I Peter
4:12, 19
I picture
the man standing at the door of their home, watching his wife and trying to
find the words to tell her what he must tell her. After a moment, she notices him standing
there but he still doesn’t speak.
Something prompts her to ask, “What’s wrong?”
Knowing
there is no way to soften the terrible fact, he tells her their younger son is
dead.
“No,” she
says and then, “How?”
He tells
her how his body had been found in a field, tells her he had been murdered,
tells her how he died.
At this
point, as an appalling, dreadful truth begins to sink in, she says, “You
mean….”
“Yes,” her
husband said, “our son was killed by his own brother, Cain murdered Abel.
“And, now,”
Adam continued as he embraced Eve, “we’ve also lost Cain.”
Eve,
heartbroken and in anguish could only cry, “Why? Why? Why?”
Of course,
the Bible only gives us the bare-bones story of the murder: We know the victim, we know the “perp,” we
know the motive—jealousy, and we know the sentence. We’re left to imagine how Adam and Eve
responded to the death of their son, Abel. On one level, I think this story is
included to let us know the kind of mess we’d gotten ourselves into. Imagine, brother kills brother in a fight
over religion. And, the story also
reminds us that troubles, suffering, and pain are almost as old as human
history.
We don’t
know if these parents asked why this had happened to their family, perhaps they
didn’t have to. But, of course, in the
ancient story of Job we’re reminded that, “Why?” in the face of trouble is one
of the oldest questions we humans have asked.
The Source of Our Troubles
In a sense,
the answer to our questions about why we have trouble is always the same. We live in a broken world, a world we broke.
In Romans
8:22, Paul speaks of how the creation has suffered pain waiting for God’s
redemption to become a reality. Somehow,
in ways we may not fully comprehend, even the physical world has been impacted
by our broken relationship with God.
Sickness,
greed, death, estrangement, fear, jealousy, in fact, all those things that
contribute to the pain and suffering of our world may be traced to this
rebellion. This state of rebellion, a
state the Bible calls sin, has brought its greatest harm on the rebels.
Yet, we continue
to rebel and face the consequences.
For some,
this is all the explanation needed. We
face pain and suffering because of the kind of world we live in.
But, even
for those who accept the notion that ours is a fallen world, a world which is
not what God intended, that answer is too generic. It sounds too much like
one-size-fits-all. They want to know why
they, as individuals, should be facing a particular painful situation, at a
particular time.
Sometimes that answer is found. Sometimes that answer eludes them.
Possible Reasons Why
According
to the Bible, there are several reasons why we—as individuals—may be going
through tough times, including pain and suffering. They are important to know, but don’t think
of this as an exhaustive list. Some trials
just don’t fit the one or the other of these categories.
We’ll just
briefly review them. I’ll look at one or
two in a later sermon in this series.
1.
Sometimes, people go through tough times so God may get our attention with the
intent of drawing us to himself.
C. S. Lewis
once wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but
shouts in our pain: it is his megaphone
to rouse a deaf world.”
The Apostle
Paul would have understood this. While a
rabid persecutor of the church, he was struck blind, causing him to ponder the
claims of Christ as he never would have had he remained on his prior course of
action.
2. Sometimes, people go through tough times so
God may build their moral and spiritual character.
James’
readers may have been ready to say to him, “Beg pardon,” when he wrote about
the difficulties they were facing.
Dear brothers and sisters, whenever
trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy.
For when your faith is
tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.
So let it grow, for when
your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready
for anything. (James 1:2-4)
A few years
ago you could occasionally see a commercial for a product called, “Exercise in
a Bottle.” Supposedly, you could take
these pills and have the effect of exercise without ever going to the gym. When we consider the claim that troubles
build our spiritual and moral character, we’re tempted to say, “Just give me
some of that ‘Character in a Bottle.’”
It just doesn’t work that way.
3. Sometimes, people go through tough times so
God’s Kingdom may be advanced.
“The blood
of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” wrote Tertullian, the theologian who
lived in the late second and early third centuries.
The 2001
movie Beyond the Gates of Splendor tells
the story of how, five missionaries were killed in 1956 by Ecuador’s Auca
Indians; the young men had come to
evangelize the tribe.
Later,
Elizabeth Elliott, wife of slain missionary Jim Elliott, and Rachel Saint,
sister of slain missionary Nate Saint, moved to the Auca village to reach out
to the tribe with the love of Christ.
Soon, many had trusted Christ and the Auca’s were transformed. They had been one of the most violent tribes
ever studied; two years after the
arrival of the missionaries, the homicide rate dropped 90%.
At the same
time, back in the US
What some
saw as senseless deaths had had been transformed into a challenge to serve.
4. Sometimes people go through tough times as
God chastises them for personal sin.
The writer
of Hebrews says: “The Lord disciplines
those he loves.” Now, having said that,
let me add a cautionary note. This
reality is reason for self-examination; it does not give us the right to
pronounce on the reasons for another’s suffering.
This is one
possible explanation for our suffering, but it’s only one. I’ll mention one other.
5. Sometimes people go through trouble because
that’s just the way things are.
Quite a few
Christians today have embraced the notion that we are somehow exempt from the
troubles other people are facing. Years
ago I heard a woman who was too young to have lived then, insist that no
Christians went hungry during the Great Depression. That’s just not true.
Those who
hold the most extreme version of this view that we’re exempt from trouble
insist that Christians who do have troubles just lack faith. I wonder about that. Let’s look at a couple incidents in Paul’s
life. Remember, Paul seemed to have
plenty of faith in these situations.
--On his
way to Rome where he would stand trial, the Apostle was shipwrecked during a
storm. This was at least the fourth time
he had been shipwrecked. Once he spent a
night and a day adrift at sea.
--In
prison, he was compelled to write to his friend Timothy to have him bring a
cloak he had left in Troas. Roman
prisons were damp and chilly.
Think about
what these episodes imply. If you’re out
on the sea very often, expect to face a storm now and then. If you’re somewhere cold, expect to shiver.
Believers
don’t escape the troubles others are facing.
The believers’ faith may allow them to face those troubles with a sense
of peace, but that remarkable peace has the nasty habit of only showing up in
the midst of those troubles.
But what if we can’t find a slot for our
trouble? What if we can’t come up with
an answer to our question “Why?”?
This may
lead to a response we try to hide.
Anger: The Response We Try to Hide
When we ask
“Why?” and no answer is forthcoming, a very natural response is anger.
The silence
Job heard in response to his cry of “Why?” led to anger, a vivid, powerful
anger.
Job was
angry at his very existence. Job’s
response to the loss of his property, the loss of his children, the loss of his
health was so deep, he wished he had never been born.
At last, Job spoke, and he cursed the day of
his birth.
He said:
"Cursed be the day of my birth, and cursed be the night when I was
conceived. Let that day be turned to
darkness. Let it be lost even to God on high, and let it be shrouded in
darkness. Yes, let the darkness and
utter gloom claim it for its own. Let a black cloud overshadow it, and let the
darkness terrify it. Let that night be blotted off the calendar, never again to
be counted among the days of the year, never again to appear among the months.
(Job 3:1-6)
Many a man
or woman facing incredible pain wishes, at least momentarily, that they had
never been born. They reason that if
they had never been born, they would have never felt the pain they now feel.
Job was
angry at his worthless “comforters.”
Listen to his words about these friends and their advice.
14.
"One should be kind to a fainting friend, but you have accused me
without the slightest fear of the Almighty.
15. My
brother, you have proved as unreliable as a seasonal brook that overflows its
banks in the spring
16.
when it is swollen with ice and melting snow.
17. But
when the hot weather arrives, the water disappears. The brook vanishes in the
heat.
18. The
caravans turn aside to be refreshed, but there is nothing there to drink, and
so they perish in the desert.
19.
With high hopes, the caravans from Tema and from Sheba
20. but
finding none, their hopes are dashed.
21.
You, too, have proved to be of no help--this is how you now treat me,
terrified at the sight of
me, you take fright. (6:24-21)
Job’s
friends had nothing to offer him in his situation. In fact, they were afraid, perhaps, that the
same would happen to them. Their advice,
filled with condemnation and accusations, led Job to sarcastically
declare: “No doubt you are the people,
and wisdom will die with you.” The idea
here is that Job’s friends were presenting themselves as “privileged people
with a proper relationship to and unique knowledge of God.” (Vine/Unger, p.
175.)
No wonder
“Job’s comforters” has become a synonym for those people whose words are more
hurtful than helpful.
I’ve known
people who’ve said such foolish things to grieving persons, that I’ve wondered
how those hurting men and women kept themselves from throwing them out of their
homes or chasing them out of the funeral chapel.
Job was
angry at God! That’s right, Job, a man
famed for patience, raged at God. In the
midst of his pain and confusion, Job saw God as suddenly turning on him after a
lifetime of blessing.
I was at ease, and he broke
me in two;
he seized me by the neck and
dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his
target… His archers surround me,
letting fly their arrows,
so that the ground is wet
from my blood. (Job 16:12-13 NRSV,NLT)
He wonders
about God’s fundamental justice.
Innocent or wicked, it is
all the same to him. That is why I say, 'He destroys both the blameless and the
wicked.' He laughs when a plague
suddenly kills the innocent.
The whole earth is in the hands of the wicked, and God blinds the eyes of the
judges and lets them be unfair. If not he, then who? (Job 22-24)
Anticipating
only death, Job asks the God he has faithfully worshipped and served to just
leave him alone.
I have only a little time
left, so leave me alone-that I may have a little moment of comfort
before I leave for the land
of darkness and utter gloom, never to return. (Job 10:20-22)
Job’s anger
was that of a man who couldn’t get a grip on what was happening to him; it was
an understandable anger. It was an anger
hurting men and women may be able to sympathize with.
I want to
say something about the lessons we can learn from Job’s anger.
1. Anger and faith are not incompatible.
Job’s anger
only made sense because he knew something of the character of God. He knew God to be a just God, a righteous and
good God.
His anger
was not a rejection of his faith; it was a reasonable response to the puzzling
contradiction he endured.
2. Because God seeks our honesty, our anger
often prompts his response.
Before
Job’s story is over, God responds to him.
He does not respond in a way Job may have imagined but he did
respond.
Is this
what we’ve been taught? Isn’t it the man
or woman who patiently endures without a word of complaint that God
honors? Isn’t taking it on the chin what
faith is all about?
Not if such
responses are born out of denial, not if we somehow think we can fool God into
thinking we have no questions about what is happening to us, no anger about our
loss or pain.
Jesus told
the woman at the well that those who would worship God must do so in “spirit and
in truth.” There is a place for
coming to God with our doubts, our anger.
I’ve always
loved the story of the medieval nun on a difficult journey. The roads were poor and the weather
miserable. While they crossed a small
stream, her donkey bolted and threw her off into the deep mud. As she struggled to get up, she muttered,
“Lord, if this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of
them.”
3. We need to remember that expressing our
honest anger isn’t without cost.
Job’s
friends thought he had abandoned the faith.
They believed he was refusing to acknowledge the obvious, that he was
guilty of some terrible sin which made him stand out from all the rest of
humanity, made him worthy of especially grievous chastisement.
The truth
is, Job challenged their preconceived notions about how God must act. In their world, God blessed the righteous and
punished the wicked. Yet, Job, a man
noted for his righteousness, was enduring terrible calamity. His experiences didn’t fit in their little
box.
Even though
Job’s friends had turned on him, God commended him. In God’s own speech which
concludes the debate, he says to Job’s friends:
“I am angry with you and with your two friends, for you have not been
right in what you have said about me, as my servant Job was.” (Job 42:7)
For all his
anger, Job was clearer in his insights about God than his friends were.
Resources for Facing the Unanswered “Why?”
How then do
we face the unanswered “Whys”?
To begin
with, as we face those unanswered “whys” we should seek help within the
community of Christ, the church.
The writer
of Hebrews addressed Christians who were facing persecution and trial. Some of them had foolishly begun to withdraw
from Christian fellowship. Their reason
isn’t clear. Perhaps they just thought
they could get along without the church.
The writer
told them to think again.
Let us hold tightly to the
hope we said we believed in.
God promised and He is
dependable.
And let us think about how
we may cause one another to love and to do good things.
Do not quit meeting
together, as some people are in the habit of doing. Instead, encourage even
more, since you see the day coming closer.
(Hebrews 10:23-25)
The church
is to be a place of encouragement. It
should be a place where we find help to keep on going in tough times.
So, seek
out those who will let you give voice to your pain. They may not agree with you but they will
hear you. They will not try to erase
your pain but they will try to show you how to endure.
Chances
are, they’ve learned to do so through the school of suffering themselves.
The church
is not only a place for comfort; it is a place for challenge. There, within the caring community of Christ,
we learn to mind our priorities, learn to see our losses in the light of all
our blessings.
In the
church, we are in the company of those who have suffered and survived. We are in the company of those who are
prepared to minister to other sufferers.
Then, too, we
should face the unanswered “whys” with the knowledge that God takes delight in
transforming tragedy into triumph.
Tony
Compolo tells of a memorable experience of listening to an African-American
preacher talk about God’s power in the face of tragedy. He began by imagining the disciples,
heartbroken and defeated, the day after the crucifixion, the Saturday following
what Christians now call “Good Friday.”
It had been
anything but “good” to Jesus’ followers.
The disciples, the preacher argued, never expected what was about to
happen on Easter Sunday, when the crucified Christ would walk out of the
tomb. So Saturday was filled with gloom
and despair. From this, he reasoned that
we who are in pain also can’t know what power God may display at the dawning of
the next day. As the sermon moved toward
its conclusion, the preacher’s refrain became, “It’s Saturday, but Sunday’s
comin’.”
I don’t
believe God’s power to bring good out of tragedy ever allows us to minimize the
pain of another. I do believe that power
allows us to say to the hurting person: Don’t
think that nothing good will ever happen to you again.
Above all, we
should face the unanswered “whys” with confidence in God’s character.
Remember
Peter’s words to his readers, “… those who suffer according to God's will
should entrust their souls to a faithful Creator.”
When the
prophet Jeremiah wrote to the confused remnant of God’s people who were
suffering in exile in Babylon
For I know the plans I have
for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for
disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
In those days when you pray,
I will listen. If you look for me in
earnest, you will find me when you seek me. I will be found by you…" (Jeremiah
29:11-14)
In C. S.
Lewis’ great story, The Chronicles of
Narnia, there is the account of the children meeting Aslan, the Lion-King
who serves as the Christ figure in the story.
Though they had heard of Aslan, the children had thought him to be a
man. Here’s the important part of the
story.
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d
thought he was a man. Is he—quite
safe? I shall feel rather nervous about
meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and
no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan
without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said
Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr.
Beaver. “Who said anything about
safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”
When we
suffer for no apparent reason, we would do well to hold onto the knowledge that
God is good.
Conclusion
God
provides resources for facing our troubles, even when there seems to be no
reason for what we’re going through.
Those
resources include our fellow-believers, who are often fellow-strugglers, and our
faith in the God whose record encourages us to look beyond the present.
