Suffering
April 9, 1995
‘We are the children
who never heard it.
We are the children who never felt it. But we sensed it
with our bodies,
and our hearts.
We sensed it,
and ached for it.
But our thoughts and our feelings didn’t,
couldn’t,
acknowledge it.
Shielded from passion,
we were damned to mediocrity. Good at what we do,
but incapable
of doing more.
And life goes on. –
Does it? –
Shielded from passion,
we’ve become disabled.
But look!
I plunge.
Breaking the clear, placid surface, sending splashing waters and waves. And look,
I surface –
carrying a barrel full of water
to keep as a reminder
of the gift of pain.
In the depths of pain,
I am released,
unwrapped.
unbound.
Thank you God,
for the courage
to plunge into pain.”*
Do you wish to be reminded of pain, of suffering? Most of us don’t. But if we were to review our life, we probably would find that spiritual growth often began with pain. The long journey toward heaven communes with suffering. I don’t know why. I can’t analyze it. It’s difficult to fathom, but Muriel Maybe, the poet, expressed it so well. If we shield ourselves from pain, we become disabled, damned to mediocrity, deadened in our souls. . ..
So this morning, I invite you to plunge into the deep waters of pain and suffering and begin to swim. Yes, there’s a good chance we might drown with the question still on our lips: ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?” But there is also the chance that we might meet God. Not the God we expected. The one who sits high on a throne, with a long white beard, and a face with the look of kindness. Instead, you might meet the crucified one, writhing in pain, with a look of agony, with a body bent through suffering.
Just after the Second World War, a German pastor named Gunther Rututborn wrote a play called “The Sign of Jonas.” In it, he attempted to answer the question that is often on our lips or in our hearts.
A trial is set to find out who was responsible for the terrible years caused by the Nazis in Germany. Charges were brought against Hitler himself. Some blamed the munitions manufacturers who profited from the war. Others blamed the cowardly German people who refused to stand up to Hitler. None of it, though, seems quite enough – until a man stands up in the audience and says: “Do you know who’s to blame? God is. Isn’t he the one who created this awful world? Didn’t He give them the power to do that kind of evil? Didn’t He allow it to happen? Can’t the misery be laid at His feet?” So they decide to put God on trial for the crime of creation – for creating a world where suffering and pain, and terrible things, happen to good people. And sure enough, He is found guilty of the crime and is sentenced. The judge declares that because of the enormity of God’s crime, His punishment will be the worst conceivable. “I hereby sentence the Creator God to come and live in this world under the same anguish and loss that everyone else has to.” And then he charges the three Archangels Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael to perform the sentence.
Gabriel walks to one end of the stage and stands brooding, and then says: ‘When God has to serve, I want Him to see what it’s like to be an obscure, human being. He’ll be born in the middle of nowhere and grow up in a country occupied by foreign forces. A Jew, in a Jew-hating world.”
Raphael walks to the other end of the stage and says: ‘When God has to serve his sentence, I’m going to see to it that He knows what it’s like to be frustrated and insecure. He’ll know what it’s like to be a refugee with no place to lay His head. His plans won’t be fulfilled. No one will understand Him. He will go to his grave a failure, not sure He’s accomplished anything.”
Finally, Michael steps to the middle of the stage. “I’m going to see that He knows what it’s like to suffer in every conceivable way. He’ll be rejected and know what that’s like. He’ll suffer and know pain. He will be spat on, tormented, ridiculed, die the slow torture of a common criminal.”
And with that, the lights go out, and the audience sits utterly quiet in the dark, as awareness dawns. God has served the sentence.
This is a wild God with whom we are dealing. A God who suffers, experiences pain, and is later crucified. A God who doesn’t give answers to our pain, but simply says: “I’ve been there, also. .’ That’s our passion – to plunge together into pain. Were you there? Let me remind you – God was. And that’s where we can find Him – on a Cross – in the midst of suffering.
AMEN-