Purpose in the Ugly: An “After Easter” Meditation
April 8, 2026
“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” 2 Cor. 4:17
There are some situations in life that can only be described as ugly. Indeed, some are so ugly that we think there is no possible way that God could be in “this.” So (as good Christians) we look around to see how the enemy could have done it. But as we grow in God, we learn the difficult truth that some ugly situations are not only necessary but God is very much in them.
The last week of Christ’s life was ugly. He was betrayed by a close friend, mocked, spat on, humiliated, scourged/tortured, and crucified. He experienced all this ugliness not in a private back room but publicly. We need not watch the movie The Passion of the Christ to get some sense of the pain involved in it all, not just for Jesus but also for all who loved him and could only watch the unfolding events in horror.
Jesus subjected himself to the ugly because he knew it was temporary and there was purpose in it—the redemption of humankind. When Peter suggested the pain was unnecessary, Jesus heard the voice of an enemy trying to obstruct God’s purpose (Matt. 16:21-23). And again, when Peter tried to stop Jesus’ arrest, Jesus reminded him that the ugly path forward was necessary (Matt. 26:53). After the momentary suffering, resurrection would come, brand new life would begin, and we would enter heaven’s courts as “children of God.”
Like Jesus, Joseph in the Old Testament, endured the ugly. He was betrayed by his brothers, enslaved, falsely accused, and unjustly imprisoned for the ugly crime of rape. Many years later, he would look back at it all without bitterness, humbled by the thought that God had used the ugly in his life to bring salvation to nations (Gen. 50:20).
We will all go through our share of ugly situations—betrayals, divorces, heartbreaking losses, and victimizations of some kind. But, on this side of Easter, we must never stop looking up and believing that God who allowed it all, could be up to something much bigger than we can see. Let’s trust him through it.
How are you dealing with the ugly?