It happened that
I was driving quite slowly in the outside lane, with nothing in the nearside
lane. I pulled over to see what was
holding things up and discovered that, a short way ahead, was a small car
trying to overtake something only marginally slower than itself. At the time, I was listening to a sermon
podcast in which the preacher questioned
how Joseph might have felt when the angel told him to get up in the night, pack
up and flee to Egypt (Matt. 2:13). As we
know, he obediently did as he was bid, but did he wonder whether he’d bitten
off more than he could chew? He’d taken
Mary as his wife, become the step-father of God’s Son and known the adulation
of these rich foreigners ... but now the Child was under a death threat: a
danger against which he was powerless!
I related what I
was hearing to what I could see on the road in front of me. Had the driver of the small car the same
misgivings of Joseph? Did he now wonder
whether he’d bitten off more than he could chew? Had he made a mistake when he estimated the
speed of the vehicle he was trying to overtake?
Would he make it, or would he have to pull back in an admission of
failure?
The preacher seemed
to be leading towards Jesus’ own possible thoughts years later, as He faced the
opposition of the Pharisees to His ministry, and suffered the declining
experiences of betrayal and arrest, desertion by His friends and not one but
three trials, before torture and a painful execution. However, the sermon actually focussed on an
apparent contradiction, when Jesus said to His disciples, “I have told you
these things so that in me you may have peace.
In this world you will have trouble.”
(John 16:33). The speaker
refrained from singing, as he quoted the Fred Astaire song, “There may be
troubles ahead ...”
I recalled some
wise words that had been given to me by my Rector many years ago, when I was
going through one of life’s many distressing phases. Basically his advice amounted to this. “It may be tough for you at the moment, but
one day you will look back on this time and, as a result of what you’re going
through now, you will be able to help others as they suffer in the same way.” Only weeks ago, I found myself in just such a
situation. I was able to share my
experiences with a friend in need, and pray with him as he now trod the same
path that I once had. Those wise words had
proved true for me.
A popular hymn
begins, “I do not know what lies ahead, the way I cannot see; yet One stands
near to be my guide, He’ll show the way to me.”
We do well to remember these thoughts when we pass through times of
uncertainty; that our Lord guaranteed that, through His Holy Spirit, He would
be with us always.