Holy Week faith was a far cry from perfect. And here we are, knowing how this story ends, yet our struggles mirror their own.

So if you give me a few minutes of your time, let’s look back, so we can look forward. Together we can walk the bridge from the echoes of Easter into the turmoil of our own day, learning lessons to embolden our faith.

Over the next few weeks I will offer you three echoes of the past that serve as a bridge to our faith today. Here is the first:

Boldly Align Yourself with Jesus

Way back when I was a freshman in college, a girl on my dorm floor came up to me out of the blue and asked, “Heather, why are you alway so joyful?” That moment is the stuff of evangelistic dreams. It was perfect; a shoo-in transition that Jesus followers long for. It would have been easy for me to say, “because Jesus loves me,” or “because I am forgiven.” But instead I said, “I guess it is really just my nature.” 

Which is true, just not the entire truth. What a cop out.

On the night of Jesus’ deepest human suffering, after Peter had fallen asleep on Jesus when Jesus asked him to keep watch and pray, and after Peter told Jesus he would go to death with him even “if all [others] fall away,” we find Peter huddled around a fire pit doing exactly what he promised not to do. 

Peter denied knowing Jesus. Not just once, but three times.

Of course, Jesus completely forgave Peter and in a deeply restorative act, Jesus redeemed what Peter forsook, even giving Peter a future calling and purpose: “Feed my sheep.” Jesus reiterated the calling three times, exactly the number of times Peter denied his friend. 

It took great boldness for Peter to complete this calling. It even took his life.

Imagine you are standing around a neighborhood fire pit, all warm and cozy and comfortable. Your neighbor and friend from your son’s soccer team comes up to you and says, “We really miss your son at Sunday morning soccer games. Why do you always miss those games?” Instead of talking about who you worship on Sundays, you stutter out a half-hearted answer and sheepishly change the subject, feeling a bit more chilled than before your friend walked up to you.

Now, imagine standing around a fire pit near to where a mentor is being questioned and beaten by the government. Would you be willing to align yourself to this mentor, especially knowing it might mean your death as well? Ouch! That hits different; but is it really that different than the first scenario?

Peter went on to be a pillar in the early church. He taught and wrote and led many to know and believe Jesus, the Son of God. Most shocking, after Peter was condemned to die by Nero, tradition holds that Peter chose to be hung upside down because he felt unworthy to die like his Savior. 

Denier Turned Bold Witness

In order to grow in this kind of boldness, Peter reconciled himself to the truth that a faithful servant is a suffering servant. Peter witnessed the persecution and suffering of the early church, but Peter also knew what it felt like to deny a dear friend. Given those two options, he chose the former – bold alignment with his suffering Savior.

Peter’s writing in I Peter helps us understand his clear-eyed example. Suffering, or its synonyms, are mentioned about 16 times in I Peter.

Pay attention to just a few of Peter’s words:

“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.” (I Peter 1:6)

“For God is pleased with you when you do what you know is right and patiently endure unfair treatment.” (2 Peter 2:19)

“For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps.” (I Peter 2:21)

Granted, I understand that persecution for righteousness’ sake is categorically different from suffering. Suffering may take the form of a terminal illness, a divorce, or the death of a child, and while horrific these obviously aren’t persecution for righteousness sake. 

But suffering is similar to persecution in the sense that Satan is dead set on persecuting the world bound under his cruel reign of depravity and brokenness. In this broader sense of persecution as hostility, all forms of suffering are akin to persecution.

Clearly from I Peter, he reconciled himself to the fact that following Jesus would inevitably mean suffering. So Peter counted the cost and decided Jesus was worth it. In the end, he chose bold alignment with his suffering Savior.

What about you? Have you counted the cost and decided suffering alongside Jesus is worth it? 

Suffering. Not comfort or ease or power or winning or getting-ahead. 

But here is the beauty of it all – just like Jesus’ example on the cross, suffering is your path to life, the kind of life that is a wellspring within your soul. Or, as Jesus himself refers to it, “life more abundant.” 

The Blessing of Suffering

Remember Jesus’ teaching upon the hills of Galilee? “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” This kind of suffering causes you to lose pieces of yourself. Maybe you will lose friends when you boldly align yourself to Jesus. Maybe you will be laughed at, misunderstood or go down a notch in popularity. Yet suffering alongside Jesus ushers us into greater grace, the grace to choose love when our sinful nature desires otherwise. And in humility we find Jesus.

Dear one, within His perfect love, and the fellowship of suffering alongside Jesus, we gain Him, filled up, to the brim, and overflowing. It is the beauty of belonging to God’s Kingdom. His perfect redemption of all that is broken. The way He is making all things new – less of us and more of Him. The stuff true life is made of.

With so great a hope, let us, like Peter, boldly align ourselves to our suffering Savior. We may be tempted to remain Jesus-adjacent, but the calling to reconcile our heart to suffering and hold fast to Jesus is the path to life. As Peter wrote, and Eugene Peterson so brilliantly summarized, “The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.” But until that day, “the future starts now.” (I Peter 1:3-5)

Peter learned the lesson the hard way, but maybe we can learn bold alignment with our suffering Savior from the echoes of his story, and in doing so walk into the joy of the Father.

❤️

PS – I highly suggest you commit I Peter 1:3-9 to memory. It’s beautiful. Here is the gist – You are blessed. You have a new life. You have been reborn into a living hope, a great expectancy, a confident assurance. These are yours to usher you into peace and grace in the turmoil.