Out of Tribulation PAUL O. NAFE          In defining the word "tribulation," the Oxford English Dictionary gives, "A condition of great affliction, oppression, or misery;" and Webster adds, "A trouble; trial." With these definitions in thought, the passage in Acts which says that "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God," affords little consolation to the average person. He believes there is Scriptural authority for holding that sickness and adversity are visited on him by a severe Deity; and, indeed, some persons, finding themselves enjoying a somewhat better sense of health than that apparently enjoined by the Scriptures, have resorted to physical self-punishment, fasts, and the like, in order to propitiate a jealous creator, seeking thus to insure for themselves eternal life "beyond," as joyful as their earthly experiences have been sad. Hence the "long face" became known as the pious face.          The old order changeth, however, for the leaven of Truth is at work; and now we may hear the happy little child telling us that the Father must have wanted us to rejoice, else He would not have commanded us to do it so often as He has done in the Good Book. For the sake of illustration, however, let us look a little farther into the meaning of the word "tribulation." Coleridge gave us a useful suggestion when he pointed out that "to get the full sense of a word we should first present to our minds the visual image that forms its primary meaning." With this helpful thought uppermost, let us examine this word "tribulation," for it appears that a misinterpretation of it has brought unhappiness to many.          Let us take a mental journey back through the ages and arrive, just at harvest time, at the quaint little farm of the Roman husbandman. He has cut his wheat; it has been thoroughly dried, and the sheaves have been undone and spread over the threshing floor. He has hitched the oxen to his tribulum, which was a cumbersome sledge constructed of rough, heavy timbers, studded with jagged teeth of stone or iron. This tribulum was dragged round and round over the wheat on the threshing floor, twisting, rubbing, and tearing it, until the grains were freed and found their way to the floor. After this primitive rubbing and mangling process, the straw was gathered up and carried out, and the chaff was winnowed or fanned away, leaving only the clean grains of wheat.          Trench has pointed out that the Latin word tribulatio, in its primary significance, expressed this method of threshing; but that an early Christian writer appropriated the term to set forth a more glorious lesson, one which we in later years unfortunately seem to have lost sight of, namely, the analogy of distress and adversity coming as the appointed means to separate in us the chaff from the wheat, — that is, to free us from the temporal, material, sinful, leaving only the enduring, spiritual, and Christlike, "better fitting us," as Trench puts it, "for heavenly garner."          George Wither, a poet of the seventeenth century, had received a beautiful unfoldment of the meaning behind the word "tribulation" when he wrote: — Until from us the straw of worldly treasure, Till all the chaff of empty pleasure, Yea, till His flail upon us He doth lay, To thresh the husk of this our flesh away . . . We shall not up to highest wealth aspire, — But then we shall; and that is my desire.          It is with this clarified vision of the salutary influence of tribulation that we can, with increased understanding, take the admonition that "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God," and realize that it is not an unwelcome threat, carrying with it necessary suffering and sorrow, but one that brings a loving promise. We can know that through much threshing, purifying, refining, we shall lose the false sense of life in matter, and become conscious of the allness of God, divine Love. Certainly Paul had this thought uppermost when he wrote to that much oppressed little band in Corinth, "I am filled with comfort, I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation." Mrs. Eddy wrote with equal clearness in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 66): "Through great tribulation we enter the kingdom. Trials are proofs of God's care."          It is to be remembered, however, that if we meddle with charged wires, not understanding the laws of electricity, we may get a shock. The intelligent person does not believe that the electricity has made a personal effort to punish him. He recognizes that the suffering he experiences from the shock has been brought on him through his lack of knowledge. The shock may teach him not to repeat the offense. Gradually he comes to know and abide by the so-called laws of electricity, turning them to his own useful purposes.          God, Love, does not send punishment or distress. Divine Principle can only operate harmoniously, and being Love, can do so only for good; but transgression of divine law is followed by suffering, just as surely as God is divine Principle. Just as soon as we realize that every indulgence of the passions, every violation of divine law or variation from what is absolutely right, calls down upon us the self-imposed experience of tribulation, just so soon shall we begin to cease sinning, and hence to cease from suffering. Was it not Paul, writing of Jesus, who said, "Yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered"? Our Leader covers this point beautifully when she tells us in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 107): "Christianity is not superfluous. Its redemptive power is seen in sore trials, self-denials, and crucifixions of the flesh. But these come to the rescue of mortals, to admonish them, and plant the feet steadfastly in Christ."          John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, gave a healing message for all time when he said of the Christ, "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." How glorious it is to know that in the threshing operation mortals are going through, the chaff of their fears, worries, and diseases, and of their business trials, — all of it is being blown away, destroyed, leaving them purer and better!          The loving words of the Master recorded by John, "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world," come to the tired heart with a great peace, which is turned to joy as we read, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne."          It is for us, therefore, to rejoice; and rejoicing, to overcome. Our problems come so that we may be enabled to remove a little more of the chaff of materiality, by turning us more completely toward the light of Truth. We have great reason to be grateful that it is through the loving operation of divine Principle we are thus chastened. Then, viewing the life of our beloved Leader, a life so full of trials and tribulations, let us rejoice with her that, as she says in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 143), "when these things cease to bless they will cease to occur."   "Out of Tribulation" by Paul O. Nafe The Christian Science Journal, August, 1923

 

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