[Below are reflections on my quiet time with God for today. It should be made clear that the words written by the apostle Peter on which I reflect here don't apply to governments, who have the responsibility of protecting their citizens, although I think it does apply to those who serve in government who confess faith in Jesus Christ. Peter's words apply to anyone who claims to follow Christ and who is part of His body, the Church. To see how I approach Quiet Time, see here.]
Look: “...if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” (1 Peter 2:20b-23)
Later in this letter, Peter will tell the Christians of Asia Minor, then facing rejection for their faith in Christ, out of reverence for Christ, to “...Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” (1 Peter 3:15-16)
But in the verses from chapter 2, Peter is making it clear just how costly and how hard it is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. It may mean that we suffer for doing good, things like loving our neighbor or sharing Christ with them. When our faith engenders criticism, rejection, or even persecution, we’re to always be prepared to explain the bases for our hope in Christ, but, like our Savior, never retaliate. That's true even when we're slandered, ridiculed, marginalized, or harmed. We’re to simply place ourselves and our witness for Christ in the hands of the Father to Whom Jesus entrusted Himself.
Listen: This passage causes me to reflect on the ways in which I have “retaliated” against people who have criticized me. I fear that sometimes, I’ve gone beyond simply staking out my position, explaining my faith in Christ or where it has led me, instead, attacking others. Sometimes the “attacks” were so subtle that only God and I know about it. But I can’t live by a “no harm, no foul” ethos.
Retaliation is not of Christ. He faithfully bore suffering, refusing to meet fire with fire, though nobody in history had more reason to retaliate against those who falsely accused Him (or more power to retaliate) than Christ. By refusing to strike back and instead, submitting to the Father, He was able to fulfill His mission of dying and rising for the rest of us who deserve punishment and death for our sins. My call is to trust in the Father Who saw Jesus through and raised Him up on Easter. Through my faith in Jesus, I can trust that the Father will, on the last day, raise me from the dead and give me life in eternity.
Response: Forgive me, God, for relying on anything other than You and for wanting to counter-attack, prove others wrong, or secure a superior position.
Help me to follow Christ confidently, but without arrogance.
Help me to be able always to share my hope in Christ and my points of view rooted in Christ.
Help me to admit when I’ve been wrong.
Help me also not to retaliate, not to be hostile, not to engage in behavior or words that dishonor You or the cause of the Gospel.
Today especially, help me to remember to seek Your wisdom for all I say and do so that I can give You glory and not give any human being a rational, sustainable reason for rejecting Christ. In His name I pray. Amen
Showing posts with label suffering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suffering. Show all posts
Monday, October 22, 2018
Friday, June 05, 2015
Does God decide how much we can handle, then unload on us? NO
The subject of this picture came up at our church's Bible study on Tuesday. The picture appeared on Facebook on Thursday.
The saying on the poster is a good antidote to one of the stupid, unbiblical things that people say at funeral visitations. You know the one I mean. People say, "God doesn't give you more than you can handle."
What a lot of rot!
God isn't sitting in heaven figuring the amount of burdens and griefs He knows that we can bear, then dolloping them out to us accordingly.
Griefs and burdens come to us because this is a fallen and imperfect world. This isn't heaven.
God doesn't like the burdens of sin and grief and death we have. That's why He came into the world in Christ to defeat and destroy the power of sin and evil over those who trust in Christ.
But, in this world, we still will grieve and suffer and die.
We inherited the condition of alienation from God and others when we were born. That condition of alienation is what the Bible calls sin. (From this condition, we commit sins.)
So, until we die, we remain susceptible to the pains and griefs of this world. And we die.
But, God's Word tells us that "...the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23).
Hope for an eternal life free from death and strength for this life come as free gifts to all who repent and believe in Christ.
God doesn't give you the things you have to bear. It's living in this world that does that and there is no limit to what suffering might come to you or to any of us. No one is exempt.
However much suffering this world brings to us, if we take the scarred hand of Jesus, God will help us bear it, and eventually, into the resurrection living Christ has secured for His people.
[UPDATE, a further thought: The apostle Paul does write in 1 Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it." This may be where the "God won't give you more than you can bear" nonsense started.
Here, Paul is addressing temptation, tests of one's faith, which may be rooted in our own desires or in suffering. But, in either case, Paul is talking about the temptation that may come in any situation to abandon trust in the God we know in Christ. When such temptation happens, Paul says, God will not let you be tempted beyond your capacity to endure, as you rely on Christ. And, this is the part I love, he says that God will give escape hatches for those tempted to abandon the faith.
This text differs from the common funeral home saying too, because temptation, the subject of the 1 Corinthians passage, does not come from God, any more than suffering does. James 1:13-14 teaches us: "When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed."
God does test us, so that our faith may be strengthened. And He may even use the temptations meted out by the devil, the world, and our sinful selves, to do so. But if God tests and refines us through temptations, we can say to the temptation what Joseph said to his brothers, who had once sold him into slavery, an action that ultimately led Joseph to a position of authority from which he saved hundreds of thousands of lives, "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good..." (Genesis 50:20).]
[Thanks to Terri, a member of the first parish I served as pastor, for posting the picture which dovetailed with a conversation we'd had surrounding the Old Testament book of Job just two days before.]
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
Suffering and the Christian
[This was prepared to be shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, this past Sunday, June1.]
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
“I can see that this is coming as something of a surprise to you.”
Those were the words spoken to me by a cardiologist four years ago, after he’d told me that I’d had a heart attack that destroyed 40% of my heart.
I was surprised.
Actually I was shocked.
I had none of the so-called risk factors. And I had tried to take reasonably good care of myself over the years. But a heart attack had come anyway.
When I look back on the events of that June four years ago, though--the 3:00 in the morning trip to a hospital ER in excruciating pain, the news that Superman (how I’d always thought of myself health-wise) had, of all things, heart disease--I wonder why I was surprised.
Did I think that I was exempt from the human condition?
Yes, I think that I did.
I think, in fact, that we all entertain that delusion sometimes. We rubberneck Interstate accidents with two thoughts coming to the fore at the same time: “It could have been me.” And, “That’s what happens to other people; not me.”
At one level, we are aware of our vulnerability to suffering and pain and death.
At another, we live in denial of our vulnerability, of our humanity.
But we live in a fallen and imperfect world. We are born with the fatal of condition of inborn sin, inborn alienation from God, inborn separation from the source of life. That must, inevitably, lead to suffering and death for every human being who draws breath on this earth.
Jesus raised His friend Lazarus from the dead, but eventually, Lazarus would die again, because there can be no resurrection to eternal life with God as Jesus won on Easter Sunday until we all cross the the threshold of death as Jesus did on Good Friday. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead as a sign that He (and He alone as God in the flesh) has power over life and death. But Lazarus still had to die again.
In other words, none of us is exempt from suffering.
Now, it’s easy for Christians to accept that truth when it applies to the the non-believing world. After all, non-believers haven’t trusted in the grace and promises of the crucified and risen Jesus. They haven’t taken Jesus up on His offer to be with them always, to give them life and that abundantly, to hear and act on their prayers. But the notion that no one is exempt from suffering is a hard pill for Christians to accept about Christians, especially themselves.
When cartoonist Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts and Charlie Brown, learned that he had cancer, he was dumbfounded. “How could God have let this happen this to me?” he asked friends, according to a documentary I once watched on PBS. “I taught Sunday School for years.”
His reaction isn’t unique. To a greater or lesser extent, probably every Christian has wondered about why God has allowed their suffering--be it physical, relational, emotional--when they’ve tried so hard to be faithful.
The book of 1 Peter, from which today’s second lesson is drawn, takes on the question of human suffering, particularly the suffering of those who trust in the God revealed in Jesus Christ. It does so, in fact, more than any other book in the New Testament: 42 times in the 27 books of the New Testament a word which can be translated as suffering or sufferings appears; 12 of those times occur in the book of 1 Peter!
As we’ve mentioned before, the apostle Peter wrote this letter to be circulated among the churches in first-century Asia Minor, a region that basically encompasses today’s Turkey.
From the outset of the letter, Peter makes clear that he’s going to deal with the question of sufferings--and he always uses the plural of that word--the sufferings of Christians. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we don’t know if the Christians in Asia Minor were undergoing official persecution or simply the shunning of friends. But Peter may have had in mind much more than dealing with the opposition of other people to the Asia Minor Christians‘ faith, explaining perhaps the plural usage.
Even if he didn’t have all human suffering in mind, his words on the subject have application to us all, irrespective of the source of our sufferings.
Please take a look at the opening verses of the lesson, 1 Peter 4:12-14 (page 852 in the sanctuary Bible). Peter writes:
Now, I think it’s clear that it refers to the metaphor of the purifying fire that would come to believers in the times before the Messiah, the Christ, fully established His kingdom. Psalm 66:10 refers to a moment of happiness and victory following a time of testing and pain when it says: “For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver.”
“Don’t be surprised!” Peter is telling us, “when suffering and difficulties come to you. As you bear them with Christ at your side, He is using those moments of suffering and challenge to forge your character, to draw Him closer to you.”
Jesus makes clear in the Gospels that God isn’t the author of our suffering. Satan is.
But God can use the suffering of Christians to deepen our fellowship with God in this life and to ready us for life in eternity.
And, Peter is telling us, Jesus Christ suffers with us.
And the One Who cried out from the cross, “My God, why have You forsaken me?” understands our questions, even when they can’t be answered on this side of eternity.
“Are you mad at God?” I asked a woman who was dying. “I was,” she said. “But I remember that Christ is always with me.”
The Christ Who suffered for you on His Good Friday is also the Christ Who will suffer with you on your Good Fridays, if you will let Him into your life.
That’s what Peter gets to in the latter part of our lesson, starting at 1 Peter 5:6:
One of those is referred to by Peter here when he says: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
The God made known to the world cares for you. Among all the little gods and godlets, the idols that have sprung from human imagination, in both ancient and modern times, none cared for human beings. The Greek and Roman idols from which Asia Minor Christians had been freed by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, might, in the mythology about them, manipulate or use humans or fall in love with them or abuse them. But they didn’t care for human beings.
God though, the God Who made you in His image, does care for you, even when you sin. Romans 5:8 says: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Give your sins, along with your cares and your sufferings to Jesus. He will bathe you in the grace and forgiveness of God. He will stand with you. He will stand for you in the halls of heaven as you pray.
In my thirty years as a pastor, it's been my observation that suffering can do one of two big things to people.
For those with shallow faith, the kind of faith that sees Jesus as a rabbit's foot, suffering alienates them from God and embitters them.
For others though, suffering acquaints them with their weakness...and with God's strength.
In Saint Matthew in Logan, where I last served, was a young woman named Sarah. She learned when she was thirteen that she had leukemia. She fought valiantly through seven years, two bone marrow transplants, and five relapses. Once, when she was in the ICU, observing how she held onto Christ, not as a good luck charm, but as her Lord, I asked if she would preach the following Easter Sunday. Later, she joked that since, at the time, she'd been under the influence of pain-killers, she'd said yes to my request. But it was a powerful moment for us all when Sarah did preach the following Easter and reminded us that our hope is in Christ alone.
You may remember that once, the apostle Paul was suffering from what he called "a thorn in the flesh." We have no idea what it was. But Paul reported that he asked God three different times to take it away. God said, "No. My grace is sufficient. I'm all you need." And God explained to Paul that His power is perfected in our weakness.
Why was Sarah's witness for Christ so powerful? Why are those who suffer and die with Christ by their sides always a more powerful presence in our lives than those who seem to have the world by the string and no need of God?
For one simple reason: It's only in those courageous enough to acknowledge their weakness and need and defeat in the face of life that the full power and grace and life of God can be seen!
It's only in those who understand their own vulnerability and humanity and mortality that the crucified and risen Jesus can be fully manifest and exercise His gracious Lordship over a life transformed by His love. (I hope someday to be such a person of faith!)
Suffering in this life shouldn’t surprise us. But, as we humble ourselves under the Lordship of Christ, we will be surprised by how He can carry us even through the valleys where death shadows us.
Paul, knowing that he would die for his faith in Christ after decades of sufferings and of fighting and wrestling with himself in order to stay faithful to the Lord Who had given forgiveness, life, and eternity to him as free gifts through Christ (the greatest struggles Christians face will be with themselves), wrote this to a young pastor named Timothy back in the first century: “...the time for my departure [my death] is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”
Peter's challenge us today is this: To own our weakness and so, let the power of Christ sustain us in this life and prepare us for the one to come. Amen
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
“I can see that this is coming as something of a surprise to you.”
Those were the words spoken to me by a cardiologist four years ago, after he’d told me that I’d had a heart attack that destroyed 40% of my heart.
I was surprised.
Actually I was shocked.
I had none of the so-called risk factors. And I had tried to take reasonably good care of myself over the years. But a heart attack had come anyway.
When I look back on the events of that June four years ago, though--the 3:00 in the morning trip to a hospital ER in excruciating pain, the news that Superman (how I’d always thought of myself health-wise) had, of all things, heart disease--I wonder why I was surprised.
Did I think that I was exempt from the human condition?
Yes, I think that I did.
I think, in fact, that we all entertain that delusion sometimes. We rubberneck Interstate accidents with two thoughts coming to the fore at the same time: “It could have been me.” And, “That’s what happens to other people; not me.”
At one level, we are aware of our vulnerability to suffering and pain and death.
At another, we live in denial of our vulnerability, of our humanity.
But we live in a fallen and imperfect world. We are born with the fatal of condition of inborn sin, inborn alienation from God, inborn separation from the source of life. That must, inevitably, lead to suffering and death for every human being who draws breath on this earth.
Jesus raised His friend Lazarus from the dead, but eventually, Lazarus would die again, because there can be no resurrection to eternal life with God as Jesus won on Easter Sunday until we all cross the the threshold of death as Jesus did on Good Friday. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead as a sign that He (and He alone as God in the flesh) has power over life and death. But Lazarus still had to die again.
In other words, none of us is exempt from suffering.
Now, it’s easy for Christians to accept that truth when it applies to the the non-believing world. After all, non-believers haven’t trusted in the grace and promises of the crucified and risen Jesus. They haven’t taken Jesus up on His offer to be with them always, to give them life and that abundantly, to hear and act on their prayers. But the notion that no one is exempt from suffering is a hard pill for Christians to accept about Christians, especially themselves.
When cartoonist Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts and Charlie Brown, learned that he had cancer, he was dumbfounded. “How could God have let this happen this to me?” he asked friends, according to a documentary I once watched on PBS. “I taught Sunday School for years.”
His reaction isn’t unique. To a greater or lesser extent, probably every Christian has wondered about why God has allowed their suffering--be it physical, relational, emotional--when they’ve tried so hard to be faithful.
The book of 1 Peter, from which today’s second lesson is drawn, takes on the question of human suffering, particularly the suffering of those who trust in the God revealed in Jesus Christ. It does so, in fact, more than any other book in the New Testament: 42 times in the 27 books of the New Testament a word which can be translated as suffering or sufferings appears; 12 of those times occur in the book of 1 Peter!
As we’ve mentioned before, the apostle Peter wrote this letter to be circulated among the churches in first-century Asia Minor, a region that basically encompasses today’s Turkey.
From the outset of the letter, Peter makes clear that he’s going to deal with the question of sufferings--and he always uses the plural of that word--the sufferings of Christians. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we don’t know if the Christians in Asia Minor were undergoing official persecution or simply the shunning of friends. But Peter may have had in mind much more than dealing with the opposition of other people to the Asia Minor Christians‘ faith, explaining perhaps the plural usage.
Even if he didn’t have all human suffering in mind, his words on the subject have application to us all, irrespective of the source of our sufferings.
Please take a look at the opening verses of the lesson, 1 Peter 4:12-14 (page 852 in the sanctuary Bible). Peter writes:
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.For years, some scholars thought that the phrase “fiery ordeal” referred to the Roman punishment of burning Christians to death. But Peter’s letter was written years before that form of punishment was instituted.
Now, I think it’s clear that it refers to the metaphor of the purifying fire that would come to believers in the times before the Messiah, the Christ, fully established His kingdom. Psalm 66:10 refers to a moment of happiness and victory following a time of testing and pain when it says: “For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver.”
“Don’t be surprised!” Peter is telling us, “when suffering and difficulties come to you. As you bear them with Christ at your side, He is using those moments of suffering and challenge to forge your character, to draw Him closer to you.”
Jesus makes clear in the Gospels that God isn’t the author of our suffering. Satan is.
But God can use the suffering of Christians to deepen our fellowship with God in this life and to ready us for life in eternity.
And, Peter is telling us, Jesus Christ suffers with us.
And the One Who cried out from the cross, “My God, why have You forsaken me?” understands our questions, even when they can’t be answered on this side of eternity.
“Are you mad at God?” I asked a woman who was dying. “I was,” she said. “But I remember that Christ is always with me.”
The Christ Who suffered for you on His Good Friday is also the Christ Who will suffer with you on your Good Fridays, if you will let Him into your life.
That’s what Peter gets to in the latter part of our lesson, starting at 1 Peter 5:6:
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. [Even if this life is filled with the suffering which may come to human beings at any time in this world, we have the hope of resurrection life with Christ, where sufferings will be done and joy will be complete.] Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.Listen: Following Jesus is not an insurance policy against the realities of this life. “In this world,” Jesus says to those who follow Him, “you will have trouble...” If that’s a promise we’d rather not have from Jesus, remember that there are other promises that go with that one.
One of those is referred to by Peter here when he says: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
The God made known to the world cares for you. Among all the little gods and godlets, the idols that have sprung from human imagination, in both ancient and modern times, none cared for human beings. The Greek and Roman idols from which Asia Minor Christians had been freed by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, might, in the mythology about them, manipulate or use humans or fall in love with them or abuse them. But they didn’t care for human beings.
God though, the God Who made you in His image, does care for you, even when you sin. Romans 5:8 says: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Give your sins, along with your cares and your sufferings to Jesus. He will bathe you in the grace and forgiveness of God. He will stand with you. He will stand for you in the halls of heaven as you pray.
In my thirty years as a pastor, it's been my observation that suffering can do one of two big things to people.
For those with shallow faith, the kind of faith that sees Jesus as a rabbit's foot, suffering alienates them from God and embitters them.
For others though, suffering acquaints them with their weakness...and with God's strength.
In Saint Matthew in Logan, where I last served, was a young woman named Sarah. She learned when she was thirteen that she had leukemia. She fought valiantly through seven years, two bone marrow transplants, and five relapses. Once, when she was in the ICU, observing how she held onto Christ, not as a good luck charm, but as her Lord, I asked if she would preach the following Easter Sunday. Later, she joked that since, at the time, she'd been under the influence of pain-killers, she'd said yes to my request. But it was a powerful moment for us all when Sarah did preach the following Easter and reminded us that our hope is in Christ alone.
You may remember that once, the apostle Paul was suffering from what he called "a thorn in the flesh." We have no idea what it was. But Paul reported that he asked God three different times to take it away. God said, "No. My grace is sufficient. I'm all you need." And God explained to Paul that His power is perfected in our weakness.
Why was Sarah's witness for Christ so powerful? Why are those who suffer and die with Christ by their sides always a more powerful presence in our lives than those who seem to have the world by the string and no need of God?
For one simple reason: It's only in those courageous enough to acknowledge their weakness and need and defeat in the face of life that the full power and grace and life of God can be seen!
It's only in those who understand their own vulnerability and humanity and mortality that the crucified and risen Jesus can be fully manifest and exercise His gracious Lordship over a life transformed by His love. (I hope someday to be such a person of faith!)
Suffering in this life shouldn’t surprise us. But, as we humble ourselves under the Lordship of Christ, we will be surprised by how He can carry us even through the valleys where death shadows us.
Paul, knowing that he would die for his faith in Christ after decades of sufferings and of fighting and wrestling with himself in order to stay faithful to the Lord Who had given forgiveness, life, and eternity to him as free gifts through Christ (the greatest struggles Christians face will be with themselves), wrote this to a young pastor named Timothy back in the first century: “...the time for my departure [my death] is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”
Peter's challenge us today is this: To own our weakness and so, let the power of Christ sustain us in this life and prepare us for the one to come. Amen
Monday, February 03, 2014
Prayer (Part 4: Unanswered Prayer?)
[This was prepared to be shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio on February 2, 2014.]
Luke 11:9-10
Mark 14:34-36
As followers of Jesus Christ, we Christians confess faith in a God of promises.
The Bible, the book we hold to be the perfect Word of God, uniquely inspired by the Holy Spirit, is filled with God’s promises, many already fulfilled, many yet to be.
Some of the promises God makes are wonderful.
Some aren’t pleasant.
And some can cause us confusion, even challenging our faith in God.
One promise that may sometimes comfort us, but other times confuse us, an be found in Luke 11:9-10. Jesus makes this promise about prayer: "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
These words of promise seem to come by way of amplifying what Jesus teaches us to pray in the seventh petition of what we call the Lord’s Prayer. In the sixth, you'll remember from last Sunday, Jesus says to pray: “...lead us not into temptation.” And while the New International Version which makes up our pew Bibles, omits it, many of the most reputable translations have decided that the ancient manuscripts are right when they quote Jesus as teaching us the seventh petition: “...but deliver us from the evil one.”
In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes: “We pray in this petition...that our heavenly Father would deliver us from every type of evil--whether it affects our bodies or souls, property or reputation...”
But, this is where it gets confusing.
Generations of faithful believers in Jesus have prayed this prayer, yet evils of all kinds have befallen them and the people for whom they’ve prayed.
In the Name of Jesus, people beg for blessings, but loved ones die, jobs are lost, reputations are subjected to destructive gossip, wars rage.
In telling us to “ask...seek...knock,” has God made a promise He cannot keep or is unwilling to keep?
What are we to think and believe when the things for which we devoutly pray don’t come to pass?
I’ve called this sermon “the mystery of unanswered prayer.” But, in a way, this is a misnomer. Before I preached on this same topic in one of my previous parishes, a man asked me, “Is this the Sunday you’re going to talk about unanswered prayer?” I said it was. He smiled and asked, “Is there such a thing?”
It was a rhetorical question because, of course, for the believer in Jesus who brings her or his petitions to Jesus, there are no unanswered prayers.
But there are answers to prayers we don’t like, that bring pain to us or to those we care about. There are many things that I hope God will make clear to us when we stand before Him after those of us who have believed in Jesus are resurrected from the dead. In the meantime, we have our questions.
One thing that should comfort us when we confront prayers not being answered as we hope they will be is the experience of Jesus Himself. Look please, at Mark 14:34 (page 711 in the pew Bibles). Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane, where He’s gone to pray. He tells the disciples: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death...”
Jesus, in a sense, always stood in two worlds. As a human being, Jesus voluntarily experienced all the difficulties that we human beings experience--physical pain, relational rejection, death.
Isaiah 53:3, written at least six centuries before Jesus’ birth had foretold of Jesus that He would be, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” It was essential for our salvation for Jesus to be acquainted with the grief that comes to every human being. It was essential because only the death of a perfect unblemished Savior could be a sacrifice pure enough to free us from the death sentence you and I deserve.
So, one of the worlds in which Jesus lived was this world, the one in which you and I live, the world in which every baby who has ever been born has eventually, died. That’s why, as He faced suffering and death, Jesus was “exceedingly sorrowful.”
After asking His disciples to wait and watch while He went to pray, verse 35 says that Jesus “fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him.” “Father,” Jesus is begging, “deliver Me from evil. Deliver me from the cruel intentions of Satan, the evil one.”
Jesus, truly God, truly human, had led a sinless life. He had done everything God the Father had asked Him to do. Certainly, if anyone deserved to have their prayer request to be delivered from evil answered with a Yes, it was Jesus.
But look at what Jesus prays next, in verse 36: "Abba", Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."
You see, Jesus lived in another world as well as in this one. He lived also in the kingdom of God.
It’s the kingdom in which, if Jesus would be faithful to His call to die for us, He would rise into and live in for all eternity.
It’s the kingdom He came to bring to all who will turn from sin, submitting daily to the crucifixion of their old sinful selves, and placing themselves in the hands of Jesus--believing in Him--as trustingly as Jesus placed Himself in the hands of God the Father on the night He prayed in the garden.
And so, in the garden, from the perspective of this world, Jesus prayed, “Deliver us from evil.” But at the same time, as a citizen of the kingdom of God, He prayed, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
You and I are people of this world who live in the kingdom of God by faith in Christ. But we only vaguely understand the grand purposes of God, especially God’s purposes for our own lives. We see, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror.” Other translations say "in a mirror dimly" or "through a glass darkly."
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve prayed that friends and family be delivered from the evils accosting them--marital discord, cancer, job loss, bullying, whatever it might have been--only to see their suffering continue.
It’s only after own resurrections, beyond the gates of death, safely removed from the stranglehold that sin and death have over this world, that we will know God and God’s purposes completely, just as God already knows us completely.
It turns out that God the Father had an answer for Jesus’ prayer for deliverance from the immediate evils He faced that night in the garden. The answer was, “No.”
The reason for this NO is apparent now. Had Jesus been delivered from the threats of the Romans, Herod, Pilate, and the other conspirators that night, the moment God had long ago planned as the precise moment when the Savior would die and rise to give new and everlasting to those who repent for sin and believe in Jesus might have passed.
And having been allowed to cave into His understandable fears of suffering, rejection, and death and moved out of the will of God, Jesus Himself and all of us who depend on His death and resurrection to give us life, would have been delivered not from, but into, the hands of the evil one for all eternity.
In other words, the Father said, "No" to Jesus' prayer for protection from the immediate evils Jesus faced in order to say, "YES!" to protecting Jesus and us from the ultimate evil of eternal separation from God, literally from the fragmentation of God as God the Son separated from the God the Father and God the Spirit.
The people who were around Jesus at the time of His suffering and execution never would have guessed that God would bring good from His suffering and death. And I believe that God often says no to our prayers for protection from the immediate evils we perceive in order to say to yes to giving us protection from eternal evil.
I can’t pretend to know God’s will for our individual lives.
I don’t know why some people seem to suffer more than others.
Or why faithful people die at young ages.
Or others go through undeserved horrors in their personal lives.
But I do take great comfort and encouragement from the God of promise.
I’m strengthened by the promise of the risen Jesus when He says in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”
So, even now, as I try to live in this world and in eternity, too, I know that God is by my side, empowering my choices and decisions, affirming me when I take the hard and narrow path rather than the easy, wide path, helping me to love God and love others, giving me strength and hope!
And I look forward with great anticipation to that moment in eternity when Revelation 21:4 tells us that God “will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
By the way, earlier I didn’t share all of what Martin Luther said about the seventh petition of the Lord’s Prayer, "but deliver us from evil."
He says that we’re to ask in this prayer not only for deliverance from the effects of evil on our bodies, souls, property, and reputations in this life, but also pray that “at last, when our hour of death comes, [our heavenly Father] would grant us a blessed end to our earthly lives, and graciously take us from this world of sorrow to Himself in heaven.” Luther is pointing to the ultimate deliverance from evil we all should crave.
And knowing that, through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus, our residence in that world is guaranteed can give us a new passion for fearless living in this world. Unafraid about our ultimate destination, we can be generous in loving and giving and spreading the good news of Jesus and fighting for justice the poor and despised.
After all, death is not the worst thing that can happen to a Christian!
But knowing about our ultimate deliverance--resurrection life with God--can also give us a new sense of understanding when our prayers aren’t answered as we want them to be. We know that God has a plan, even though we’re not in on its details.*
This is what Paul is getting at in Romans 8:18: “I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us.”
This side of the resurrection, God’s answers to our prayers will often baffle us.
They may even make us angry. And that's okay because you don't get angry with a God in Who you don't believe. Even our anger with God is, in a real sense, an expression of faith in God. And God is big enough to take our anger.
But we know that on whatever path God may call us to take in this life, He will be beside us always and that, as the cross and empty tomb of Jesus attest, He is committed to loving us into His kingdom, where, finally...the questions will be answered, the suffering will be ended, the tears will be no more, and we will be delivered from all evil. Amen
*By the way, I have learned that this fact is a lot easier said than lived. But I pray one day, I will trust God enough to truly and daily submit to His will to such an extent that I really do accept that He has a plan and that I don't need to know the details. As a Christian, I confess, that I'm only a recovering control freak. And my addiction to control--the impulse, the Bible tells us, to "be like God"--rears its ugly head all the time. God help me!
Luke 11:9-10
Mark 14:34-36
As followers of Jesus Christ, we Christians confess faith in a God of promises.
The Bible, the book we hold to be the perfect Word of God, uniquely inspired by the Holy Spirit, is filled with God’s promises, many already fulfilled, many yet to be.
Some of the promises God makes are wonderful.
Some aren’t pleasant.
And some can cause us confusion, even challenging our faith in God.
One promise that may sometimes comfort us, but other times confuse us, an be found in Luke 11:9-10. Jesus makes this promise about prayer: "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
These words of promise seem to come by way of amplifying what Jesus teaches us to pray in the seventh petition of what we call the Lord’s Prayer. In the sixth, you'll remember from last Sunday, Jesus says to pray: “...lead us not into temptation.” And while the New International Version which makes up our pew Bibles, omits it, many of the most reputable translations have decided that the ancient manuscripts are right when they quote Jesus as teaching us the seventh petition: “...but deliver us from the evil one.”
In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes: “We pray in this petition...that our heavenly Father would deliver us from every type of evil--whether it affects our bodies or souls, property or reputation...”
But, this is where it gets confusing.
Generations of faithful believers in Jesus have prayed this prayer, yet evils of all kinds have befallen them and the people for whom they’ve prayed.
In the Name of Jesus, people beg for blessings, but loved ones die, jobs are lost, reputations are subjected to destructive gossip, wars rage.
In telling us to “ask...seek...knock,” has God made a promise He cannot keep or is unwilling to keep?
What are we to think and believe when the things for which we devoutly pray don’t come to pass?
I’ve called this sermon “the mystery of unanswered prayer.” But, in a way, this is a misnomer. Before I preached on this same topic in one of my previous parishes, a man asked me, “Is this the Sunday you’re going to talk about unanswered prayer?” I said it was. He smiled and asked, “Is there such a thing?”
It was a rhetorical question because, of course, for the believer in Jesus who brings her or his petitions to Jesus, there are no unanswered prayers.
But there are answers to prayers we don’t like, that bring pain to us or to those we care about. There are many things that I hope God will make clear to us when we stand before Him after those of us who have believed in Jesus are resurrected from the dead. In the meantime, we have our questions.
One thing that should comfort us when we confront prayers not being answered as we hope they will be is the experience of Jesus Himself. Look please, at Mark 14:34 (page 711 in the pew Bibles). Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane, where He’s gone to pray. He tells the disciples: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death...”
Jesus, in a sense, always stood in two worlds. As a human being, Jesus voluntarily experienced all the difficulties that we human beings experience--physical pain, relational rejection, death.
Isaiah 53:3, written at least six centuries before Jesus’ birth had foretold of Jesus that He would be, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” It was essential for our salvation for Jesus to be acquainted with the grief that comes to every human being. It was essential because only the death of a perfect unblemished Savior could be a sacrifice pure enough to free us from the death sentence you and I deserve.
So, one of the worlds in which Jesus lived was this world, the one in which you and I live, the world in which every baby who has ever been born has eventually, died. That’s why, as He faced suffering and death, Jesus was “exceedingly sorrowful.”
After asking His disciples to wait and watch while He went to pray, verse 35 says that Jesus “fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him.” “Father,” Jesus is begging, “deliver Me from evil. Deliver me from the cruel intentions of Satan, the evil one.”
Jesus, truly God, truly human, had led a sinless life. He had done everything God the Father had asked Him to do. Certainly, if anyone deserved to have their prayer request to be delivered from evil answered with a Yes, it was Jesus.
But look at what Jesus prays next, in verse 36: "Abba", Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."
You see, Jesus lived in another world as well as in this one. He lived also in the kingdom of God.
It’s the kingdom in which, if Jesus would be faithful to His call to die for us, He would rise into and live in for all eternity.
It’s the kingdom He came to bring to all who will turn from sin, submitting daily to the crucifixion of their old sinful selves, and placing themselves in the hands of Jesus--believing in Him--as trustingly as Jesus placed Himself in the hands of God the Father on the night He prayed in the garden.
And so, in the garden, from the perspective of this world, Jesus prayed, “Deliver us from evil.” But at the same time, as a citizen of the kingdom of God, He prayed, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
You and I are people of this world who live in the kingdom of God by faith in Christ. But we only vaguely understand the grand purposes of God, especially God’s purposes for our own lives. We see, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror.” Other translations say "in a mirror dimly" or "through a glass darkly."
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve prayed that friends and family be delivered from the evils accosting them--marital discord, cancer, job loss, bullying, whatever it might have been--only to see their suffering continue.
It’s only after own resurrections, beyond the gates of death, safely removed from the stranglehold that sin and death have over this world, that we will know God and God’s purposes completely, just as God already knows us completely.
It turns out that God the Father had an answer for Jesus’ prayer for deliverance from the immediate evils He faced that night in the garden. The answer was, “No.”
The reason for this NO is apparent now. Had Jesus been delivered from the threats of the Romans, Herod, Pilate, and the other conspirators that night, the moment God had long ago planned as the precise moment when the Savior would die and rise to give new and everlasting to those who repent for sin and believe in Jesus might have passed.
And having been allowed to cave into His understandable fears of suffering, rejection, and death and moved out of the will of God, Jesus Himself and all of us who depend on His death and resurrection to give us life, would have been delivered not from, but into, the hands of the evil one for all eternity.
In other words, the Father said, "No" to Jesus' prayer for protection from the immediate evils Jesus faced in order to say, "YES!" to protecting Jesus and us from the ultimate evil of eternal separation from God, literally from the fragmentation of God as God the Son separated from the God the Father and God the Spirit.
The people who were around Jesus at the time of His suffering and execution never would have guessed that God would bring good from His suffering and death. And I believe that God often says no to our prayers for protection from the immediate evils we perceive in order to say to yes to giving us protection from eternal evil.
I can’t pretend to know God’s will for our individual lives.
I don’t know why some people seem to suffer more than others.
Or why faithful people die at young ages.
Or others go through undeserved horrors in their personal lives.
But I do take great comfort and encouragement from the God of promise.
I’m strengthened by the promise of the risen Jesus when He says in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”
So, even now, as I try to live in this world and in eternity, too, I know that God is by my side, empowering my choices and decisions, affirming me when I take the hard and narrow path rather than the easy, wide path, helping me to love God and love others, giving me strength and hope!
And I look forward with great anticipation to that moment in eternity when Revelation 21:4 tells us that God “will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
By the way, earlier I didn’t share all of what Martin Luther said about the seventh petition of the Lord’s Prayer, "but deliver us from evil."
He says that we’re to ask in this prayer not only for deliverance from the effects of evil on our bodies, souls, property, and reputations in this life, but also pray that “at last, when our hour of death comes, [our heavenly Father] would grant us a blessed end to our earthly lives, and graciously take us from this world of sorrow to Himself in heaven.” Luther is pointing to the ultimate deliverance from evil we all should crave.
And knowing that, through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus, our residence in that world is guaranteed can give us a new passion for fearless living in this world. Unafraid about our ultimate destination, we can be generous in loving and giving and spreading the good news of Jesus and fighting for justice the poor and despised.
After all, death is not the worst thing that can happen to a Christian!
But knowing about our ultimate deliverance--resurrection life with God--can also give us a new sense of understanding when our prayers aren’t answered as we want them to be. We know that God has a plan, even though we’re not in on its details.*
This is what Paul is getting at in Romans 8:18: “I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us.”
This side of the resurrection, God’s answers to our prayers will often baffle us.
They may even make us angry. And that's okay because you don't get angry with a God in Who you don't believe. Even our anger with God is, in a real sense, an expression of faith in God. And God is big enough to take our anger.
But we know that on whatever path God may call us to take in this life, He will be beside us always and that, as the cross and empty tomb of Jesus attest, He is committed to loving us into His kingdom, where, finally...the questions will be answered, the suffering will be ended, the tears will be no more, and we will be delivered from all evil. Amen
*By the way, I have learned that this fact is a lot easier said than lived. But I pray one day, I will trust God enough to truly and daily submit to His will to such an extent that I really do accept that He has a plan and that I don't need to know the details. As a Christian, I confess, that I'm only a recovering control freak. And my addiction to control--the impulse, the Bible tells us, to "be like God"--rears its ugly head all the time. God help me!
Friday, January 11, 2013
Why People Get Angry with God...and What We Should Do About It
People who believe in God sometimes get angry with God.
Exhibit A for this truth is a man whose story is told in the Old Testament portion of the Bible, Job. Job was a man whose faith even God bragged about. But when God allows a series of tragedies to happen to Job, Job gets mad at God.
Even in his anger with God though (and despite the stupid words of condemnation of Job gets from "friends," who think they're defending God), Job never stops believing in God.
If you believe in God or want to believe in God and you feel anger toward God, it's silly to not express that emotion to God.
That's because God knows what you're feeling and thinking already. Psalm 139:2-4 says: "You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways." God knows about your anger.
But why do we get mad at God?
Recently, my wife and I read How to Get Along with Almost Anyone by counseling therapist and college professor H. Norman Wright. He showed that one of the biggest reasons we human beings get angry at other human beings can be summed up in two words: Disappointed expectations.
It's true.
An employee expects a Christmas bonus never promised and it doesn't materialize.
A wife expects her husband's enthusiasm for her newest promotion at work even though they had never decided together that this would be a great move for their family.
Charlie Brown expects candy when he goes begging on Halloween night...and all he gets is a rock.
Sometimes our anger with others is warranted. But not if the person with whom we're angry doesn't share our expectations. When the other person hasn't promised what we expect of them, we've got no right to be mad at them!
So, what does this have to do with anger with God?
Just this: Sometimes our anger with God is based on the wrong expectations of a relationship with God. We misunderstand what benefits accrue to those who believe in God. That's why Job said accusingly to God, "...you destroy the hope of mortals. You prevail forever against them, and they pass away; you change their countenance, and send them away..." (Job 14:19-20).
Job seems to think that life is a kind meritocracy, that if a person worships and is faithful to God, works hard and plays by the rules, he or she will merit a smooth life.
But God never promises smooth lives to those who trust in Him.
When God came to the earth in the person of Jesus Christ, He said, "[God] makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45).
Faith in God doesn't give the faithful exemptions from the bad things that happen in this imperfect world.
The person who trusts in the God revealed to the whole world in Jesus Christ can expect that God will give them the forgiveness of their sins, the power of the Holy Spirit in making decisions in their lives, the certainty of a life untouched by tragedy after we, like Jesus, experience death and resurrection, and the unshakeable presence of God with us until this world no longer exists.
But faith in God isn't a rabbit's foot that makes the hard and inexplicable stuff of life go away.
Jesus warned His followers that they would even be persecuted for believing in Him. "In the world you will face persecution," He says, "But take courage; I have conquered the world!" (John 16:33).
We can expect an eternity of blessings from God. Those blessings begin in this world.
But sometimes we get angry with God because we have unfair expectations; we expect God to fulfill promises God has never made.
I hope that the reasons I have written this piece are obvious.
But, let's be clear: There are two reasons I have not had in writing this post.
1. I haven't written this post to impose guilt on people who may be feeling angry with God or to tell them to, "Snap out of it!" That's definitely not my goal.
I do ask you to take some time looking at the sources of your anger with God.
Then, spend some time getting to know God better.
The normative word from God and about God is the Bible. That's a great place to go to understand a bit better what the Creator of the universe and you can expect of one another when you follow Him. (For five tips on reading the Bible, go here.)
2. I haven't written this post for readers to send this link to friends whose griefs and anger with God are fresh as if to tell them, "Get over it!"
If you have a friend who's angry with God right now, the best thing for you to do is the opposite of what Job's friends did:
Remember, no one gets angry with a God in Whom they don't at least want to believe. God isn't afraid of believers' anger toward Him. You shouldn't be either.
Exhibit A for this truth is a man whose story is told in the Old Testament portion of the Bible, Job. Job was a man whose faith even God bragged about. But when God allows a series of tragedies to happen to Job, Job gets mad at God.
Even in his anger with God though (and despite the stupid words of condemnation of Job gets from "friends," who think they're defending God), Job never stops believing in God.
If you believe in God or want to believe in God and you feel anger toward God, it's silly to not express that emotion to God.
That's because God knows what you're feeling and thinking already. Psalm 139:2-4 says: "You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways." God knows about your anger.
But why do we get mad at God?
Recently, my wife and I read How to Get Along with Almost Anyone by counseling therapist and college professor H. Norman Wright. He showed that one of the biggest reasons we human beings get angry at other human beings can be summed up in two words: Disappointed expectations.
It's true.
An employee expects a Christmas bonus never promised and it doesn't materialize.
A wife expects her husband's enthusiasm for her newest promotion at work even though they had never decided together that this would be a great move for their family.
Charlie Brown expects candy when he goes begging on Halloween night...and all he gets is a rock.
Sometimes our anger with others is warranted. But not if the person with whom we're angry doesn't share our expectations. When the other person hasn't promised what we expect of them, we've got no right to be mad at them!
So, what does this have to do with anger with God?
Just this: Sometimes our anger with God is based on the wrong expectations of a relationship with God. We misunderstand what benefits accrue to those who believe in God. That's why Job said accusingly to God, "...you destroy the hope of mortals. You prevail forever against them, and they pass away; you change their countenance, and send them away..." (Job 14:19-20).
Job seems to think that life is a kind meritocracy, that if a person worships and is faithful to God, works hard and plays by the rules, he or she will merit a smooth life.
But God never promises smooth lives to those who trust in Him.
When God came to the earth in the person of Jesus Christ, He said, "[God] makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45).
Faith in God doesn't give the faithful exemptions from the bad things that happen in this imperfect world.
The person who trusts in the God revealed to the whole world in Jesus Christ can expect that God will give them the forgiveness of their sins, the power of the Holy Spirit in making decisions in their lives, the certainty of a life untouched by tragedy after we, like Jesus, experience death and resurrection, and the unshakeable presence of God with us until this world no longer exists.
But faith in God isn't a rabbit's foot that makes the hard and inexplicable stuff of life go away.
Jesus warned His followers that they would even be persecuted for believing in Him. "In the world you will face persecution," He says, "But take courage; I have conquered the world!" (John 16:33).
We can expect an eternity of blessings from God. Those blessings begin in this world.
But sometimes we get angry with God because we have unfair expectations; we expect God to fulfill promises God has never made.
I hope that the reasons I have written this piece are obvious.
But, let's be clear: There are two reasons I have not had in writing this post.
1. I haven't written this post to impose guilt on people who may be feeling angry with God or to tell them to, "Snap out of it!" That's definitely not my goal.
I do ask you to take some time looking at the sources of your anger with God.
Then, spend some time getting to know God better.
The normative word from God and about God is the Bible. That's a great place to go to understand a bit better what the Creator of the universe and you can expect of one another when you follow Him. (For five tips on reading the Bible, go here.)
2. I haven't written this post for readers to send this link to friends whose griefs and anger with God are fresh as if to tell them, "Get over it!"
If you have a friend who's angry with God right now, the best thing for you to do is the opposite of what Job's friends did:
- Listen to them.
- Let them articulate their feelings.
- Don't try to explain things you can't explain.
- Pray for your friend and pray for the moment when the freshness of their anger will have subsided enough that they'll be ready to talk things out with a friend--maybe you.
Remember, no one gets angry with a God in Whom they don't at least want to believe. God isn't afraid of believers' anger toward Him. You shouldn't be either.
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Reflections on Job and the Suffering of the Innocent
Along with members of Saint Matthew who are reading the Bible in a year, I'm wrestling with the Old Testament book of Job these days.
Job is no theoretical essay on the question of why faithful or innocent people suffer. (What the theologians call theodicy.) It's the story of the experiences and feelings of one faithful man who undergoes multiple tragedies. It also recounts the ensuing arguments he has with "friends" in trying to explain it all.
Despite their bitter disagreements, through much of the book, Job and his friends all believe in "retributive justice," the idea that when we suffer, it's punishment from God for sin.
It's a tempting argument. So much of life evidences "the law of cause and effect." And the Bible does teach that, in an ultimate sense, suffering is rooted in the human condition of sin, our inborn alienation from God, Who is the source of life. Ultimately too, the Bible teaches that those who refuse to turn from sin and turn to the God revealed in Christ for forgiveness and new life, will suffer eternal alienation from God.
But the Bible--including the book of Job--also affirms two disturbing facts about life in this world:
Both as a human being and as someone who's counseled people for almost thirty years, I believe (I know) that ultimately, no intellectual explanation of suffering will help people when they suffer or grieve.
That may be why the book of Job ends without an explanation, but a call for continuing reliance on God.
Today, heeding that call may be easier than it would have been for Job. The New Testament records how God came into the world in the person of Jesus and bore both the weight of human suffering and our debt for sin, then rose from the dead. For people who dare to hand over their sins and their lives to Christ, suffering and all its painful questions are not the last word. We have two incredible comforts:
Job is no theoretical essay on the question of why faithful or innocent people suffer. (What the theologians call theodicy.) It's the story of the experiences and feelings of one faithful man who undergoes multiple tragedies. It also recounts the ensuing arguments he has with "friends" in trying to explain it all.
Despite their bitter disagreements, through much of the book, Job and his friends all believe in "retributive justice," the idea that when we suffer, it's punishment from God for sin.
It's a tempting argument. So much of life evidences "the law of cause and effect." And the Bible does teach that, in an ultimate sense, suffering is rooted in the human condition of sin, our inborn alienation from God, Who is the source of life. Ultimately too, the Bible teaches that those who refuse to turn from sin and turn to the God revealed in Christ for forgiveness and new life, will suffer eternal alienation from God.
But the Bible--including the book of Job--also affirms two disturbing facts about life in this world:
- The innocent sometimes suffer.
- The unrepentant sometimes thrive.
Both as a human being and as someone who's counseled people for almost thirty years, I believe (I know) that ultimately, no intellectual explanation of suffering will help people when they suffer or grieve.
That may be why the book of Job ends without an explanation, but a call for continuing reliance on God.
Today, heeding that call may be easier than it would have been for Job. The New Testament records how God came into the world in the person of Jesus and bore both the weight of human suffering and our debt for sin, then rose from the dead. For people who dare to hand over their sins and their lives to Christ, suffering and all its painful questions are not the last word. We have two incredible comforts:
- The presence of Christ with us, "to the close of the age."
- The promise of a new life, free of suffering, with God for eternity.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
"Three Gifts for Hard Times"
That's the title of this article, written by a Harvard law professor, reflecting on his suffering from his perspective as a follower of Christ.
One quibble: His rich understanding of Jesus' use of the term, remembrance, isn't quite as rich as I see it. The term, in the original Greek of the New Testament, is anamnesis, which means the absence of time, making it akin to eternity, also the absence of time. In Holy Communion, Christ invites us to taste the feast that every generation of believers in the God of Israel and the God revealed in Jesus have ever known. In, with, and under the bread and the win, Christ comes to us in body and blood and we are at table with an eternity of believers, past, present, and future.
But this is a quibble. The article does give mature expression to what God does even in the midst of our undeserved suffering and dying.
One quibble: His rich understanding of Jesus' use of the term, remembrance, isn't quite as rich as I see it. The term, in the original Greek of the New Testament, is anamnesis, which means the absence of time, making it akin to eternity, also the absence of time. In Holy Communion, Christ invites us to taste the feast that every generation of believers in the God of Israel and the God revealed in Jesus have ever known. In, with, and under the bread and the win, Christ comes to us in body and blood and we are at table with an eternity of believers, past, present, and future.
But this is a quibble. The article does give mature expression to what God does even in the midst of our undeserved suffering and dying.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
"Don't despise the sufferings..."
So says my blogging colleague David Wayne in this video prepared for viewing by some of his Presbyterian pastor collagues.
A few months ago, David was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer. Cancer was also found in other portions of his body.
In the video below, David talks about what he has learned, especially about the "theology of the cross," the belief that because God took on our humanity, including suffering on the cross, we meet God in our own cross experiences, which God can use to make us more Christlike, more fitted for a full life here and in eternity. As you will see, David's faith has deepened way beyond "head knowledge" in these past months. He has come to know God in a more intimate, profound, and trusting way. Thank you, David, for this!
This is a remarkable video. Please take the time to watch it...and please keep David and his family in your prayers.
A few months ago, David was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer. Cancer was also found in other portions of his body.
In the video below, David talks about what he has learned, especially about the "theology of the cross," the belief that because God took on our humanity, including suffering on the cross, we meet God in our own cross experiences, which God can use to make us more Christlike, more fitted for a full life here and in eternity. As you will see, David's faith has deepened way beyond "head knowledge" in these past months. He has come to know God in a more intimate, profound, and trusting way. Thank you, David, for this!
This is a remarkable video. Please take the time to watch it...and please keep David and his family in your prayers.
David Wayne - My Battle with Cancer from David Wayne on Vimeo.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A Look at This Sunday's Bible Lessons (February 15, 2009)
[This coming Sunday's Bible lessons for Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, where I serve as pastor, will be the same as the lessons in many churches around the world. Hopefully, these notes will help folks prepare for worship.]
The Bible Lessons:
2 Kings 5:1-14
Psalm 30
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Mark 1:40-45
Comments:
Here are a few thoughts on the lesson from 2 Kings which I shared on January 20, with a group of pastors with whom my son (who starts seminary this summer) and I meet each month:
The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
The Bible Lessons:
2 Kings 5:1-14
Psalm 30
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Mark 1:40-45
Comments:
Here are a few thoughts on the lesson from 2 Kings which I shared on January 20, with a group of pastors with whom my son (who starts seminary this summer) and I meet each month:
1. It’s unfortunate that this pericope stops where it does. The next few verses beyond present an argument for the universality for Israel’s God and Elisha’s problematic acquiescence to Naaman’s intention to worship the Syrian version of Baal alongside his king back home. But this is a rich text even without following the incident through v.19.Here are some verse-by-verse comments, which I wrote three years ago, on the lesson from Mark:
2. Aram, of course, is Syria. Speculation is that this incident occurred in about 850BC, during the reigns of Ben-hadad in Aram and Jehoram in Israel.
3. There’s no evidence of Hansen’s Disease in Israel or nearby countries in these ancient days and only a few incidents of it in Jesus’ time. The term of leprosy was applied to many different skin diseases. (Hansen’s Disease can be treated, but not cured by conventional methods.)
4. Vv.1 and 2 present several interesting juxtapositions. First, there’s the irony of Naaman himself: He’s a mighty general, but he’s afflicted with a skin disease which, if unchecked, will eventually make him a pariah unfit for society. Second, there’s the stark contrast between this powerful general on the one hand and the little foreign slave girl in his household. As Paul says, “When I am weak, then I am strong.”
5. Another stunning thing in v.1 is the revelation that the God of Israel had given Naaman his victories over Israel. This both hints at the universality of God’s reign and the judgment of God against His people in history.
6. It’s intriguing that this foreign slave girl, so insignificant she isn’t even named, shows concern for the man who enslaved her. (v.3)
7. It’s equally intriguing that Naaman is so desperate for a cure that he takes the advice of the slave girl seriously. It’s not the last time in this incident when Naaman will take the advice of his social inferiors (v.13).
8. Naaman gathers gifts to take to Israel (v.5). His is typical religious behavior, religion being humanity’s attempt to placate or please gods. He’s going to get a lesson not only about the presence of God in his prophet, as Elisha has it (v.8), but also that God’s gifts are free.
9. The reaction of the king of Israel (vv.6-7) is understandable. Aram had often attacked Israel, making it a vassal kingdom. It was perfectly logical to think that Aram was creating a pretext for yet another attack. The king knows that he can’t bring about the healing of Naaman.
10. V.9 is sort of a powerplay. Think of the scene in The Right Stuff when Vice President Lyndon Johnson goes to the house of astronaut John Glenn in order to offer comfort to his wife during a crisis point in the flight of Friendship 7. Annie Glenn refused to see Johnson and the Vice President of the United States is portrayed as having a first class temper tantrum in his limo. Like Naaman, the great man wasn’t treated with the deference to which he thought he was entitled.
11. Of course, with his expectations of personal deference and of a religious transaction, Naaman is highly offended by Elisha’s instructions in v.10. Referencing another movie: Think of Ranch Wilder in the 1994 remake of Angels in the Outfield. “You can’t fire me. I have a contract!” Ranch bellows, “I’m Ranch Wilder!” “You can’t expect me to do something so insignificant as dunking myself seven times in the muddy Jordan!” Naaman says (v.12). Like many people offended by grace and the idea of God working in small ways and places, Naaman would rather head back to Syria without being healed than experience the humiliation of so small an act (v.13). This really could have resulted in war.
12. Good semitic argument, which Jesus often used, ran this way: If this small thing, then how much more this big thing? This was, for example, Jesus’ argument about God’s willingness to answer prayer: If you, who are evil, respond compassionately to the requests of your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give you the Holy Spirit when you pray?
Naaman’s servants turn this arument form on its head…and make absolute sense in the process (v.13). “If Elisha had asked you to do some great thing, you wouldn’t refuse. Then, why refuse this little thing?”
Naaman had to get small, deny self, to experience God’s charity. As long as he held that as a BMOC, he needed to be in charge of things, he was too big to be helped.
13. Seven dunks in the Jordan and Naaman’s whole body was as soft as a baby’s bottom (v.14). He was rendered “clean” because leprosy was regarded as a dirty thing.
v. 40: This is the first overt expression of faith in Christ that we find in Mark's Gospel. At most, faith is implied in Mark 1:30 and of course, in the silent witness of the Capernaum crowds who came to seek healing (Mark 1:32-33). Although it should be said that in both cases, there is reason to wonder whether what's being expressed is faith. At this point in the Gospel, the crowds are not responding to Jesus as a matter of trust in Him as the Messiah Who will suffer and die for them and call them to die to self in order to rise to new life with God. Not even Jesus' first four disciples--Andrew, Simon, James, and John--appear to have an understanding of Jesus that would qualify for the Biblical term of faith (pistis in the Greek of the New Testament, a word that means trust. Rather, the incipient faith we see here demonstrated is rooted in the belief that Jesus is a miracle worker who will give them what they want.I may have more to share on the lessons later in the week.
But the leper's belief in Jesus is different from what we've heretofore encountered in Mark's account. There's a note of "Your will be done" in his words. "If you choose," he tells Jesus. This is submission. In that word, if, the leper also recognizes that Jesus is sovereign, that Jesus doesn't have to heal unless He chooses to do so, and that it's possible that a sovereign God may allow suffering to happen in the lives of believers. Tough stuff, but very mature. (God grant me such maturity of faith!) This is the sort of real and unflinching faith I often observe in people who have suffered.
Leprosy was regarded as more than merely a biological ailment. The leper was "unclean," unfit for participation in social or religious life. This is why the Old Testament book of Leviticus had clear guidelines on how one who had suffered from leprosy could have the restoration of their cleanness, and their restoration to religious and community life, certified. The certification was done not by a physician, but by a priest at the Temple in Jerusalem.
It's a measure of Jesus' perceived compassion that the leper feels that he can approach Jesus. In those days, people were so paranoid about being near a person with leprosy, for fear of physical and spiritual contamination, that they would throw stones at lepers to keep them at bay. We no doubt see a contemporary version of this in the attitudes of some toward those infected with the AIDS virus.
v. 41: The most jarring words in this verse are: "Jesus...touched him..." This was a scandalous no-no.
Jesus did choose to heal the leper, underscoring what I mentioned earlier, that healing is always at the discretion of a sovereign God.
v. 42: "Immediately" again. Mark's frequent use of this term emphasizes several things: (1) the immediacy of God's presence in Christ; (2) the capacity and desire of Jesus to work with urgency in our lives; (3) the rapidity with which Jesus moved from meteoric superstar to rejected Messiah.
v. 44: Once again here, we see an example of what's known as Mark's "messianic secret." Until Jesus has gone through cross and resurrection, the crowds are inclined to see Him as nothing more than a kewpie doll, a miracle-maker bound to do their bidding and provide them with pleasure. But Jesus has not come into our lives to give us lives of ease. He has come to be the road to our everlasting transformation.
This is what will happen in the lives of those who turn from sin (repent) and trust in Jesus and the good news about Him (Mark 1:15). As Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran martyr killed by the Nazis in the waning days of World War Two, pointed out, new life and forgiveness are gifts we cannot earn for all with faith in Jesus Christ.
These things come to us as grace, the Bible's word for the charity God grants to undeserving people like you and me. They're gifts and they are free. ("For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast," Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8-9).
But, as Bonhoeffer goes on to point out, if we accept these gifts, doing so will cost us our lives, the lives we're accustomed to living. We cannot take up Christ without laying down our self-absorption and self-protection. There is a difference, Bonhoeffer shows, between "cheap grace"--anything goes-ism without personal transformation--and "costly grace," embracing Christ's gifts by laying down our whole lives in surrender.
Until we understand the difference between cheap and costly grace, to speak about Jesus as the Messiah is meaningless babble.
And so, Jesus doesn't want the healed leper to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah yet.
But there's a second reason that Jesus tells the leper not to tell anybody about how he had been cleansed. He wants the man to go through the certification process alluded to earlier and which is detailed in Leviticus 18 and 19. Remember: Jesus didn't come to abolish God's laws, but to be their pure and complete fulfiller. He expected the cleansed leper to abide by those laws.
v. 45: But the cleansed leper couldn't keep his mouth shut. Jesus' fame spread even more.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
A Look at This Sunday's Bible Lessons (May 4, 2008)
[Each week, I present some thoughts on the Bible lessons for the succeeding Sunday. In doing so, I hope to help the people of the congregation I serve, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, to prepare for worship. And because, we will almost always use the appointed lessons for the Church Year, I also hope that these thoughts can help others prepare for worship too. These reflections are coming late in the week, for which I apologize.]
This Sunday's Bible Lessons:
Acts 1:6-14
Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
John 17:1-11
The Prayer of the Day:
O God of glory, your Son Jesus Christ suffered for us and ascended to your right hand. Unite us with Christ and each other in suffering and in joy, that all the world may be drawn into your bountiful presence, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Some Thoughts:
1. Tomorrow will bring the seventh and final Sunday of the Easter season. Next Sunday will bring us to the festival of Pentecost, celebrating the day that the Holy Spirit came to Jesus' praying followers, emboldening them to proclaim the message that all who repent (turn from sin) and believe in Jesus Christ will have everlasting life with God.
2. This past Thursday was Ascension Day. Falling forty days after Jesus' resurrection, Ascension Day recalls the day when the resurrected Jesus ascended to heaven. According to our first lesson from the New Testament book of Acts, Jesus told His disciples just before ascending, that they should go to Jerusalem and await the coming of the Holy Spirit, Who would empower them to share the message of Jesus in words, actions, and living. Ten days later, on the first Pentecost, Jesus' promise would be fulfilled when the Holy Spirit came to the praying disciples.
3. The "glory of God" is an important theme in all of the lessons for tomorrow. Closely related is the use of the term "clouds." In Old Testament times, as in the account of Elijah being taken up to heaven, and in, to cite one example, Luke's telling of Jesus' transfiguration, clouds descend from heaven; within them, the glory of God is manifest. Even in our lesson from First Peter, we're told that suffering for faithfulness to Christ manifests God's glory, replicating Jesus' giving of Himself for our redemption. When we suffer for our faith, Peter asserts, we participate in Christ's suffering and so, in His glory.
4. Psalm 68 is thought to be among the most ancient of the psalms in the Old Testament worship book. It's thought to be a kind of liturgical drama recounting God's faithfulness in moving His people from slavery in Egypt to the promised land. By recalling God's past faithfulness, we're inspired to trust God in good and bad times.
5. First and foremost, John 17:1-11, is a prayer by Jesus to the Father. We eavesdrop as He prays for His Church, including those of us who are part of the 21st.-century Church.
I derive great comfort, encouragement, and hope from knowing that, despite the odds, the Church continues to exist twenty-one centuries after Jesus prayed this prayer. The Church today is an answer to Jesus' prayers. In the spirit of Peter's words in our second lesson, I'm sure that Jesus is inviting us not only to participate in His sufferings today, but also to participate in His prayers, including the one offered in the Gospel lesson.
This Sunday's Bible Lessons:
Acts 1:6-14
Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
John 17:1-11
The Prayer of the Day:
O God of glory, your Son Jesus Christ suffered for us and ascended to your right hand. Unite us with Christ and each other in suffering and in joy, that all the world may be drawn into your bountiful presence, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Some Thoughts:
1. Tomorrow will bring the seventh and final Sunday of the Easter season. Next Sunday will bring us to the festival of Pentecost, celebrating the day that the Holy Spirit came to Jesus' praying followers, emboldening them to proclaim the message that all who repent (turn from sin) and believe in Jesus Christ will have everlasting life with God.
2. This past Thursday was Ascension Day. Falling forty days after Jesus' resurrection, Ascension Day recalls the day when the resurrected Jesus ascended to heaven. According to our first lesson from the New Testament book of Acts, Jesus told His disciples just before ascending, that they should go to Jerusalem and await the coming of the Holy Spirit, Who would empower them to share the message of Jesus in words, actions, and living. Ten days later, on the first Pentecost, Jesus' promise would be fulfilled when the Holy Spirit came to the praying disciples.
3. The "glory of God" is an important theme in all of the lessons for tomorrow. Closely related is the use of the term "clouds." In Old Testament times, as in the account of Elijah being taken up to heaven, and in, to cite one example, Luke's telling of Jesus' transfiguration, clouds descend from heaven; within them, the glory of God is manifest. Even in our lesson from First Peter, we're told that suffering for faithfulness to Christ manifests God's glory, replicating Jesus' giving of Himself for our redemption. When we suffer for our faith, Peter asserts, we participate in Christ's suffering and so, in His glory.
4. Psalm 68 is thought to be among the most ancient of the psalms in the Old Testament worship book. It's thought to be a kind of liturgical drama recounting God's faithfulness in moving His people from slavery in Egypt to the promised land. By recalling God's past faithfulness, we're inspired to trust God in good and bad times.
5. First and foremost, John 17:1-11, is a prayer by Jesus to the Father. We eavesdrop as He prays for His Church, including those of us who are part of the 21st.-century Church.
I derive great comfort, encouragement, and hope from knowing that, despite the odds, the Church continues to exist twenty-one centuries after Jesus prayed this prayer. The Church today is an answer to Jesus' prayers. In the spirit of Peter's words in our second lesson, I'm sure that Jesus is inviting us not only to participate in His sufferings today, but also to participate in His prayers, including the one offered in the Gospel lesson.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent: Part 4 (Rerun)
[This the final installment of a four-part series I wrote and first presented back in November, 2004. It's being presented in a slightly revised form here.]
She was sixty years old and she was dying of cancer. It had been a long fight with early victories, disappointing setbacks, and now, the end was clearly near.
"Are you angry with God?" I asked her.
"I was at first," she answered honestly. "But then I remembered that He's right here with me. Somehow that helped me."
In the first three installments of this series, I've dealt with the question of why people are subjected to seemingly undeserved suffering. Sadly, suffering happens all the time. Just as it did to the sixty year old woman I visited in the hospital. Just as it happens countless times each day---from hospital oncology wards in every city in America to the scenes of armed battles around the globe. In our world, the innocent do suffer.
Given that reality, "Why?" may not be the right question for us to ask. One of my seminary professors, the systematician Donald Luck, used to say that one question that might more profitably be asked in response to those who ask, "Why?" is, "Why not?"
Why would suffering surprise us?
Why, given what we can observe or experience each day, would we assume that anybody is exempt from suffering?
On this side of heaven, we won't really know why God allows the innocent to suffer. But we can know how to suffer, how to fight our suffering and the suffering of others, how to live and go on in a world where tragedy happens.
We can cope by leaning on the God Who suffers with us. Through Jesus Christ, God knows exactly what it's like to suffer undeservedly.
Seven centuries before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, He was described by the prophet Isaiah:
Jesus is the very embodiment of the word compassion, a compound word that literally means to suffer with. Through Jesus, God suffers with us and thereby makes our suffering more bearable.
And He doesn't cut and run when the going gets tough. He promises to be with us always.
He also gives us a family called the Church, people who will rejoice with us and cry with us, pray with us and hope with us, sing with us and be silent with us. This is so important!
More than that, the people who surrender themselves to Christ live and die in the knowledge that God gives life beyond our suffering. He gives everlasting life to those with faith in Him. It makes this life and all that can go wrong bearable. It gives this life meaning and purpose!
Karl Marx, the co-creator of Communist theory, used to taunt believers. He called religion the opiate of the people. It can be. But not for a real-life believer in Jesus Christ!
One of the contemporary heroes of Christian faith is Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The South African cleric stood against the evil system of apartheid in his country. Each day brought death threats to his mailbox.
"Why do you do it?" people would ask Tutu. I can't help it, he would say. I can't help speaking out against injustice. Besides, he said, death isn't the worst thing that can happen to a Christian!
Knowing that they are forever in the hands of Jesus gives people a courage and a tenacity for living they wouldn't otherwise have. It doesn't make suffering easier. But it does help the follower of Christ to know that...
they don't suffer alone
they have life beyond the suffering
they, like their Savior, can suffer with others
they have the family of the Church to uphold, encourage, and share hope with them
they know that God will never walk away!
There's a passage of Scripture I've told my wife must be read at my funeral. If it isn't, I'm popping out of the box and reading it myself:
She was sixty years old and she was dying of cancer. It had been a long fight with early victories, disappointing setbacks, and now, the end was clearly near.
"Are you angry with God?" I asked her.
"I was at first," she answered honestly. "But then I remembered that He's right here with me. Somehow that helped me."
In the first three installments of this series, I've dealt with the question of why people are subjected to seemingly undeserved suffering. Sadly, suffering happens all the time. Just as it did to the sixty year old woman I visited in the hospital. Just as it happens countless times each day---from hospital oncology wards in every city in America to the scenes of armed battles around the globe. In our world, the innocent do suffer.
Given that reality, "Why?" may not be the right question for us to ask. One of my seminary professors, the systematician Donald Luck, used to say that one question that might more profitably be asked in response to those who ask, "Why?" is, "Why not?"
Why would suffering surprise us?
Why, given what we can observe or experience each day, would we assume that anybody is exempt from suffering?
On this side of heaven, we won't really know why God allows the innocent to suffer. But we can know how to suffer, how to fight our suffering and the suffering of others, how to live and go on in a world where tragedy happens.
We can cope by leaning on the God Who suffers with us. Through Jesus Christ, God knows exactly what it's like to suffer undeservedly.
Seven centuries before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, He was described by the prophet Isaiah:
He was despised and rejected by others;The New Testament book of Philippians, written by the first century evangelist and preacher Paul, quotes what some Biblical scholars think is an early hymn of the Church:
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.
Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. [Isaiah 53:3-6]
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,Through Jesus, God has linked with every aspect of our experience, including our suffering.
who, though he was in the form of God,
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.
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 2:5-11]
Jesus is the very embodiment of the word compassion, a compound word that literally means to suffer with. Through Jesus, God suffers with us and thereby makes our suffering more bearable.
And He doesn't cut and run when the going gets tough. He promises to be with us always.
He also gives us a family called the Church, people who will rejoice with us and cry with us, pray with us and hope with us, sing with us and be silent with us. This is so important!
More than that, the people who surrender themselves to Christ live and die in the knowledge that God gives life beyond our suffering. He gives everlasting life to those with faith in Him. It makes this life and all that can go wrong bearable. It gives this life meaning and purpose!
Karl Marx, the co-creator of Communist theory, used to taunt believers. He called religion the opiate of the people. It can be. But not for a real-life believer in Jesus Christ!
One of the contemporary heroes of Christian faith is Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The South African cleric stood against the evil system of apartheid in his country. Each day brought death threats to his mailbox.
"Why do you do it?" people would ask Tutu. I can't help it, he would say. I can't help speaking out against injustice. Besides, he said, death isn't the worst thing that can happen to a Christian!
Knowing that they are forever in the hands of Jesus gives people a courage and a tenacity for living they wouldn't otherwise have. It doesn't make suffering easier. But it does help the follower of Christ to know that...
they don't suffer alone
they have life beyond the suffering
they, like their Savior, can suffer with others
they have the family of the Church to uphold, encourage, and share hope with them
they know that God will never walk away!
There's a passage of Scripture I've told my wife must be read at my funeral. If it isn't, I'm popping out of the box and reading it myself:
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,I pray God that He will help me to remember what that verse teaches, come what may.
‘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. [Romans 8:31-39]
Saturday, February 16, 2008
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent: Part 3 (Rerun)
[I'm re-presenting this series I first wrote back in 2004. I hope that people find it helpful. This post represents a slight revision of the third installment. The first two installments are herehere.] and
In the first two posts of this series, I've talked about how it's understandable when we wonder why tragedy befalls the innocent. I've also observed that generally speaking, God doesn't seem to answer that question.
But on the pages of the New Testament section of the Bible, there is an example of a time when God did give a reason for one of His innocents' suffering.
A man named Saul from the city of Tarsus was not always innocent. Burning with an Osama bin-Laden-like zeal for his faith as a Jew, convinced that followers of the risen Jesus were dangerous heretics, he approved murdering these people who would later be called Christians.
He also gained authorization from religious authorities in Jerusalem to go to synagogues in other towns and regions to have his fellow Jews confessing Jesus as Lord excommunicated from the faith and worse.
But, Saul's life changed. On his way to the city of Damascus, carrying authorization papers, Saul encountered the risen Jesus. He himself became a follower of Jesus and eventually, undertook a life-long mission of carrying the Good News of Jesus to the world. Gratified and stunned to learn the truth about God--the truth that God wants to save us and not condemn us, that eternity and forgiveness are free gifts from a gracious God and not things that we can earn---Saul, now renamed Paul, spent the rest of his life telling the world about Jesus Christ and the new life He makes possible.
Much of the New Testament is composed of Paul's letters to early Christian congregations spread around the Mediterranean basin. Paul proclaimed that the power of sin and death over one's life could be erased when, as a matter of faith, one received Jesus Christ as God and Savior. He said that on the cross, Jesus paid the debt all of us owe to God for our rebellion against God. Faith, says Paul, is a surrendering trust by which we go through death, dying to sin, in order to rise to a pure, new life with Jesus Christ.
In his magnum opus, the New Testament book of Romans, Paul writes:
Paul's life of faith and of sharing Jesus wasn't easy. He never generated enough personal income to be able to devote all his time to preaching, working as a tentmaker throughout his adult years. In addition, he suffered a series of misadventures and persecutions as a follower of Jesus. Tradition holds that he was ultimately executed for his faith. Clearly, Christ's forgiveness and the gift of reconciliation with God that Paul claimed to have because of his faith in Jesus didn't make his life easier. In fact, it had the opposite effect. In one of his New Testament letters, Paul recounts some of his experiences as a follower of Jesus:
In the first two posts of this series, I've talked about how it's understandable when we wonder why tragedy befalls the innocent. I've also observed that generally speaking, God doesn't seem to answer that question.
But on the pages of the New Testament section of the Bible, there is an example of a time when God did give a reason for one of His innocents' suffering.
A man named Saul from the city of Tarsus was not always innocent. Burning with an Osama bin-Laden-like zeal for his faith as a Jew, convinced that followers of the risen Jesus were dangerous heretics, he approved murdering these people who would later be called Christians.
He also gained authorization from religious authorities in Jerusalem to go to synagogues in other towns and regions to have his fellow Jews confessing Jesus as Lord excommunicated from the faith and worse.
But, Saul's life changed. On his way to the city of Damascus, carrying authorization papers, Saul encountered the risen Jesus. He himself became a follower of Jesus and eventually, undertook a life-long mission of carrying the Good News of Jesus to the world. Gratified and stunned to learn the truth about God--the truth that God wants to save us and not condemn us, that eternity and forgiveness are free gifts from a gracious God and not things that we can earn---Saul, now renamed Paul, spent the rest of his life telling the world about Jesus Christ and the new life He makes possible.
Much of the New Testament is composed of Paul's letters to early Christian congregations spread around the Mediterranean basin. Paul proclaimed that the power of sin and death over one's life could be erased when, as a matter of faith, one received Jesus Christ as God and Savior. He said that on the cross, Jesus paid the debt all of us owe to God for our rebellion against God. Faith, says Paul, is a surrendering trust by which we go through death, dying to sin, in order to rise to a pure, new life with Jesus Christ.
In his magnum opus, the New Testament book of Romans, Paul writes:
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. [Romans 6:5-10]
Paul's life of faith and of sharing Jesus wasn't easy. He never generated enough personal income to be able to devote all his time to preaching, working as a tentmaker throughout his adult years. In addition, he suffered a series of misadventures and persecutions as a follower of Jesus. Tradition holds that he was ultimately executed for his faith. Clearly, Christ's forgiveness and the gift of reconciliation with God that Paul claimed to have because of his faith in Jesus didn't make his life easier. In fact, it had the opposite effect. In one of his New Testament letters, Paul recounts some of his experiences as a follower of Jesus:
Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. (Second Corinthians 11:24-28)
It all could cause a person striving to follow the God met through Jesus Christ to ask, "Why?" Or, to at least ask God to change things, to make life a bit easier.
We know of at least one source of suffering that did incite Paul to ask God for relief. It was an unspecified "thorn in the flesh," an affliction that may have been physical, emotional, relational, or spiritual. We simply don't know what it was. That may be for the best because the fact is that no matter what the source of our suffering in life, the impact on us is amazingly similar. Paul talks about his thorn in the flesh in Second Corinthians:
I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (Second Corinthians 12:2-10)
According to Paul, God refused to remove suffering that had come to him from Satan. Why? To keep Paul from becoming filled with spiritual pride.
If Paul is to be believed, God allows even devoted believers to be hit with suffering and tragic circumstances as a means of protecting them. Protecting them from what? A famous passage from the Old Testament says, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18).
A few years ago, former President Bill Clinton published his memoirs and discussed his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a liaison that nearly shattered his presidency and deeply wounded his second term in office. Clinton said that he'd had that affair simply because he was capable of having it. Period.
Sometimes we can become full of ourselves, mistakenly thinking that our successes or good fortune emanate from our talents, innovativeness, cleverness, perseverance, tenacity, or charm...never considering that even our capacity for developing such gifts come from the One Who crafted us in our mother's wombs.
The first of the ten commandments in the Old Testament book of Exodus says, "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3). Theologians from Martin Luther to Paul Tillich and C.S. Lewis have reminded us that whatever is most important to us in life is our god. Speaking for myself anyway, I've found that no false god--be it money, power, sex, houses, cars or whatever--has waged a fiercer war for my ultimate allegiance than one persistently alluring god: Me...My Ego.
Through his suffering and God's refusal to relieve it, Paul was driven to acknowledge his dependence on God for all the best blessings in his life.
I learned this lesson myself on one especially memorable occasion, not from suffering but from weakness. Some time before, I was invited to give a presentation to a group in metropolitan Cincinnati. For months, I thrashed over what I would say to them. After a good deal of prayer, I created an outline for my presentation. But on the morning of the presentation, just hours before I was scheduled to speak, I woke up feeling flu symptoms. I was achy all over, felt as though a temperature was coming on, and in spite of a good night's sleep, fatigued. On top of that, I simply sensed that my presentation wasn't what the group needed to hear. And so I prayed, "God, You know better than I do. Guide me. Fill me with Your Spirit. Get me through this thing physically. And put Your words in my mouth."
The appointed moment came. I was given an introduction that was so complimentary, I was tempted to look around the room to see who'd been selected to speak in my place. I approached the microphone. I hardly remember what I said. But God was in it. The post-presentation Q-and-A session went well. So did the luncheon conversation. I came home gratified, if exhausted.
But if I hadn't awakened feeling so crummy and insecure, I might have gone ahead with my planned presentation. It may have gone okay. Then though, I would have learned to depend on myself rather than on God.
From his thorn in the flesh, Paul learned reliance on God. Sometimes God allows the innocent to suffer because it's only through our weakness that the greater power of Christ can dwell in us and touch the world around us. It also may prevent us from declaring our independence from God, inciting us to keep the door of our hearts and wills open to the God Who has an eternity of good He wants to pour into our lives.
One last point. No loving Christian would ever tell another person that their suffering is being allowed by God to teach the suffering friend a lesson. That would be arrogant and un-Christian.
Remember that Paul gained insight as to why God refused to heal him of his thorn in the flesh not in conversation with others, but in his own personal prayer interchange with God. The insight that some of our suffering may be from God is a personal one, between God and the sufferer alone. The very best thing we Christians can do when others talk with us about their suffering is keep our pie holes shut, listen, and offer to pray for them.
God willing, more tomorrow...
Friday, February 15, 2008
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent: Part 2 (Rerun)
[Here, I present, with some modification, the second part of a series I first wrote back in November, 2004. I hope that you find it helpful.]
In my first post on this topic, I said that it's natural for us to wonder why we suffer because somewhere in the recesses of our collective DNA, there is this notion that our lives are meant to be good and eternal.
But even if it's natural for us to do so, is it right for us to ask, "Why?"?
Years ago, a friend of mine attended the funeral for a young man who had been killed in an accident. My friend, a committed Christian, was appalled by what he saw among the parents and siblings of the dead young man. They were going around praising God for the death, saying that their loved one was now in heaven, and asking mourners wasn't it all just too wonderful for words? "They were in complete denial, Mark," my friend told me. I think that he was right.
It is true, of course, that followers of Jesus Christ live and die with hope. I love what Paul says in the New Testament book of First Corinthians:
Jesus isn't just our Lord when life is going well and we're living large. He's also our Lord when this world hands us its worst. That's because we believe that on an Easter Sunday two-thousand years ago, Jesus rose from the dead, certifying His power to deliver on all His promises, even beyond our deaths and our funerals.
But no matter what our hope and no matter how sure we are that "all who call on the Lord shall be saved" (Acts 2:21; Psalm 55:16; and other places), we still experience loss when loved ones die, or when we lose our health, a job, or a marriage, or when we experience any tragedy. It's normal even for Christians to experience grief.
The New Testament tells us to "give thanks in all circumstances," not for all circumstances. In other words, our circumstances may be lousy or painful, but we can be thankful that even in those times, the God we know through Jesus Christ is with us.
Although my friend attended the funeral I mentioned many years ago, I still wonder why that family reacted as they did to their loss. Maybe they were taught that any other reaction would reflect faithlessness, a lack of trust in God. Maybe they thought that an angry God would punish them in some way.
If they entertained such thoughts, they obviously hadn't spent much time reading the Bible. Back when I was moving from atheism to faith in God, I spent some time exploring the Bible as I never had before. One thing that kept striking me me then was how honest the Bible is. No facts are sugar-coated. Great heroes of faith---from David to Moses and Peter and Paul---are seen warts and all.
And when people of faith mentioned in the Bible encounter mysteries about God and about life with God, they honestly own up to being confounded and confused. In the Old Testament's book of worship songs, the Psalms, for example, there are whole genres of songs called laments: community laments and individual laments. In them, believers in God express sadness and bafflement at their suffering. They complain about the seeming inactivity or insensitivity of God. In Psalm 13, for example, the psalmist talks to God:
A man named Job didn't get zapped either. His story is told in a lengthy and eloquent book of the Bible's Old Testament. Job was such a good man that God bragged about him. But in rapid order, Job was subjected to a series of personal tragedies. He lost his vast property and land holdings, all his children were killed, and he became afflicted with a disease. At first, Job seemed to handle things well, insisting that he would keep worshiping and serving God. But, understandably, Job broke. He never stopped believing in God. But, despite the saying, "the patience of Job," Job exhibited a lot of impatience...with his circumstances, with other people, even with God. And neither the Bible or God reproach Job for that!
Three friends came to visit him and for a time, simply allowed Job to "vent," sharing his feelings of sadness and grief and mystification that a good God would allow all this to happen to him. It was then that Job's friends made a huge mistake. They tried to explain what had befallen Job. In a nutshell, they were sure that Job was guilty of some secret sin and that God was punishing him. While Job wouldn't have claimed perfection for himself, he was sure that the friends' explanations were off-base. He tells them, "If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom!" (Job 13:5) (I laugh every time I read those words, remembering with embarrassment and regret all the stupid explanations I've tried to offer for the bad things that have happened in my own and in others' lives.)
Job then complains bitterly to God and about God. Given their "theology," Job's friends may have felt vindicated in their "explanations" of Job's plight. They may also have considered moving a few feet away from Job just in case a stray lightning bolt from heaven hit them.
In the end of the book of Job though, God responds to all that Job and his friends have said. But God offers no explanations. First, God upbraids the friends for pretending to know what they couldn't possibly know, for judging their friend Job as worthy of all the suffering he was enduring. He even tells them that they were wrong and that Job, who they'd accused of being impious and unbelieving for expressing anger with God, was right!
Then, in a long discouse, God reminds Job of a few simple facts: God is God, Job isn't, and no matter what, God would be with Job.
In a way, that may not seem like an especially satisfying resolution. But, remember Paul's words, "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." [First Corinthians 15:19] This life, consequential as it may be for eternity is just a blip on our journeys. Paul, a man who certainly had a lot of suffering in his life, said in another place:
Summing up this post:
In my first post on this topic, I said that it's natural for us to wonder why we suffer because somewhere in the recesses of our collective DNA, there is this notion that our lives are meant to be good and eternal.
But even if it's natural for us to do so, is it right for us to ask, "Why?"?
Years ago, a friend of mine attended the funeral for a young man who had been killed in an accident. My friend, a committed Christian, was appalled by what he saw among the parents and siblings of the dead young man. They were going around praising God for the death, saying that their loved one was now in heaven, and asking mourners wasn't it all just too wonderful for words? "They were in complete denial, Mark," my friend told me. I think that he was right.
It is true, of course, that followers of Jesus Christ live and die with hope. I love what Paul says in the New Testament book of First Corinthians:
"...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..." [First Corinthians 15:20-22]and
"If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." [First Corinthians 15:19]When I preside over funerals, I often tell the families and friends of the people who have died: "If what we say about Jesus conquering death for all who believe in Him isn't true today, it simply isn't true at all."
Jesus isn't just our Lord when life is going well and we're living large. He's also our Lord when this world hands us its worst. That's because we believe that on an Easter Sunday two-thousand years ago, Jesus rose from the dead, certifying His power to deliver on all His promises, even beyond our deaths and our funerals.
But no matter what our hope and no matter how sure we are that "all who call on the Lord shall be saved" (Acts 2:21; Psalm 55:16; and other places), we still experience loss when loved ones die, or when we lose our health, a job, or a marriage, or when we experience any tragedy. It's normal even for Christians to experience grief.
The New Testament tells us to "give thanks in all circumstances," not for all circumstances. In other words, our circumstances may be lousy or painful, but we can be thankful that even in those times, the God we know through Jesus Christ is with us.
Although my friend attended the funeral I mentioned many years ago, I still wonder why that family reacted as they did to their loss. Maybe they were taught that any other reaction would reflect faithlessness, a lack of trust in God. Maybe they thought that an angry God would punish them in some way.
If they entertained such thoughts, they obviously hadn't spent much time reading the Bible. Back when I was moving from atheism to faith in God, I spent some time exploring the Bible as I never had before. One thing that kept striking me me then was how honest the Bible is. No facts are sugar-coated. Great heroes of faith---from David to Moses and Peter and Paul---are seen warts and all.
And when people of faith mentioned in the Bible encounter mysteries about God and about life with God, they honestly own up to being confounded and confused. In the Old Testament's book of worship songs, the Psalms, for example, there are whole genres of songs called laments: community laments and individual laments. In them, believers in God express sadness and bafflement at their suffering. They complain about the seeming inactivity or insensitivity of God. In Psalm 13, for example, the psalmist talks to God:
How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?If any believer was worthy of being zapped on the spot, at least according to religious thinking, it was the writer of those words, traditionally held to be David, a person the Bible describes as a "man after God's own heart." But God didn't zap David.
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long? [Psalm 13:1-2]
A man named Job didn't get zapped either. His story is told in a lengthy and eloquent book of the Bible's Old Testament. Job was such a good man that God bragged about him. But in rapid order, Job was subjected to a series of personal tragedies. He lost his vast property and land holdings, all his children were killed, and he became afflicted with a disease. At first, Job seemed to handle things well, insisting that he would keep worshiping and serving God. But, understandably, Job broke. He never stopped believing in God. But, despite the saying, "the patience of Job," Job exhibited a lot of impatience...with his circumstances, with other people, even with God. And neither the Bible or God reproach Job for that!
Three friends came to visit him and for a time, simply allowed Job to "vent," sharing his feelings of sadness and grief and mystification that a good God would allow all this to happen to him. It was then that Job's friends made a huge mistake. They tried to explain what had befallen Job. In a nutshell, they were sure that Job was guilty of some secret sin and that God was punishing him. While Job wouldn't have claimed perfection for himself, he was sure that the friends' explanations were off-base. He tells them, "If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom!" (Job 13:5) (I laugh every time I read those words, remembering with embarrassment and regret all the stupid explanations I've tried to offer for the bad things that have happened in my own and in others' lives.)
Job then complains bitterly to God and about God. Given their "theology," Job's friends may have felt vindicated in their "explanations" of Job's plight. They may also have considered moving a few feet away from Job just in case a stray lightning bolt from heaven hit them.
In the end of the book of Job though, God responds to all that Job and his friends have said. But God offers no explanations. First, God upbraids the friends for pretending to know what they couldn't possibly know, for judging their friend Job as worthy of all the suffering he was enduring. He even tells them that they were wrong and that Job, who they'd accused of being impious and unbelieving for expressing anger with God, was right!
Then, in a long discouse, God reminds Job of a few simple facts: God is God, Job isn't, and no matter what, God would be with Job.
In a way, that may not seem like an especially satisfying resolution. But, remember Paul's words, "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." [First Corinthians 15:19] This life, consequential as it may be for eternity is just a blip on our journeys. Paul, a man who certainly had a lot of suffering in his life, said in another place:
For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. [Second Corinthians 4:17-18]Ultimately, every person I have ever observed to have come to a place of peace in dealing with life's tragedies has done so because they've adopted an eternal perspective. They know that this life isn't all there is to life and choose to trust God in spite of the mysteries and unanswered questions. And in the midst of those mysteries, they discover comfort in knowing that the God of all creation is with them always.
Summing up this post:
1. It's normal for us to grieve.More on point 7 in my next post. [Use the Comments post below to dialog, give feedback, and tell me if this is helpful at all.]
2. It's normal for us to ask God why we suffer.
3. God won't zap us for wondering why we suffer.
4. Even when we grieve, we have an eternal hope when we trust Jesus Christ as our God and Savior.
5. God is God.
6. We're not God.
7. God is with us.
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