We can meet with God in our pain. God himself stands with the weeping and the wounded. And when we find ourselves there, we find ourselves in close proximity to Him.
I remember that it was in early high school that I first read the following from CS Lewis’ The Problem of Pain:
We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
I had grown up as a Christian. Maybe you have too? Or perhaps, like many others, you’ve more recently come to Jesus. But regardless, it was an offensive truth then—to all of us! And it’s an offensive truth now, if we’re honest. It offends our modern sensibilities that anything good might be redeemed out of pain. We avoid pain, run away from it, bury it in addiction, ignore it, play through it…. Here in the US, we mostly believe that technology has allowed us to be freed from pain… We think we may just have found an escape hatch, yes please, and that Jesus whispers nice and gentle things to us while we hole-up and watch the rest of the world go by. My Dutch friends amazed me with trips to the dentist for fillings with no numbing Novocaine. I was amazed that they could stand the drill without painkiller! "It’s just is a little pinch and pressure," they’d say, "and it just lasts a little while…"
A little while?! That’s way too long for me! Pinch and pressure?! No thank you!
Run away, Run away! Like Arthur shouting for the knights to retreat in Monty Python! Distract from pain! Escape from pain! Buy more stuff to insulate from pain!
And then, something interrupts my own inclinations toward pain avoidance.
It’s tall, with a crossbeam, splinters, rough edges. It’s marked by thirst and suffering and exposure. It comes with its own accessories of spikes and thorns and humiliation.
Here we are then, standing in the shadow of the cross.
The thing about pain isn’t that it’s a virtue in and of itself. We’re not meant to run toward it for kicks. However, the thing about pain is that when we do find ourselves in its shadow, it’s not just that God is shouting to us (or at us, as some may have felt before experiencing the grace and kindness of Jesus)… but it’s that God is shouting with us. My God, My God… Jesus cries out in His last words…
We can meet with God in our pain. God himself stands with the weeping and the wounded. And when we find ourselves there, we find ourselves in close proximity to Him.
The Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans, says Romans 8:26.
So different, isn’t it, from what we mostly think? We tend to think that we’re close to God when we get the promotion! Or when we get the award! Or when we get the win! Not that we’re not close to God at those moments to be sure. But that when we look at the scripture, we usually find Jesus nestled up at the lunch table with the brokenhearted, the losers, and those left out.
When we find ourselves at that table too, as Romans 8 so brilliantly and beautifully tells us, we can groan along with creation with groans that are so deep that their meaning is found only in the language of the Spirit of God… and that their purposes are simply this:
The redemption of the world from decay and bondage.
The liberation of God’s children from suffering and death.
The promise of a glorious inheritance in the now and the not yet of the kingdom of God.
What then, Romans 8:31 asks us, shall we say in response to these things?
We can say that in our pain, and in our suffering, we are learning the way of Jesus. And that He is accompanying us in the midst of whatever it is we are bearing.
We can say that God’s shout is not a shout at us, but a shout alongside us! That we together — as we look at the world and all that is broken, all that is in bondage, all that is decaying right before our eyes — are called to be more than conquerors.
We can say that this Jesus whom we love, and who first loved us, has sent us to be His hands and feet to the world around us. To give water to the thirsty, to feed the hungry, to attend to the orphan, to consider the refugee, to love the lonely.
Christians are like everyone else in that we experience pain as a problem. We want to alleviate pain and suffering because Jesus wanted to. We have the no more tears, no more crying of Revelation to remind us that the téleios—the fully-grown purposes of God—brings us full redemption from pain and suffering.
But Christians are not like everyone else in that we also trust God’s promise and presence in the midst of pain. We do not have to be pain-free to experience the withness of God. Sometimes, in the now of the Kingdom, we do experience relief, healing, and restoration. Sometimes, in the not yet of the Kingdom, we don’t. Even so: God is with us.
The promise we have in the midst of pain is that God is present to us, and that He’s not sitting idly by. He’s at work! He’s drawing us into the deep redemptive experiences that come with a faith that is winsome and mature and that has become comfortable with questions as well as answers. He’s restoring creation as our own hearts are broken and compelled to kingdom action. He’s teaching us of His faithfulness even when our hope is in things unseen.
NT Wright, in his recently released, brilliant little book God And The Pandemic says it this way:
"There is a pattern here. Those who have long pondered the story of Jesus will recognize it. We expect God to be, as we might say, 'in charge'. But the God we see in Jesus is the God who wept at the tomb of his friend. The God we see in Jesus is the God-the-spirit who groans without words. The God we see in Jesus is the one who, to demonstrate what his kind of 'being in charge' would look like, did the job of a slave and washed his disciples’ feet."
CS Lewis watched the first great war unfold, and then the second. He had much joy in life and much loss. He saw all around him reasons to run from pain, to curse God for it, to lose all hope.
And yet, instead, armed with a mindfull of stories that reflect both the transcendence and imminence of God, Lewis reminded all of us (as well as Lucy… if you haven’t read or watched The Chronicles of Narnia, now’s the time!) that Aslan’s not a safe lion. But he’s good.
And what he meant by that, is this: That God so loved the world, and that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Can I ask you a question? When you have been in pain, or scared, or suffering… have you ever wanted to be comforted? Have you ever wished someone would be near to you, give you strength, help you through?
Well this is what we have in Jesus. And not only a comforter, but a companion. And not only a companion, but a savior. Someone who can, in the midst of pain, transform us into people who look like Him, for the sake of the world. Someone who can offer us a glorious inheritance.
And this whispered truth is something you can share with those around you… as people are in pain, as they experience challenge or confusion, or worry about the end of the world, or get angry with God, or wonder what it all means….
This whisper might sound like any one of these... as you talk with your family, neighbor, roommate, friends, kids, parents…
Do you know that even when you’re angry, God is near to you?
Have you ever wondered what it might be like to pray?
I would love to pray for you. Could we pray for God’s peace right now?
Would you ever want to listen to a song of worship with me, to see if you might sense God in it?
Do you know that God is not afraid of your doubt?
I am sorry you are in pain. (Deep breath.)
Have you ever heard the story of how much Jesus loves you?
The promise of pain is that God is with us, and that we can learn to be with one another in a way that allows Jesus to be lifted up. That the kingdom of God is on the move, is near, is at hand!
And each of us, once we have learned to recognize Jesus with us in the midst of it no matter what, can also learn to invite those around us to join with Jesus as well.
We are good news people. In this world, we will have trouble. No one should be shocked by that! It’s in the book, written in black and white.
But take heart, God shouts to us through His proverbial megaphone!
I have overcome the world!
