Biblical Resources for Sufferers and for Those Who Observe Their Suffering

Hugh Hewitt has posed two provocative questions to the theologians who regularly contribute to his newest blog:

What portions of Scripture are most relevant to the people who have lost family, friends, and financial security to Katrina and now Rita, and why?

What portions of Scripture are most relevant to those who have been watching, but for whom suffering is far removed, and why?

They're worthy questions for any thoughtful person of faith to tackle. Of course, they're inextricably connected. Whether we are the ones suffering or the ones observing the suffering of others, people who have been taught to believe that God is both omnipotent (all powerful) and utterly compassionate will ask, "Why? Why does tragedy, especially tragedies of massive proportions, befall good people? And what does the revealed Word of God, the Bible, have to say about these questions?"

Even the Old Testament figure of Job, a man of such utter faithfulness that God bragged about him, asked why he was undergoing terrible trials.

The person of faith may be tempted to be facile in the use of religious platitudes in the face of tragedy. We're inclined to offer flip responses that may reflect our discomfort with difficult questions more than it does authentic trust in God.

But the Bible counsels against facile answers in the face of tragedy. In that same book of Job, three of his friends listen for seven days to Job's complaints and laments. He wonders why his children have all been killed, why he has lost his property, and why he is afflicted with a painful disease. He wonders where God is in all this.

Job's friends would have been better off to simply listen to him, allowing him to "vent," as is said these days. If they'd been better friends, that's exactly what they would have done. Had they been people of stronger faith, they wouldn't have presumed to be able to explain why Job was enduring these horrors.

Instead, thinking themselves pious, the friends offered easy explanations, suggesting that Job had brought his suffering on himself. Job was able to successfully refute their arguments and in the end, God Himself chastises the "friends" for being so quick to "defend" Him and their religious belief system, that they maligned Job and spoke untruths about Him.

One of the first things we must be able to do, whether we're the victims or the observers of tragedy, is to be able to say, "I don't know. I don't know why God allowed this. I don't know if this is part of God's plan. I don't know how this will turn out."

But, whether we are tragedy's victims or observers, we can also affirm that God stands with those who suffer. How do we know that? A passage of Scripture on which I preached my Sunday message today tells us how. It describes the depths of God's passion for us, as seen in Jesus Christ:

...though he was in the form of God, [He] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:6-8)

The passage also goes on to affirm this suffering Savior's ultimate triumph over sin and death and therefore, His ability to give us hope beyond our tragedies, beyond even our deaths:

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11)

The follower of Jesus Christ always lives already/not yet lifestyle. Believers in Christ are already part of His kingdom. We live in the assurance that the risen Jesus Christ is with us and we are with Christ always. For us, eternity has already begun.

But we also know that, for the present, we see, as Paul puts it in the New Testament, through a glass darkly. Until either we die and enter the presence of God or the risen Christ returns to earth, we will be subject to the same difficulties that afflict the rest of the human race and that once killed Christ Himself.

We're empowered to keep living each day in the light of eternity by the presence of God in our lives, the Holy Spirit sent to all His followers by Jesus. The New Testament affirms that even when we are overtaken by the hard mysteries of life, believers in Christ can turn to God and enjoy a communion that goes beyond speech. Paul writes:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27)

God has the backs of all who place themselves in His hands. I might doubt that affirmation were it not for the fact that the one who makes it, the first-century preacher Paul, went through more suffering, especially suffering for his faith, than most of us could imagine enduring. Even Job, at the end of the book that recounts his woes, is able to affirm his unshakeable faith in God, an affirmation that encourages millions even today.

Recently, I spoke with a friend whose sister had suddenly died. My friend is a person who believes in Jesus Christ. The members of his extended family don't believe. "I want to tell you something," he said. "Faith makes all the difference. I tried to tell my family that it was possible to hope. But I might as well have been speaking a different language. Ever since this happened, I have felt God's presence. It made me so sad to see that wasn't true for the rest of my family."

We're fortunate that God has given us His Word to face life's tough times. It reminds us of His power, His passion for us, and the history of His interaction with ordinary people like us. It is God's indispensable resource for those searching for hope.

For victims and observers of suffering alike, both the Old Testament book of Job and the fabulous New Testament book of First Peter, which addresses the suffering being endured by Christian believers in Asia Minor, can offer great comfort, encouragement, and hope. I think every believer would do well to read these two books at least once a year, fortifying themselves with God's promises as they face life's realities.

A Biblical passage to which I constantly turn in difficult times is Romans 8:31-39, where Paul writes:

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This passage reminds us that God doesn't promise that suffering will go away. But He does promise to stand with us when we suffer and that one day, He will allow us to supplant our suffering, living in eternity with Him.

There are several important passages that the observers of tragedy should remember, each one capable of acting as divine antidotes to very earthly impulses we may entertain when seeing others suffer.

The first impulse needing to be counteracted is our penchant for limiting our compassion for the suffering. "That's terrible," we may say. "But it's not in my country, my state, my city, my neighborhood, my family."

Jesus once famously encountered a man who wanted to nail down specifically what God's Word and Jesus Himself meant when both commanded, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." "Ah," the man wondered, "but who exactly is my neighbor?" Jesus' response was one of His greatest parables, that of the Good Samaritan:

Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’ (Luke 10:25-37)

Our neighbor is whoever has a need. If that need is made known to us, we're called to care and do what we can to bring them relief, whether they live in New Orleans or Indonesia.

The second impulse that needs to be counteracted is our penchant for resorting to pious expressions, rather than actually becoming involved in relieving others' suffering. It's easier to say sympathetic things than it is, for example, to donate to relief efforts. And it's easire to donate to relief efforts than it is to support or get involved in an actual relief team.

We Christians believe that we're saved from sin and death by our faith in Jesus Christ. But, the New Testament book of James also reminds us that if we're not engaged in the works of a loving, living faith, our faith may be no more than talk. God didn't stay ensconced in heaven and send a Hallmark card to prove His love for us. Instead, He became one of us and suffered for us and died for us before rising for us. Christians, secure in the awareness that they belong to God forever, can dare to move beyond perfunctory expressions of sympathy for the suffering and the needy and, in the power of God, lend a helping hand or a compassionate shoulder.

In the New Testament book of James, we find a passage that deals with this issue:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. (James 2:14-17)

A third impulse that may arise in we observers of others' suffering is the inclination to think that the suffering are only getting what they deserve. Jesus once confronted people who were wagging their tongues in judgment over people who had died in tragic circumstances:

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’ (Luke 13:1-5)

Jesus' point? Everyone of is subject to the vicissitudes of life. We have no control over hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, or the actions of others. But we can decide whether we will walk with God or away from God. Those who repent are those who have decided to turn away from selfishness, from sin, from self-reliance and to instead, no matter what, depend on the God Who has revealed His power and His passion in Jesus, Who died and rose for us.

Those who observe tragedy befalling others are clearly called to move beyond observation to active involvement in relieving others' suffering. It's precisely what I hope others would offer me if they saw me enduring tragedy. Each of the passages above point us to Jesus' simple and overlooked Golden Rule: Do to others as you would want them to do to you.

One final passage, one that I share with the families of those who have died, seems appropriate. I believe that it's an important Biblical resource to recall whether we suffer--which all of us do at varying levels in our lives--or we observe suffering and seek, in response to God's love in Christ, to help the sufferers. Paul, in this passage. was speaking to a group of first-century Christians who were discounting the notion of a bodily resurrection, saying that Jesus' resurrection was only a symbolic myth, and that our faith in Christ is a license for doing what we want now, even if the things we choose to do fail to reflect love for God or others. Paul writes:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (First Corinthians 15:12-26)

Life is full of mysteries we cannot explain. Suffering is one of the greatest of these mysteries. The hope for eternity that Christ gives all who believe in Him also gives us the encouragement we need to face life's mysteries. That hope also gives us the certainty we need to be unafraid about loving others, to encourage them, to help them, and so to both positively change this world and to point others to the better world that is the inheritance of all believers in Christ.

[You may also be interested in reading these posts on related questions:
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent, Part 1
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent, Part 2
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent, Part 3
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent, Part 4
The Light of the World!]