5 SUFFERING

“THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN - SUFFERING”      Easter 6th of
        I John 4:1-11; John 15:9-17                          May 8, 1994

The movie SHADOWLAND, which is about C.S. Lewis and his walk through the valley of the shadow of death in his falling in love and then loosing the one he loved, ends with C.S. Lewis saying, “The pain now is part of the happiness.  That’s the deal!”...a conclusion he comes to not with his head alone, but with his heart as well.  And in those words lies the mystery of our 5th magnificent seven word - suffering.

Love and suffering go together; we can’t have one without the other.
The only way to never suffer is to never love...never be close to anyone; not a person or an animal or even a plant.  Indeed, not even be close to oneself.  Then, just maybe we could eliminate most suffering from our vocabulary and experience..  Of course, we would eliminate much of life too - friendship and intimacy, joy and laughter, and much that makes life full and meaningful.   There isn’t much to live for when there is no love in life; there can be no love without opening the door to suffering.  For the suffering now is part of the happiness.  That’s the deal!

To live is to risk suffering...to love is to open oneself to deep suffering, yet it is also to open oneself to deeper joy which outlasts the suffering, and even transforms the suffering and fills life with a joy which is deeper then the suffering.  For it is true, as the song suggests, “You could have missed the pain, but you’d of had to miss the dance.”

When Jesus spoke these words John records for us to his disciples he was preparing them for the most painful time in their lives.  He was soon to go the way of the Cross; he was soon to fulfill what the Prophet Isaiah had spoken about him long ago when he said, “He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with grief” (Is.53:3b) and they were going to have to face His suffering which would become their suffering and would do them in unless there was something stronger then the suffering to hold them together...and make sense out of the senselessness.  That something was love.  So Jesus reminded them that love was at the center of their lives together and the one thing which is greater then anything the world could throw at them and gave them the commandment to love one another so that his joy might be in them and their joy might be complete.
2                    For “the one who is in (them, this love) is greater then the one who is in the world” and nothing of what was going to happen could separate them from the love they had known and still know and keep them from both abiding in that love and letting that love bear fruit...fruit that will last!

Suffering and love go together; we can’t have one without the other.
As such, suffering is a part of the very essence of life without which there can be no life and love is a part of the very energy of life which brings a joy to life that not even the suffering can destroy.

As human beings we do and will suffer.  This is a given.  It is not a choice.  It’s the way it is.  It is not even God’s will;  for God did not will that sin enter the world and death by sin.  So we can’t blame God for the bad things which happen to us or try to be good so God won’t let them happen.  It doesn’t work that way because God is not responsible for making us suffer.  God is responsible for doing something so we do not have to suffer alone and without hope.

In a letter Dr. Al Rogness wrote to Don and Mary Neidringhaus following the death of their son, he paraphrased John 3:16 to read,  “God was so indignant with this fallen order where sin and tragedy and death could strike his children that he sent his only Son to put in motion a mission that eventually would do away with the whole sorry state.”  That is, God so loved the world that God entered our suffering so that not even the worst which happens to us is beyond God’s love and can keep God’s love from doing its transforming thing in our lives and making our joy complete.

And from this great love is born all love...our love which also has the power to “bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things”;
which does have the power to make a difference even in the worst places of life so that nothing can happen to us which is beyond that transforming power and nothing can happen to us which can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord who came to tell us in unmistakable clarity that God is love and God’s love is the greatest power in the heavens or on the earth, and takes the worst which happens to us in this life and makes of it something good.


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Not that it was good...we must never say that.
Not that God willed it...we never know enough to say that.                             Not that we are glad it happened because of what came from it.  That is never the end result of even the blessings which come to us through our suffering.

As Rabbi Harold Kurshner, author of the classic book, WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE, says”
“I am a more sensitive person, a more effective pastor, a more sympathetic counselor because of Aaron’s life and death than I would ever have been without it.  And I would give up all of those gains in a second if I could have my son back.  If I could choose, I would forego all the spiritual growth and depth which has come my way because of our experiences, and be what I was fifteen years ago, an average rabbi, an indifferent counselor, helping some people and unable to help others, and the father of a bright, happy boy.  But I cannot choose.”

Indeed, let it never be said that we like suffering, or that we look forward to suffering so we can grow and be closer to God or that we are glad it happened so we could become the person we are.   This is to make light of the terrible pain and make mockery of suffering.  Even though it is true...it does make you real if it doesn’t break you -as the Skin Horse tells the Velventine Rabbit... “Real isn’t how you are made...It’s a thing which happens when a child loves you.  It takes a long time.  Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, you get loose in the joints, and very shabby.”
 
Love does make us real, when we let it!

It can take the worst of what happens to us, and it can bring something good out of it.  Not easily.  Not quickly.  Not so completely that we end up being glad the terrible thing happened.  We must never imply that!  Yet something good, warm, loving, precious; something which brings a smile to our lips and a joy to our hearts, a joy which can never be taken away!

This is what love can do and does do with our suffering.
Love which enters the suffering, takes it upon oneself and will not let it have the last say.

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 That is what God did to overcome suffered for us. God entered our suffering and was there with us, feeling its pain, knowing its despair, suffering its anquish...this we can say for this is the God we have come to know in the One Jesus, whom we call Lord.  For
“When the crucified Jesus is called ‘the image of the invisible
God,’ the meaning is that this is God and God is like this.  God is
not greater than he is in this humility.  God is not more glorious
than he is in this self-surrender. God is not more powerful than
he is in this helplessness.  God is not more divine than he is in this
humanity.”  (God and Human Suffering, p. 112)
“Suffering...(our 5th magnificent word) does not (as Douglas John Hall says) need to be transmitted by traditions; it is present here and now, as well as in the past.  It needs no ecclesiastical sanction; it comes and goes without anyone’s bidding.  It does not have to be defended doctrinally; it is our daily experience.  It cannot be worshipped and adored by fine liturgy; it is to be endured and not to be idolized.  To be human is to suffer, and God knows that.  That is why God suffers too.  Suffering is where God and human beings meet.  It is the one place where all persons - kings, priests, paupers and prostitutes - recognize themselves as frail and transient human beings in need of God’s saving love.  Suffering brings us closer to God and God closer to us.  Suffering, despite all its inhumanity and cruelty, paradoxically enables (us) to long for (life), find it, treasure it, and (live) it with all (our) might.”  (God and Human Suffering, p. 117)

It deepens our living and enlarges our loving and transformes our being in a way which brings a peace and a joy which passes human understanding.

And it makes us compassionate; for out of our suffering comes our compassion.  Out of our suffering comes our believing.  Out of our suffering comes our capacity to walk with those who suffer so that they suffer not alone, and in so doing, love them as we have been loved and as we have been commanded to love and to lay down our lives for others.  That is, not only be willing to die for them, but also be willing to live with them and enter their suffering so that they suffer not alone.


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As the Church, the body of Christ, whose suffering is our salvation, we are called not to a kind of spectator spirituality in which we are able to exist in a suffering world without either passion or compassion but to be a community of suffering, where the very sharing of the burden can be the beginning of the healing process and the joy being restored.

We are called to be there with those who suffer and let their suffering be a part of our being, not with pat answers and easy solutions but with that grace which comes from knowing that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint”  (Rom. 5:3-5); ready to be a part of the healing process, the slow, tedious healing process which stretches over many weeks and even years and leads down many dark valleys and dead ends before it comes out
into the light of day again;  able to be with them with the capacity to suffer with, a capacity which is born of having been so healed and thus it becomes “a case of the comforted comforting, the healed healing, the forgiven showing mercy.”
(God and Human Suffering, p. 142)

This is God’s love at work in our lives and in our world through our lives!  This is what it means to abide in God’s love and have our joy complete!
This is how suffering is overcome and transformed into blessing!
This is that which is in us in the love we know in the One God sent which is greater then the one who is in the world!
It is not that we loved God and thus kept suffering from crossing our path - like a rabbits foot brings good luck - but that God loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins; that is, to enter our suffering with a love which will not be overcome and will not give up and will not let us go - a love which cannot be taken from us no matter what - a love which as William Sloane Coffin says, “ never dies and... (and a ) dazzling grace which always is.” ...so that we can be sure that “neither death nor life, nor angles, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, now 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” or from the love we have known and shared in this life and the transforming power of this love does make our joy complete!
Indeed, the pain now is part of the happiness (joy); and the joy is that which is eternal.  That’s the deal!