PRESENT SUFFERINGS
"Paul can speak from authority about "present sufferings." In the depth of human suffering we discover the reality of God. In the depth of human suffering we encounter the fatherly presence. It is in the depth of human suffering that we learn (vs. 15-16) to cry "Abba, Father." I'm not sure that this is some great expression of somebody's who's gone up into the third heaven, thereby experiencing this intimacy but really this is the cry when we can cry nothing else because we're aware of all that we're going through. How do we articulate this notion of suffering in our world? How do we identify with those who are suffering when we ourselves always want to put the best face on things and pretend that we are not suffering? To do so is to violate what we find in the New Testament.
Paul doesn't launch into this glorious exposition of what it means to be in Christ and to be filled with the Holy Spirit so as to say, "And so you all know that we have no present experience of sufferings - we're way above that. We fly above all of that turbulence. Our plane now in Jesus is able to go way up to 48,000 or 49,000 feet - we can skip most of it." But of course he doesn't say that because he can't say that and we shouldn't say it either. I understand, and you do too, that when we read our Bibles it speaks of the fact that there is a joy that is unassailable that we can come to joy when we face trials of various kinds (we sung about that in many hymns), but it is a joy that is faced in the midst of trials. It is a joy that exists contemporaneously with tears and with sadness. It is not a joy that says "I am so joyful that I don't cry" but it is that strange paradox whereby even in my tears I know that there is a joy that transcends what I'm experiencing.
One of the challenges we face as those of us who profess to be followers of Jesus is the challenge to show the world how to be sad. I don't know if you've ever thought about it in those terms. The Christian ought to be the best at everything and therefore the best at being sad. We've got it upside down when we think that the way to prove to the world the reality of who Jesus is, is to say "I'm not sad, oh no, my mother died but I'm not sad." What's wrong with you? Are you brain dead? Of course you're sad. In fact, you may be more sad than someone else. Oh but it says "we sorrow not as though who have no hope." That's exactly right, but we sorrow as those who have a hope and sorrowing in the reality of that hope and suffering in the experience of that is no marginalized suffering - it's not a mitigated suffering. Grief is grief.
The best piece I have read on this topic is the work by Nicholas Wolterstorff, who upon the death of their one child boy at the age of 25 in a climbing accident was absolutely devastated. He waited 12 years until he wrote the book Lament for a Son. And here is just a flavor from 12 years on from the death of his boy, "Gone from the face of the earth. I wait for a group of students to cross the street, and suddenly I think: He's not there. I go to a ballgame and find myself singling out the twenty-five-year olds; none of them is he. In all the crowds and streets and rooms and churches and schools and libraries and gatherings of friends in our world, on all the mountains, I will not find him. Only his absence. Silence. "Was there a letter from Eric today?" "When did Eric say he would call?" Now only silence. Absence and silence. When we gather now there's always someone missing, his absence as present as our presence, his silence as loud as our speech. Still five children, but one always gone. When we're all together, we're not all together."
And in his preface, he says, "I am often asked whether the grief remains as intense as when I wrote. The answer is no. The wound is no longer raw. But it has not disappeared. This is as it should be. If he was worth loving, he is worth grieving over. Grief is existential testimony to the worth of the one loved. That worth abides."
So says Paul, 'I'm not writing to you Roman Christians with some silly nonsense about being removed from the realm of physical, emotional, mental suffering. But I want you to know and you need to know this - that your present suffering is not worth comparing with that which God has prepared for those who love him.' In 1 Corinthians he says, "An eye has not seen and an ear has not heard. Neither has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love him." And what has to happen is our feelings have to catch up with the facts. That gap can last a long time. That gap can reoccur.
The psalmist gives it to us - that's why the Psalms really are the medicine chest of the human soul. Because we go to the psalmist and we find that he expresses all of the delight and all of the joy of a wonderful landscape and a new morning and the thrill of new birth and all these other things but he's also the one who helps us when we don't know what to say. When he says, "How long will you forget me O Lord? Forever? How long must I have sorrow in my heart? All day long? How long must I go through this?" That is not a jig. That is a lament. The background music to that is played in a minor key. And the Christian experience is not the experience of being removed from the rigors of life, but it is the experience of knowing that even though this lasts for all of my life as it may do, as a besetting illness may do, as the loss of limbs may do, whatever it may be - Peter says, "Even though you experience trials of various kinds for a little while."
First it says "a little while." My uncle was invalided for the totality of his life since the age of 23. How can you call that “a little while.” Well, you see, that is why we have to set this tiny experience of our transient lives in light of the vastness of God's purpose from eternity to eternity. Oh no, he says, "I consider that the present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed." This is not a sort of Christianized version of Tony Bennett, "Smile, though your heart is aching, smile, even though it's breaking, when there's clouds in the sky, you'll get by..." What does that tell you? It tells you nothing. It's just "pump yourself up." It's miserable, it's wretched. Your dog died. Your uncle’s up the creek. Your kids are driving you nuts. You don't want to hear Tony Bennett singing on the radio – all that jazz. No, you want something deep and good. You want to go somewhere and have a good cry. You want to go park your car and just cry for awhile. Then we’re down to brass tacks, no we’re honest. I can live with this. I understand this. This stinks. Jesus? And he says, "I know it does. I know it does." Because we do not have in Christ a high priest who is removed from the reality of our lives but one who is touched with the feelings of our infirmities – entering into the depths of all that our humanity means. Again I think C.S. Lewis is right, “Before the unblushing promises of God, we settle for too little.” And in seeking to make things appear the way they’re not we do a disservice, to ourselves, to the Bible, to the Gospel, and to those who are wondering about these things.
Samuel Rutherford wrote to a lady in his congregation who had most recently been widowed and he said, “I am now expecting to see, and that with joy and comfort, that you defy troubles and that your soul is a castle that may be besieged but cannot be taken.” And in making sure that we know that it cannot be taken, let’s not pretend that it hasn’t been besieged. It’s a good little picture, isn’t it? You might say to yourself or someone asks you how you’re doing and you say, “Besieged, but not captured.” It's not that the sufferings are insignificant. They’re real. They’re painful – but that the contrast is so vast. Octavius Winslow, in his day said, “One second of glory will extinguish a lifetime of suffering.” Like childbirth, the joy of a newborn baby and the life that follows diminishes the memory of the pain of childbirth to the point where mothers will desperately want another child."
http://www.parksidechurch.com/media-player/2010/9/19/our-present-sufferings/watch/
Paul doesn't launch into this glorious exposition of what it means to be in Christ and to be filled with the Holy Spirit so as to say, "And so you all know that we have no present experience of sufferings - we're way above that. We fly above all of that turbulence. Our plane now in Jesus is able to go way up to 48,000 or 49,000 feet - we can skip most of it." But of course he doesn't say that because he can't say that and we shouldn't say it either. I understand, and you do too, that when we read our Bibles it speaks of the fact that there is a joy that is unassailable that we can come to joy when we face trials of various kinds (we sung about that in many hymns), but it is a joy that is faced in the midst of trials. It is a joy that exists contemporaneously with tears and with sadness. It is not a joy that says "I am so joyful that I don't cry" but it is that strange paradox whereby even in my tears I know that there is a joy that transcends what I'm experiencing.
One of the challenges we face as those of us who profess to be followers of Jesus is the challenge to show the world how to be sad. I don't know if you've ever thought about it in those terms. The Christian ought to be the best at everything and therefore the best at being sad. We've got it upside down when we think that the way to prove to the world the reality of who Jesus is, is to say "I'm not sad, oh no, my mother died but I'm not sad." What's wrong with you? Are you brain dead? Of course you're sad. In fact, you may be more sad than someone else. Oh but it says "we sorrow not as though who have no hope." That's exactly right, but we sorrow as those who have a hope and sorrowing in the reality of that hope and suffering in the experience of that is no marginalized suffering - it's not a mitigated suffering. Grief is grief.
The best piece I have read on this topic is the work by Nicholas Wolterstorff, who upon the death of their one child boy at the age of 25 in a climbing accident was absolutely devastated. He waited 12 years until he wrote the book Lament for a Son. And here is just a flavor from 12 years on from the death of his boy, "Gone from the face of the earth. I wait for a group of students to cross the street, and suddenly I think: He's not there. I go to a ballgame and find myself singling out the twenty-five-year olds; none of them is he. In all the crowds and streets and rooms and churches and schools and libraries and gatherings of friends in our world, on all the mountains, I will not find him. Only his absence. Silence. "Was there a letter from Eric today?" "When did Eric say he would call?" Now only silence. Absence and silence. When we gather now there's always someone missing, his absence as present as our presence, his silence as loud as our speech. Still five children, but one always gone. When we're all together, we're not all together."
And in his preface, he says, "I am often asked whether the grief remains as intense as when I wrote. The answer is no. The wound is no longer raw. But it has not disappeared. This is as it should be. If he was worth loving, he is worth grieving over. Grief is existential testimony to the worth of the one loved. That worth abides."
So says Paul, 'I'm not writing to you Roman Christians with some silly nonsense about being removed from the realm of physical, emotional, mental suffering. But I want you to know and you need to know this - that your present suffering is not worth comparing with that which God has prepared for those who love him.' In 1 Corinthians he says, "An eye has not seen and an ear has not heard. Neither has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love him." And what has to happen is our feelings have to catch up with the facts. That gap can last a long time. That gap can reoccur.
The psalmist gives it to us - that's why the Psalms really are the medicine chest of the human soul. Because we go to the psalmist and we find that he expresses all of the delight and all of the joy of a wonderful landscape and a new morning and the thrill of new birth and all these other things but he's also the one who helps us when we don't know what to say. When he says, "How long will you forget me O Lord? Forever? How long must I have sorrow in my heart? All day long? How long must I go through this?" That is not a jig. That is a lament. The background music to that is played in a minor key. And the Christian experience is not the experience of being removed from the rigors of life, but it is the experience of knowing that even though this lasts for all of my life as it may do, as a besetting illness may do, as the loss of limbs may do, whatever it may be - Peter says, "Even though you experience trials of various kinds for a little while."
First it says "a little while." My uncle was invalided for the totality of his life since the age of 23. How can you call that “a little while.” Well, you see, that is why we have to set this tiny experience of our transient lives in light of the vastness of God's purpose from eternity to eternity. Oh no, he says, "I consider that the present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed." This is not a sort of Christianized version of Tony Bennett, "Smile, though your heart is aching, smile, even though it's breaking, when there's clouds in the sky, you'll get by..." What does that tell you? It tells you nothing. It's just "pump yourself up." It's miserable, it's wretched. Your dog died. Your uncle’s up the creek. Your kids are driving you nuts. You don't want to hear Tony Bennett singing on the radio – all that jazz. No, you want something deep and good. You want to go somewhere and have a good cry. You want to go park your car and just cry for awhile. Then we’re down to brass tacks, no we’re honest. I can live with this. I understand this. This stinks. Jesus? And he says, "I know it does. I know it does." Because we do not have in Christ a high priest who is removed from the reality of our lives but one who is touched with the feelings of our infirmities – entering into the depths of all that our humanity means. Again I think C.S. Lewis is right, “Before the unblushing promises of God, we settle for too little.” And in seeking to make things appear the way they’re not we do a disservice, to ourselves, to the Bible, to the Gospel, and to those who are wondering about these things.
Samuel Rutherford wrote to a lady in his congregation who had most recently been widowed and he said, “I am now expecting to see, and that with joy and comfort, that you defy troubles and that your soul is a castle that may be besieged but cannot be taken.” And in making sure that we know that it cannot be taken, let’s not pretend that it hasn’t been besieged. It’s a good little picture, isn’t it? You might say to yourself or someone asks you how you’re doing and you say, “Besieged, but not captured.” It's not that the sufferings are insignificant. They’re real. They’re painful – but that the contrast is so vast. Octavius Winslow, in his day said, “One second of glory will extinguish a lifetime of suffering.” Like childbirth, the joy of a newborn baby and the life that follows diminishes the memory of the pain of childbirth to the point where mothers will desperately want another child."
http://www.parksidechurch.com/media-player/2010/9/19/our-present-sufferings/watch/
Comments