Unsurprised By Suffering

Years ago, when my wife and I were expecting . . . And notice that I didn’t say, “when my wife and I were pregnant”. That seems to be a thing these days, with husbands and wives saying, “we’re pregnant”. And I know it’s intended as a way for the husband to express solidarity with his wife, and to communicate that he’s right there with her every step of the way, but no, I’m sorry, fella. You are not pregnant. She is pregnant. She is the one who will be doing all the work for the next nine months. She is the one who will experience morning sickness, and swollen feet, and childbirth. So she is pregnant. Not you. OK, end of rant.

So as I was saying, when my wife and I were expecting, we had a lot of questions. And we came upon a helpful book, entitled “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”. It’s a huge bestseller, with sales of 43 million copies. It is the longest-running New York Times bestseller in history, and the publisher claims that it is read by 93% of pregnant women who consult a pregnancy book. The subtitle of the book is “America’s Pregnancy Bible”.

It has since produced several sequels: “What to Expect the First Year” and “What to Expect the Second Year”, and “What to Expect, the Toddler Years”. Because new parents also have lots of questions about their child’s development. There’s also this one for fathers: “What to Expect When Your Wife is Expanding”.

Now, why are these books so popular? What accounts for those amazing sales figures? Well, it’s simple. It’s right there in the title. People want to know what to expect. During pregnancy, a woman’s body goes through a lot of changes. I won’t go into detail, because the women who have borne children already know about them, and I suspect that most of the men feel that the less said about that the better.

But these books are hugely popular, because as a pregnant woman is experiencing one change after another over the course of nine months, she is asking herself, “Is this normal? Is what I am feeling and experiencing something that all pregnant mothers go through? Or is this something unusual, something that perhaps I should ask my doctor about?” In prior generations, when families tended to stay closer together, she might have asked her mother, or an aunt, but in today’s geographically fractured society, a book with answers to those questions has become a runaway bestseller.

And we all want to know what to expect as we go through the various phases of life, don’t we? There are books for parents of teenagers. Books for young people going off to college. Books for newlyweds. And books for people who are navigating a personal crisis: a divorce, or a serious illness, or bankruptcy, or the death of a loved one. We all want to know what to expect, and whether what we are experiencing is normal for people like us, people who are going through what we are going through. Because then we know how we should respond to it. What we’re experiencing may be difficult and painful, but if know that it’s normal, that knowledge helps us to regulate our emotions and respond appropriately.

Which brings us to today’s text, in which Peter is addressing a similar issue. Those to whom he is writing are suffering persecution for their faith. This is something new to them, something they haven’t experienced before. If they came from Judaism, they didn’t experience persecution, because Judaism was an accepted and officially protected religion in the Roman empire. And if they came from paganism, and formerly worshiped one or more of the Roman deities, they would have fit right in with everyone around them. But as Christians, they are now being persecuted.

And so he begins this section with the words, “Dear friends, do not be surprised”. Surprised at what? “. . . do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” (1 Peter 4:12) And so he acknowledges that they are going through a “fiery ordeal”, a severe trial. He doesn’t minimize their suffering. But the fact that this is happening, Peter tells them, is not surprising, or strange, or unusual. On the contrary, this is normal. Painful, yes. Unwelcome, certainly. But not unexpected.

Why did Peter need to say this? Why did Peter need to say, “do not be surprised”? Because they were surprised! They were not expecting this! It wasn’t what they thought they signed up for. To be shunned, and attacked, and persecuted for their faith in Christ; to lose jobs, and friends, and possessions; to be thrown into jail, or worse — this was not what they anticipated, not what they imagined a life following Christ would look like. And so when these things happened, simply because they believed that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead, and that he was the Lord and Savior of the world — when these things happened to them, they weren’t prepared. Instead, they were shocked and dismayed.