9 Holy Week Lessons for Handling Hard TimesSample

He is Risen. He is Risen indeed.

There’s so much to celebrate on Easter Sunday, but one truth about Easter is helping me more than usual this year, and I hope it will help you in the face of uncertainty and suffering, too.

The resurrection tells me that the end of the story is a good one. It tells me that the end of my wife’s cancer will be a good one, too. Why?

Because of Easter, we know the end of the play.

One of the most meaningful lessons about Easter I have ever heard comes from my dear friend and professor from Wake Forest, Dr. Ralph Wood.

Dr. Wood may be my favorite professor ever. Over 30 years ago, in my very first class at Wake Forest (“Faith and Imagination”), he taught me the theology of C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkein’s works, telling us that their writing would be important in our adult life. This is long before Peter Jackson developed his epic Lord Of the Rings films, and long before The Chronicles of Narnia movies. We read all those works (and more) in one semester. He was demanding!

But more significantly, Dr. Wood was an embodiment of what following Jesus is like. He knows pain and is very open about the long suffering he and his family have endured at the hand of their son’s schizophrenia. And yet, Dr. Wood made me laugh more than any other teacher. He demanded more than any teacher I’ve had. And at the end of the day, he showed grace like no other.

Dr. Wood only wrote one book in his career. It examined Shakespeare's plays and the theology behind them. According to him, Shakespeare wrote only two types of plays: tragedies and comedies. All of them were in five acts, and in the third act, there was a moment that revealed which of the two types of plays viewers were watching. In Much Ado About Nothing, act three is where Hero’s name is cleared. From that point on, the audience knew that all would end well and this was a comedy. In act three of Romeo and Juliet, the fatal duel between Tybalt and Mercutio, Romeo's subsequent banishment, and Juliet's forced marriage to Paris point the audience to ensuing tragedy, ending in a whole lot of death.

The key to watching a Shakespeare play is to look in the third act for that turning point. Ironically, the term for the turning point is the “crux” (the crucial moment) of the play.

You have probably already made the connection here, but “crux” is the same root word for “crucial,” and also the same root word for “crucifix.”

Dr. Wood used to teach us that you can view life as a comedy or as a tragedy. His book title, The Comedy Of Redemption, says it all.

Friends, you and I live in a narrative that is a comedy and not a tragedy. No matter what uncertainty you’re facing, no matter what suffering you’re facing, all will end well because we have seen the crux of the story in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

I hope that truth is something you can hang onto in your dark times. I know it’s what I’m hanging onto. I’ve read the crux. I have read the end of the story. And no matter what cancer does to my family, the larger plot isn’t tragic at all. May that truth carry you today and all the way to the end of your story here on earth.

Prayer:

Lord, focus me on the cross and empty tomb. Make it the crux of my life. And grant me assurance that no matter what I face, I am not living a tragedy, but am secure in The Comedy Of Redemption.

Amen.