Let’s start by looking back to Mark 14:34. "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," Jesus said to them. Let’s Pray.
I hope the teenagers will forgive me for being totally out of date and slightly soppy, but I’ve always been quite moved by Avril Lavigne’s lyrics in her song “I’m with you”:
I'm lookin' for a place,
I'm searchin' for a face,
Is anybody here I know,
Cause' nothin's goin right,
And everything's a mess,
And no one likes to be alone.
Isn't anyone tryin' to find me?
Won't somebody come take me home.
It's a damp cold night,
Tryin' to figure out this life,
Won't you take me by the hand,
Take me somewhere new,
I don't know who you are but I,
I'm with you.
It’s only a song, but it does describe that kind of longing that occasionally creeps in to the loneliness of life for something or someone who can bring lasting comfort.
This is the second of our three talks in this series on Suffering. And while I hope we are all clear that we will never get to the bottom of the question “Why?” (not in this life at least), there are three perspectives in the Bible from which we can view suffering, which can at least show us how trustworthy God is in the midst of suffering. And that is really the aim of his series.
Last week we saw suffering viewed from the beginning (the Creation and Fall)- a Creator God who is still Good and still God, despite bad things happening. And a fallen world into which suffering has come as a result of our rebellion. Next week with the kids we will look at suffering as viewed from the end- from the day when God wipes away every tear.
But today we look at suffering as viewed from the middle- Jesus Christ and the Cross, and I hope that whether we share Avril Lavigne’s struggles or not, we will find someone spoken of in the Bible as the “man of sorrows who was familiar with suffering” (Isa 53:3), someone who knows what it is like to suffer and lose everything. Someone who can comfort us in pain and loss- someone who has been there
There are 2 points today and the first is quite short and simple, the second has 3 subpoints…
1) We have a God who shares in our suffering
Back to the verse I started with from our reading: Mark 14:34. "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death”. Jesus is in the garden and as he contemplates the cup of suffering that the Father is giving him to drink: separation from the Father, and the wrath of God for the sins of the world he is utterly overwhelmed with sadness, grief and pain, and to compound it all, the disciples who sleep- unaware of what’s going on- will all scatter, some betraying, some denying him.
My point is simply this. In Christ, God hasn’t stayed aloof from our suffering world. He knows what it is like to suffer. He came down and joined us. We have a God who shares in our suffering.
You may know the story of Joni Earickson Tada who as a 17 year old girl went to the beach with friends one sunny summer’s day, and dived off the rocks into what she didn’t realise was very shallow water. Tragically she broke her back rendering her a quadriplegic for the rest of her life. Her story is an incredibly moving and inspiring one, as she moved gradually out of despair depression and doubt, and began to find a voice as a Christian speaker and campaigner for those with disabilities. Once, a few years after her accident, a friend at her bedside said something about Jesus that was extremely comforting. “Why he was paralysed too”. She realised that Jesus on the cross was pinned motionless in excruciating pain unable to move, and this brought immense solidarity- the God man who suffers with us.
We have a God who shares in our suffering. You could write a whole book (many have) on some of the difficult questions that arise from that- about how God is a God who suffers, and yet is impassible- that is to say he is not subject to powers outside of himself and his control that leave him vulnerable and a victim. Sure God is not any less God- but nevertheless in Jesus, he enters into our suffering and suffers with us.
Here’s how one writer put it …
“I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, moth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his”. John Stott the Cross of Christ.
So for those who suffer right now. You may never know why it sometimes seems to go from bad to worse, and how you feel you are only hanging on by your fingernails. Well never forget this, we have a God with scars.
Let’s move onto our second point…
2) We have a God who uses suffering…
Please turn back to Ps 119:67 on page
Psalm 119:67 67 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word.
And v71
71 It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.
Here is an extraordinary thing that we touched on last time. Though suffering is painful, it is possible sometimes (and I stress sometimes) to see good coming out of it. That is certainly the case for the Psalmist here- v71.
Last week I spoke of my nephews- twin boys to a single parent deaf mum. That puts pressure on my sister, on my parents, on the boys. But on the positive, I guess that they have a great relationship with their grandparents and their uncles and aunts that few have- and we give thanks for that.
Now I’m not wanting to minimise hardship, nor am I saying that there has to be a silver lining to every cloud. Sometimes in the words of Ronan Keating, “Life is a rollercoaster, you’ve just got to ride it.” In fact I think the book of Ecclesiastes teaches us that we don’t need to find a rhyme or reason to every event in this “life under the sun”.
But it’s part of the genius of God- this true God- the God of the Bible who made us and who controls every event in this world- that he bends suffering around to bring good out of it. There could be many examples, but here are just three…
We have a God who uses suffering…
a)…to bring rescue (to come to know Jesus)
The Cross is the ultimate example of this. When Jesus was in the lowest pit of suffering- cut off from the goodness and love of the Father that he had experienced undiluted since before the beginning of time- at the point of greatest darkness, (literally in fact), there was the point of greatest hope, the brightest light, as God punished OUR sin in Him. That is ultimate suffering for good.
Peter speaking of Jesus as an example of unjust and non-retaliating suffering speaks of what the cross achieved…
1 Peter 2:23-24 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
Healing- spiritual healing at the point of ridicule curse and shame to bring forgiveness and salvation. So Jesus didn’t only suffer with us (point 1) he also suffered for us to bring us salvation. When he died it was to deal with the very brokenness of the universe caused by our sin. He met sin and hell and death head on, and by swapping places for us is the only one that can release us from the grip of hearts gripped by sin.
Suffering to bring salvation.
It’s the same in the Old testament in the story of Joseph (the youngest kids have been studying it)- suffering for the sake of rescue.
His brothers have hated him, mocked him, abandoned him, sold him to slavery. He goes from a trafficked slave to a prison. Yet God turns it around, and takes him to the Kings palace where as Prime Minister he averts a famine saving his nation and his family.
At the end of the story he explains…
Genesis 50:20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
God has a way of bending suffering for benefit- for the saving of many lives. I just wonder if in heaven we will say- if only I knew what good was coming out of this tough time in my life.
Paul in prison says Philippians 1:12-13 12 Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. 13 As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ.
His suffering was bringing salvation- causing others to know Jesus.
God uses suffering to bring people to salvation- to know Jesus Christ. Now I need to tread carefully here, but a word for the person who isn’t a Christian: the person who is resisting Jesus, the person who may have a great respect for Christians, and even for Jesus Chrsit, but for whom at the moment Jesus is a dead figure of history rather than our Maker, our Judge, our King…. it may be that God is using suffering to cause you to come to him. As CS Lewis said “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world”. Jesus himself when questioned about a tower that fell on innocent victims to warn his hearers: Luke 13:4-5 do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
If you are not a Christian, can I gently ask- will you respond to your suffering with bitterness (a resistance to God’s Son), or softness: a turning to the One who suffered for us.
Enest Gordon was a prisoner of war at the famous Japanese “Bridge over the river Kwai” death camp- you may have seen the film. Here in the blood and filth of the jungle, he and many others found Christ in the testimony and love of fellow prisoners. Here he is on a boat back to England looking back on the story with a fellow survivor…
“Well” he said, “It’s all over. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. It was rough all right. But I learned an awful lot that I couldn’t have learned at the university or anywhere else. For one, I’ve learned about the real things of life, and for another, it’s great to be still alive” I knew exactly what had made him say this. The experiences we had passed through had deepened our understanding of life and of each other. We had looked into the heart of the Eternal and found him to be wonderfully kind. Ernest Gordon “To end all wars”- p217.
Ironically it sometimes takes suffering to see God is Kind and worth trusting.
We have a God who uses suffering……a) bring rescue
2b) … to make us become like Jesus.
The unbeliever needs to come to Jesus. The believer however, needs to grow more like Jesus, and God sometimes uses trials to test and refine us so that our faith may be proved genuine (1 Peter 1:7) or as James puts it “the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:4).
Or as the book of Hebrews puts it..
Hebrews 12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it..
I remember a lady I once met- a wonderful kind godly woman. When her husband was dying of cancer well before his time she said, “Now I know that God really loves me, because God disciplines those he loves”.
Far from being evidence God was against her, he saw this heavy hand of suffering as evidence God was working in her to transform more and more into the likeness of Jesus. And you could hardly meet a more gently kind godly lady who in her eighties has her neighbours around for tea, cakes and Christianity Explored on DVD!
The hammer blows of suffering hurt, but in God’s sovereignty he uses them to mould and shape us like a master craftsman working on a beautiful statue.
2C) …to value Jesus
Habakkuk 3:17-18 17 Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.
Here’s a challenging question for all of us. Do we love Jesus because of what he gets us, or because of who he is? A couple of weeks ago we thought about the difference between a service station and a destination. One is a helping hand along the way, and one is the place you are heading for.
There’s just a danger that we make Jesus a helping hand. Someone who gives us a nice family, a happy home, a pleasant church on a Sunday, a ticket to heaven. But he is the destination. In Heaven we are going to be with HIM!
Think of the person you love the most, and how good it is to be with that person. Think of how painful it is when that relationship is spoiled or strained. Well we were made to be with Jesus! The most loving, kind, wonderful, powerful, compassionate, life giving, truthful, strong, creative, generous person there has ever been. How good it will be to be with him!
The person who has Jesus has everything. And sometimes God takes away other good things in life: health, wealth, happiness, even friends family or a relationship, so that we value Jesus for who he is, rather than as some cosmic butler who can give us what we want.
He’s never vindictive or unkind, as he strips things away from us and for him to exalt himself as our “only” like this is not selfish (it would be if any other human was to exalt themselves as the greatest treasure there is) but rather very kind.
But lovingly he sometimes uses suffering to remind us of what is truly solid, lasting, joyful, wonderful- HIM!
I finished last time with those words from Habakkuk…
Habakkuk 3:17-18 17 Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.
Simon Guillebaud, a missionary in Burundi with Great Lakes Outreach tells the story of meeting a man who lost everything in the genocide except his life and the clothes on his own back. He had lost his home, family members, everything. And the man said, ““I never knew Jesus was all I needed, until Jesus was all I had”.
I don’t know why Job lost all he had, or why this man lost all he had, or why you are going through what you are going through, but I pray that in this crucible of suffering, God would refine you, perhaps to enable you to know him for the first time, or to be made a little more like him, or to value him as the greatest treasure there is. Let’s pray
