“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” Matthew 4:1

By any human measure, Jesus’ life was an abject failure. 

It wasn’t much of a start: born in a barn and raised in the backwoods of Israel by a carpenter, but he could have made a decent life out of it. He could have taken over the family business, and maybe, with a little luck, he could have landed a well-connected client and seen some real success. 

Instead, he left that all behind to become an itinerant preacher. 

That started out alright: he found a few followers, had a spiritual experience at a river, but it quickly turned hard. No sooner did he hear the voice of God, “This is my beloved son…” then the “Spirit led him into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” 

This kind of disappointment became the pattern of his ministry. Crowds would gather for a free meal, but desert him when he started preaching (John 6). The sick would seek him out for healing, then forget he even existed once they got what they wanted (Luke 17). 

Over and over, success was followed by failure. By the end, he had nothing to show for his work. Even his closest friends didn’t believe him; they even betrayed him.

Sometimes I wonder about that last conversation between the very human Jesus and God the Father in the garden of Gethsemane. If you’ll allow me extreme poetic license, I imagine it going like this:

Jesus: “God, I’m so tired! Why do you keep allowing things to go so badly!? What am I supposed to do?”

The Father: “The time is close now; wait just a little longer, and your glory will be revealed!”

Jesus: “Yes, Father. But how? What am I supposed to do?”

The Father: “What you were born to do, suffering and die on a cross.”

Jesus: “Wait, that’s the plan!?”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. So many people I know feel that their life dreams have died. 

• They never dreamed of getting cancer this young.
• They never dreamed that their children would leave the faith.
• They never dreamed they would still be single.

Which of your dreams have died? Have you taken the time to grieve it? If not, I invite you to do so during this season of Lent. 

Even Jesus grieved the disaster that was his life — he wept in that garden. He wept for himself. He wept for his mother. He wept for his friends. He even wept for Judas. On the cross, he wept for the world: “Father,” he cried, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!” 

Grieving honors the reality of death. It’s a godly response to the catastrophe that is our broken world, and our broken lives. 

Here’s the deep mystery God revealed in Jesus Christ: God is in the habit of using death to accomplish good things. 

Which means I have to say something that is incredibly difficult to say. Something you might easily misunderstand. Please bear with me:

Jesus’ failure and death was the plan… to save the whole world. 

The death of our dreams, the suffering you and I endure, is the plan… to save our souls and deepen our faith. (Romans 5, James 1)

I’m not saying that God wants you or those you love to suffer. He hates it. He grieves it. He has shared it. He drank the cup of suffering to the dregs. 

And yet, mysteriously, the Spirit led Jesus into the desert where the devil lay in wait. And the Spirit led Jesus to the cross. God’s plan to save the whole world led Jesus from failure to death. And not even he experienced the glorious redemption of it all until after he resurrected from the dead. 

But then… Oh, then he experienced joy incommensurable to that suffering!

And so shall we!

So, “Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and see the Lord’s salvation that he will accomplish for you today! For the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again! The Lord will fight for you, and you need only be quiet” (Exodus 14:13-14).