Sermon from November 17

Recently I’ve been reading a book that Carrie managed to get for free for me on my Kindle.  One of the authors that I’ve taken to over the past decade or so is a man by the name of Philip Yancey.  Way back in 1977, he started investigating a question that continually resurfaces in his life, as well as in the lives of pretty much every person who walks the face of this earth.  His book from 1977 is called “Where is God When It Hurts?”  That began a long journey for Yancey as he started taking a look at this thing called pain in the world, wondering why it happens, and what can possibly be done about it.

In that first book of his, Yancey looked at pain.  As he researched, he saw the good of pain.  Pain indicates that something is wrong, and encourages us to find a way to work to resolve the situation.  If you touch a hot stove or match, the pain encourages you to let go before more hurt comes along.  He came to see pain as something good from God, though difficult for us human beings to deal with.  And in the last year or so, he has come full circle.  He’s taken a look at things like the Jesus he never knew growing up, he’s explored his disappointment with God, he’s wondered what good God is, and with many recent events, he’s come full circle to the book that I’ve just finished reading, The Question that Never Goes Away.

Pain and suffering never seem to go away from this world.  And I’ll tell you a little bit about what Philip Yancey sees as part of God’s reason for it in a few minutes.  But one of the realities of life in this world is the presence of pain and suffering.  The question never goes away because we continually see pain and suffering in the world around us.  It hits, and sometimes it hits us hard, and makes us ask some really good, really hard questions about God, about pain, about suffering, and about what God is trying to do with this world.

From the beginning, though, let me start off by making one thing clear.  God’s desire for us in this world is not necessarily for us to avoid pain and suffering.  That’s a shocking statement for us to hear.  God knows that this is a world of pain and suffering, and even though it really shouldn’t surprise us, when we think about it, God’s intent is not for us to live a life with no pain and suffering involved.  Sure, in the perfect world of His creation, prior to sin, pain and suffering would have been foreign to that world.  But the world we live in, a world infected by sin, is a world where pain and suffering are going to be there.  And because we live in that world, God’s intent for us is not to avoid pain and suffering.

We see that in the longer Gospel reading that I just read to you from Luke 21 a few minutes ago.  In fact, I bet that it was so subtle that most of us probably missed it there.  We start off our reading for today with Jesus and the disciples walking through the temple area, looking at the magnificent building and all the majestic trappings that came with it.  They marveled at the architecture and how grand God’s house was.  And then, Jesus really let the air out of their balloon.  Not even a stone will be left on top of another.  And that’s when they asked the question that shows us that the disciples were thinking differently than what you and I tend to think.

“Teacher, when will these things be?”  Not, can’t God do something to make it where that doesn’t happen.  Not, what does God think about the pain and suffering of all those who will suffer because of that.  It’s almost as though they accept that it’s a given that pain and suffering will come.  The things Jesus says will come true.  It’s not a question of avoiding it, or even asking why God permits such things to happen.  They almost take it matter of factly that God permits pain and suffering, and so they merely ask when it will happen.

It seems to me, in our day and age, we’re not content to think about God permitting pain and suffering.  We get caught up in asking the why question.  Why doesn’t God do something about pain and suffering?  Why do we have to go through pain and suffering?  Why would God allow something like that?  As Philip Yancey’s most current book notices by its very title, the question never goes away.  We move from one scene of pain and suffering in our lives, and then another one seems to pop up before too long.  It’s almost like a bicycle wheel, it spins, and once we move past that pain and suffering part, it’s only a matter of time before the wheel spins back around to the pain and suffering part once again.

And so we get caught up in the why questions.  They pop up among God’s people so often.  Why does a husband and father suffer and die at too young of an age?  Why does a young, healthy man have suicidal thoughts and battle depression?  Why do things like typhoons and hurricanes and tsunamis even exist, much less cause the extensive damage that they do?  Why do so many choose to deal with the issues of their lives by loading up weapons and unleashing them at those who don’t deserve it?  Why, and why, and why, and why?

We wonder why it hurts so much.  Why does pain rack our bodies?  Why did God even create us with the capability to feel pain?  And knowing that it actually is intended to help us doesn’t really help us when we are in the midst of the pain.  Sure, it’s here to tell me something’s wrong, but what’s wrong just can’t be fixed.  And so we wonder why it hurts so much, and why God seems to stand idly by, as though He’s helpless, or, even worse, as though He just doesn’t care.

We wonder why it happens in the first place.  If God is truly in control of everything that happens in this world, and nothing happens without His direction and guidance and control, then why the tornado that devastates a whole town?  If God is truly in control, why a typhoon that kills thousands, and why strike a land in which many likely don’t get to receive the eternal inheritance through faith in Jesus?  Or, when it hits a place where we know that Jesus has disciples, why does it happen to those that God has declared His undying love for?  Why, and why, and why.  The question just simply doesn’t go away.

And that’s where the disciples’ discernment and Jesus’ answer convey a great deal to us.  Those things which bring pain and suffering are going to come.  As sinful people who live in a world that has been devastated by sin, the devastating effects are going to come our way.  It’s not a question of avoiding it, but when they happen.  That’s what the disciples discerned as Jesus answered the question of when.  They knew God enough to know that He didn’t necessarily turn aside disaster and pain.  Their nation had been conquered and exiled into foreign lands, only to return.  God hadn’t spared them before, and so they had no reason to suspect that the things Jesus said would be any different.  It’s not a question of avoiding pain and suffering, but of when it will come.

And God’s answer is significant.  I say that because the reality is, God’s answer is really a non-answer.  God never answers the question of why.  One of the reasons why you and I sit here today wondering why things like these happen is because God doesn’t answer the question.  Jesus doesn’t say why these things happen here.  Throughout the history of the people of God, God rarely answers the question of why.  It is significant that the times He usually does answer is when His people have brought it upon themselves.  But when the cause isn’t brought on by them, God simply doesn’t answer the question.

And so there must be something to pain and suffering that we fail to see.  The question never goes away because God hasn’t answered it, at least not in a way that we are willing to hear.  Our life and experience tends to point to the fact that God permits pain and suffering to come in.  He doesn’t tend to turn it aside, but permits it to come a’knocking.

So I can’t stand here in front of you all today and tell you the answer to the question why.  But what I can tell you is something that is of great significance for us.  God doesn’t tend to turn aside pain and suffering, so when He does, that is all the more reason to give thanks and praise to God.  But what God does do is redeem pain and suffering.  God takes that which strikes often in our lives, as it rolls upon us again and again, as the question never goes away, and God redeems our pain and suffering.

That’s why the cross of Jesus is at the heart and soul of our faith.  That is where we see God redeeming the pain and suffering of this world.  That is where we see God causing something good to come through pain and suffering.  As Jesus bore the entire weight of the pain and suffering of this world in His own physical human body on the cross, God took the pain and suffering of this world and brought something redeeming out of it.  God brought about the death of pain and suffering, and the entrance into a new, redeemed life, in which no pain and suffering will ever enter.  And we see that entrance into that new life through the victorious resurrection of Jesus.

God redeems pain and suffering.  Jesus suffered pain and suffering such as you and I simply cannot fathom, and God redeemed that pain and suffering to be the entry way into the new, everlasting kingdom that we await, through the victory of our Lord Jesus.  God connects us to that new everlasting kingdom through His gift in the waters of baptism.  God connects us to that new everlasting kingdom as we are daily killed in our sin and pain and suffering, and as God daily brings forth a new creation that lives for that new, everlasting kingdom.  

God redeems pain and suffering.  God doesn’t turn it aside from us, nor does He always bring about the end of pain and suffering in our life.  But God gives us the promise that even pain and suffering are things that can be redeemed.  Good can still come out of them, even though our way of thinking would rather avoid them or turn them aside, or do away with them completely.  God, however, redeems that which we would rather avoid, even though we continually do find that the question doesn’t go away.

Now, I mentioned earlier that I would let you know what Philip Yancey said is part of the reason for the continued existence of pain and suffering in this world, and why it’s actually a redeemable thing in our lives when we face it.  Yancey has been to many places which have seen some of the worst pain and suffering of our world.  He’s been to Newtown, and Japan, and places like Rwanda.  He’s been to Aurora, Colorado, and Littleton, Colorado.  He’s been to Sarajevo, and seen the devastation of ethnic cleansing.  He’s been to Virginia Tech, and in all these places he’s been, he has talked to people who have suffered loss, sometimes unimaginable loss.

How is that kind of pain redeemable?  It almost brought a chuckle of joy to me when I was reading his conclusion.  Of all the places in this world that he could have searched for an answer, he eventually turned to a fairly well known Lutheran theologian by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  And in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Yancey found how God brings about some degree of redemption in pain and suffering.

Pain and suffering leave holes in us, especially when it comes to loss of loved ones.  And it’s like that we’ve heard that we’re supposed to let God fill those holes.  But Bonhoeffer opens the door to a very different picture.  He says that God doesn’t fill those holes.  God permits those holes to remain inside of us.  Not because He’s a cruel God, but because those holes point us to the community that those lost ones were part of in relation to us.  If God filled those holes, we wouldn’t miss our community connection with them.  But since God created us to be in community with one another, we continue to remember that community connection in their loss by those empty places in our lives.

God redeems our pain and suffering, especially in loss, by reminding us that He has redeemed us as part of a community.  That community finds its common connection in the pain and suffering of Jesus on the cross, and finds its redemption in His resurrection.  Even loss in our life demonstrates that God has created us to be part of a community, and shows us that God’s community stretches over time and place, even beyond life and death.  

That’s why the disciples didn’t ask why, but when.  And yes, most of what Jesus said there happened either in their lifetimes, or shortly after.  In a mere 40 years or less, all those things except for the Son of Man coming in glory happened.  Jerusalem destroyed.  The temple gone.  The people fleeing.  God’s people scattered throughout the nations.  All so that God’s redemption of this painful, suffering world could be extended throughout the world. 

While we would love to have an answer to the question of why, having that answer probably wouldn’t help things out any.  But knowing that God chooses to redeem our pain and suffering gives us hope, even in the worst pain and suffering.  And in the midst of that pain and suffering, we’re reminded that God gives us a community to connect with to help us in our times of pain and suffering.  That’s why we, as God’s people, connect community and Christ.  That’s where God redeems our pain and suffering, and gives us a message that connects to a community where our answer may speak much more than any explanation ever would.  Thanks be to God for that, in Christ our Lord.  Amen.