January 22, 2006

Text: Hebrews 2:8b-10 ESV

In suffering we see only suffering. There is nothing glorious or even good about suffering, except its elimination. That is why so many people instinctively side with those who propose withholding of life support, food and water, or anything else it takes to be delivered from suffering. In our culture, it isn’t death we fear as much as it is the suffering that precedes it. In the end, even withdrawal or withholding of food and water from comatose or brain-damaged people seems to prolong suffering, as it takes days and weeks to die that way. Therefore, it makes compassionate sense to euthanize the suffering one with a quick and quiet injection of some painless narcotic that kills instantly, even as we do for a suffering animal. That’s what people think! That’s what you hear! And it all makes perfect sense—if, that’s all there is to suffering.

It’s hard to convince people that suffering is good because it builds character. Even if it does, people don’t care about character-building anymore. It’s hard to convince people that suffering brings out the best in caregivers. Many family members as caregivers aren’t interested in that kind of “best” for themselves. In truth, the care of a loved one who has suffered long and hard is exhausting and the grief that follows is worse than if you didn’t care so much about them to begin with. There is just nothing that makes suffering look good, either for the sufferer, or for the one caring for the one who is suffering. It all makes perfect sense to avoid suffering, both as sufferer and as caregiver—if, that’s all there is to suffering. 

Does suffering make sense to you? Job and others in the Bible didn’t think so. Peter responded to Jesus’ prediction of His suffering and death by saying that he would never allow that to happen, and he tried to make good on that promise when he drew his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane to defend Jesus at the time of His arrest. But Jesus said, “Put away your sword. Shall I not drink the cup of suffering the Father has given me?” (John 18:11). Peter was confused. He was crushed. He even lost the will to identify himself as a follower of Jesus when confronted by others at Jesus’ trial. Peter failed character-building completely and the Bible records he went out and wept bitterly. So let’s not glorify suffering or speak easily of it when others or we ourselves are suffering greatly in this life. But let’s do speak of it honestly. And let’s speak of it the way God speaks of it. Listen to what God says to us of the sufferings of Jesus that also have implications for our suffering. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Jesus. But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of His suffering and death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect throughsuffering (Hebrews 2:8b -10 ESV).

Jesus perfected our salvation through His suffering. We have heard this from childhood on: Jesus suffered and died for you. But why? Why did God choose to come into our world and take on human form for the sole purpose of His suffering and death? We have an easy answer for that question. Jesus saved us from the sufferings of hell through His own suffering on the cross. He suffered FOR us, on our behalf, so that we might not suffer the pains of hell. “He tasted death for everyone.” Don’t think that you can earn your own salvation through your own suffering. It doesn’t work that way. We do not earn anything through suffering illness or experiencing personal tragedy; only the suffering of Jesus counts on our behalf.

That is the Gospel promise God makes to us. We, along with our sufferings in this life, have been redeemed through His suffering. It may not feel that our suffering has been redeemed, but it has. Our sufferings have been separated from the punishment for our sins. Our suffering has been given new significance and meaning. Our suffering is not relieved by the sufferings of Jesus, unless it is a suffering that is due to worry and fear, which faith heals. “At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to Jesus” (v. 8b). We do not see Jesus having eliminated our sufferings in this life, not yet, not until death closes this life and heaven opens to us.

In the end, our suffering will be taken away from us, but now we see suffering, and more than suffering. We see Jesus in the midst of our sufferings, there with us when we suffer. To have our sufferings redeemed means to have them turn into something more than they are. It means to have sufferings become the place where God chooses to come near to us to be the only hope we have. Jesus’ sufferings on the cross placed Him at the center of history and His suffering places Him at the center of our suffering. Unlike Jesus, who cried out from the cross, “My God. My God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 45:46b), God does not abandon us at the time of our suffering. He is with us through Jesus!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young pastor imprisoned by the Nazis in 1943 and executed in 1945, realized that some suffering does not go away and we have to face up to it. He wrote, God’s deliverance is not to be found in every experience of human suffering. But in the suffering of the righteous God’s HELP is always there, because he is suffering with God. God is always present with him. The righteous person knows that God allows him to suffer so, in order that he may learn to love God for God’s own sake. In suffering, the righteous person finds God. That is his deliverance. Find God in your separation and you will find deliverance.

We too have known suffering that doesn’t go away-perhaps not the same as Bonhoeffer who faced unjust imprisonment and execution for his faith, but we know chronic and terminal illness; we know the pain and suffering that comes from the death of a loved one; we know the unjust accusations of others that seek our downfall. We too know suffering that doesn’t go away-suffering that we have to learn to live with.

The question is: Do we know suffering that reveals Christ in it? Do we know the deliverance that leaves suffering, but gives hope and peace even while suffering remains? This is what the unbelieving world cannot see. This is why suffering is the worst thing that can happen to a person for those who do not have Christ and who believe suffering to be meaningless. Suffering makes no sense without Christ. Doctors, nurses, and therapists can relieve pain, but only God can speak to suffering. It is Christ with us, in our suffering, that helps us live with suffering when it cannot be relieved and Christ that gives peace and hope even as we continue to live with our suffering. 

A nurse referred a patient to the hospital chaplain. The patient had been suffering from a severe flair up of rheumatoid arthritis and had been crying uncontrollably. The chaplain sat with her as she cried until she was able to speak. She said she did not know what was wrong or why she was crying. He asked her to tell him something about herself. She said she was a widow. Her husband had died nine years ago and her arthritis had been worsening ever since then. He asked her if she had felt grief and shed tears when he died and she said, “No.” He had committed suicide and it was so devastating that she had felt nothing. He asked her if she was angry with him for having taken his own life and she said, “No, because I loved him too much to be angry at him.” As the conversation continued, the chaplain asked if she would have been angry with him if he had simply walked out on her and abandoned her. She thought for only a moment, then said with a face flushed in anger, “That’s exactly what he did!” and her tears turned to words of anger that had been stored in her for nine years. In a dramatically short period of time she was able to admit her anger toward her husband for his sin against her. In the end, she was willing to forgive him. She had found God in her suffering when she was able to confess her resentment toward her husband, forgive him, and confess her own need for forgiveness. Where is God when we are suffering? He is in the midst of it all reconciling us to himself and to one another. There is more in suffering than meets the eye, because we know Jesus Christ!