|
The Problem of Pain By Rev. Charmaine Braatvedt Sunday 11th November, 2007 There are three threats to intimacy with God: Sin, too good a life and pain and suffering. I would like to pause for a while ion this third ‘threat. The passage set for today and indeed the special focus of the day of Remembrance suggests that today is a good day to say something about pain and the problem of pain. I once had a poster which somewhat cynically read: “The good thing about pain is that it reminds you that you are alive!” I have always had a healthy suspicion regarding pain. When I was pregnant I remember going to antenatal classes and being told that there is good pain and bad pain. Labour constituted good pain they said. Yeah right! I have a tendency to faint whenever I have to have a blood test and greatly admire those people who can have dental work done without a local anesthetic. When it comes to pain I have a low pain threshold and generally try to avoid it wherever and whenever I can. For my money I have never experienced pain in any form that I have found enjoyable or desirable or particularly good at the time. Subsequently I may have come to value the learnings I received during times of pain, but at the time of experiencing pain, I have generally not been able to see much to be thankful for in it, Yet it would seem that pain and suffering are an integral part of our human experience. It is as the poster suggests part of the experience of being alive. Not even and perhaps especially not Jesus, could avoid pain and suffering! The Epistle reading for today is from Romans 8, which is one of the most beautifully constructed pieces of prose in the Bible. The whole chapter and in particular the passage chosen for today, offers practical life application advice for Christians trying to negotiate the challenges which life throws at us, and the passage has special relevance for those of us sitting here today who may at present be enduring some kind of emotional, physical, or spiritual pain. Pain comes in various shapes and forms: physical; emotional and spiritual. In the passage, Paul lists some of the things that cause us pain. These include: troubles; problems; sufferings; deprivation; death; broken relationships; ill health; spiritual warfare; life really, all of these cause us pain. Pain affects individuals, and it also affects communities; nations and indeed the whole world. It can be acute that is short term or chronic long lasting pain. Chronic pain is harder to live with because it often comes with no end in sight. Sooner or later this kind of pain takes its toll in human relationships. For example, - the 60 year old who suffers the misery of arthritis; - the man who five years after a seemingly minor traffic accident still suffers constant headaches; - the young woman who cannot get over the abuse she suffered as a child; - the victims of protracted famine in Africa; - the problems ensuing from the seemingly irresolvable war in the Middle East and so forth. Situations like these not only bristle with physical pain, they kindle the fires of emotional pain and isolation as well. Sooner or later people tend to get tired of supporting the victims of chronic pain and as the empathy and support dry up, people are left feeling isolated, abandoned, lost, frustrated and despondent. This isolation takes pain and turns it into a whirlwind of confusion and suffering. But let’s be honest here, pain in whatever form it takes is wearying and can be crippling and possibly the worst kind of pain is the pain we suffer from severed relationships whether this happens when someone you loved with your whole heart has died. or through conflict as in a divorce or through physical separation from loved ones, as in the case of many immigrants. Or it may come when your relationship with your children is at a low ebb and you feel as if you have failed as a parent. Severed relationships is a source of great pain. Pain often comes indiscriminately, without warning and without explanation and it consumes energy and when people desert us or distance themselves from us emotionally, when we look around in bewilderment to see where God has gone, we understand as never before the close link between pain and suffering and what has been called the winter of the soul. It is, at times like these, when it feels as if God has let go of us that we need to find a way of holding on to God. Simply put I suppose the question we ask of ourselves as Christians is where is God in all this suffering? Where is our loving caring God when it hurts so much we can barely breathe, when our suffering and pain can seem like a stone wall that separates us from the God whom we believe, loves, cares and looks out for us?
But are we really separated from God? Does God really abandon us in our pain or is it perhaps just our perception that he does?
Paul confidently answers this question by saying that: ”nothing, no nothing can separate us from the love God has for us. Not death, not life, not angels, not ruling spirits, nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us, nothing below us, or anything else in the whole world, will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
no matter what befalls us, no matter how we feel about what befalls us, no matter how socially isolated we are feeling, no matter how alienated we feel from our selves, the immutable truth is that , nothing can separate us from God’s love. God is with us in every circumstance, even in the darkest of experiences, he is present with his loving concern and care for us.
Well here comes another but… But does God understand what we are experiencing?
You know, Jesus’ incarnation brought him into first hand experience of human suffering. As Isaiah rightly prophesied, the Messiah was “a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering”. Isaiah 53:3. The cross was the fulfillment of this prophecy. Jesus understood the devastating effects pain can have on us. He experienced the sense of isolation and abandonment that often comes with pain. We hear him saying on the cross: ’My God, my God why have you abandoned me?” So when Jesus says to us ‘come to me all who labour and are heavy laden’, we know that we can come to him fully confident that he understands what that may mean in terms of the pain we are experiencing.
It was this same Jesus who said: ”Lo I am with you always even unto the ends of the earth.” So as Paul says, “God is with us, and therefore nothing can destroy us.”
Now I don’t know what kind of pain you may be facing today, but I do now that God does not promise to magically erase our pain and suffering however, he does promise to be with us in our pain. He also promises that in everything he works for our good.
So to those who are sitting here today with a great pain on your heart , who might be asking and where is God today who may be saying Where might I find him right now when I need him most? Be confident and encouraged when you seek him you will find him. Look for him - in His Word the Bible; - In the Holy Sacraments, the Holy Table where we remember him and receive him through the bread and wine; - in the love and help we receive from others. These are perhaps the more obvious places where we find God, but I believe Paul is challenging us to comprehend an even greater truth, namely that God is to be found anywhere and everywhere.
Just this week, I got chatting with a perfect stranger who asked me what I was doing. I explained that I was preparing a sermon on Romans 8. He gifted me with an insight that I will share with you today. He said the following: “At times I think we humans work with the wrong world view. We tend to see ourselves as the centre of our world and those with whom we are in relationship, and even God, as orbiting around us. Sometimes it feels as though they, including God, orbit close to us and sometimes they orbit further away and sometimes they move right out of our orbit. This may well be true of other people, he said, but it is not true of God. God does not orbit around us, nor do we orbit around God. God is the universe in which all things orbit. No matter where we are, we remain in God. No matter how far from God we may feel ourselves to be, we are nonetheless orbiting in God” And so we come to understand why Paul says that nothing can separate us from God and his love. We live and breathe and move in God for our entire existence. God does not abandon us and we cannot abandon God because we are forever in God. As we read in the Psalms: “Even if I went to the end of the earth, there you are.” So whatever we are going through, we will and can endure it because of God’s ever present help and strength is closer than a whisper away. More than that, though suffering is seldom good in itself, God is able to use it for good in a number of ways. - He uses it to draw us closer to himself. - He uses it to bring us to spiritual maturity. - He uses the suffering to make our lives more fruitful. As we read in John 15:2 he prunes every fruitful branch so that it will be even more fruitful. So, how then might we respond to suffering? Here are 5 helpful ways we might respond to the pain and suffering we may be experiencing. 1. Firstly let us examine our own lives and prayerfully explore whether this suffering is the result of our own sin. Let us prayerfully ask God to reveal to us if there is something we are doing that is causing this suffering. Rest assured that God will never answer such a prayer with a nebulous feeling of guilt. When it is needed, He will convict our hearts of something specific which will demand a response from us. If there is a specific sin, then we need to repent of it and ask God’s forgiveness and cleansing. 2. Secondly we might reflect on what God may be saying to us through our suffering. No matter how bleak a situation is there is always a gift in everything we experience and so there will be some lesson or truth God will help us to uncover through our experiences. 3. Thirdly let us never forget that life is always a mixture of battle and blessing. In times of battle it is helpful to bear in mind that blessing is often just around the corner. So we need to keep our eyes fixed on him from whom all blessings flow and remain strong in that focus. 4. Fourthly no matter what we are experiencing ourselves, the call to all Christ followers is that we need to be sufficiently outwardly focused to notice the suffering of others. It is easy to slip into a victim mentality that blinds us to the fact that those around us may also be suffering and in need of our support. Our faith calls us to respond with compassion to all those who are suffering no matter why they are suffering or what our own view is of their suffering. It calls us to look beyond ourselves to the needs of others. 5. Finally we need to base our lives on the foundational truth set forth in today’s passage that God is never himself removed from our suffering and will work through suffering for our good. Just as those who nailed Jesus to the cross intended it for evil; but God used it for good, for the saving of many lives, so God will use our suffering for good. So let us be of good cheer that all things work for the good of those who love the Lord and let us take courage and heart in the fact that our entire existence occurs within the universe of God’s compassionate and unconditional love. |
