Finding Faith ... in the worst never being the last

EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 2.5 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on April 15, 2018.

Suffering … Our Gospel today tells us that our Messiah -- the one who saves us -- is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day.

I imagine that if I polled each of you today, I would find as many different definitions of suffering as there are people in this room. Everything from I’m not feeling my best today … to those who are suffering from very serious illnesses ... to those who maybe just lost a friend … to those who may feel as if they are being actively bullied.

The reality is ... we all know that to live in this world, as beautiful and wondrous as it can be -- is also to know live in suffering.

Last Sunday morning, my day started out with an early drive to Crookston to visit my mother. As you know, about a month ago she had a total shoulder replacement and she’s been at home recovering. She’s had nurses and therapists visiting her to get her back to the independence required to stay in her apartment by herself.

And being the one who has helped coordinate my mother’s care, I was the one her group of professionals turned to when they were scheduling her final care conference. They let me know that they had bad news, and they wondered if a family member could talk with mom ahead of time to let her know the care team was going to deliver news mom did not want to hear.

So last Sunday, I sat down with my mom to inform her care team are all in agreement that it would be best for her to move to a place that had more continual care and supervision, or at the very least, if she is going to stay where she is at, she needs much more care to be able to live there.

As you can imagine, it was an awful conversation … for both son and mother. … My mother was devastated by the news and immediately grew anxious over her fate and the fate of her beloved dog, Chewie.

Making matters worse for me, I knew that the news was going to cleave our family down the middle, with some siblings on the side of wanting to see mom move somewhere safer, and those siblings who want to honor my mother’s wishes, even if that means she stays in her apartment, risks and all.

Awful. Just an awful conversation.

But, my day got heavier. … Because right in the middle of shopping at the grocery store for my mother, I received a text from Janelle Krump regarding a meeting we were going to have that same night for our LYO trip to Houston. The text said that our group meeting was moved from here at Faith, to Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Colfax because after the meeting some of the kids wanted to stay for a prayer vigil that was to be held at that church to address the awful events that had been taking place in the Richland Schools. The event was scheduled to bring together a community that is being torn apart by the news in recent months of some very unfortunate student behavior.

And so from the earliest part of my day to the evening drive home from Colfax, I was enveloped in this inner dialogue over suffering of various kinds. … It was one of those days you just want to put behind you.

And then Monday hit, and that night we received our first reports of the horrific death of the 6-year-old Fergus Falls boy who was tortured and beaten to death in ways that ought to make every human sick.

Two days. … About 36 hours in total. … And three very different stories about suffering. … None of them easier to come to terms with than the other. … Each in their own right enough to make me want to shake my fist at God and scream at him, “Why!” … But, as maddening as it is, we already know why, don’t we? … Because to live in this world is also to suffer in this world.

One of the toughest aspects about being Christian is the knowledge that even though our God is both all-knowing and ever-present, that he does not step in to take away all of the reasons we suffer. … In fact, this is one of the very arguments that non-Christians sometimes use to bait us, isn’t it?

Well, if your God is so great, why does he let people get old and lose their independence? … If your God is so great, then why does he let kids be so cruel to each other? … And worst of all, if your God is so great, then why does he allow the beating and torture and death of an innocent 6-year-old child?

2,000 years later, and this is no different than the Jews and gentiles who mocked Jesus while he was being beaten and killed. … Didn’t the naysayers then ask essentially the same question? … If Jesus was truly the Son of God ... King of the Kings … then why couldn’t he save himself?

Admit it, we’ve all asked ourselves on more than one occasion: Why does God let bad things happen to us? … To our beloved parents? … To children? … To innocent 6-year-olds who knew nothing in life that was good? …

Even though, intuitively, we know that God is not responsible for everything that takes place on this earth, and that evil and sin live right next to everything beautiful that God created. … Even though we know all that, it’s hard to comprehend how God doesn’t step in to prevent the acts that cause our suffering. … It’s even easy at times to think that possibly the suffering is our punishment; that it is a test of faith; that -- even worse to think about -- God uses suffering for his own purposes.

But today’s Gospel lesson reminds us that nothing is further from the truth. It reminds us that Jesus -- our Messiah -- suffered, died and rose from the dead so that repentance and forgiveness of sins can be proclaimed in his name.

Our Gospel lesson reminds us that even in the times when we can’t see God, that he cares so much for us that he is actually walking our painful path with us, and that when we suffer, he too also suffers. … When we weep, he weeps. … And our suffering then, becomes a painful event for both God and us, which means that God is suffering in us in a profound and personal way. … He’s not standing apart from us in our grief … but he is in fact suffering with us!

Understandably, it takes a gigantic leap of faith even from the most devout of Christians to say that God is in the midst of our very suffering. ... Because often it is not evident to the sufferer that God is anywhere around, let alone close at hand. … And, unfortunately, each of us has has known that feeling.

Frankly, when it you who is suffering, or when you are trying to comprehend why an innocent 6-year-old boy has to die, it seems little comfort to us that Jesus’s death on the cross conquered all sin, conquered all death. … And it takes monumental faith to remember that with God, the worst things are never the last things.

And so, in these troubled times, I think it’s important to review what it is to be Christian and to suffer. And if we as a faithful people do indeed accept that our God is a suffering God and weeps when we weep, then there are several important implications for us and our struggle with suffering.

In an article on being Christian and understanding suffering, authors LeRoy H. Alden and Robert G. Hughes, suggest that there are six very important implications of knowing that our God suffers with us.

First, it means that we can take our earthly struggles, no matter how little or how big, seriously. God graced our afflictions by experiencing them. … After all, that is what it means that God became incarnate, that he took on an earthly body and lived and walked among us. … So we do not need to pretend that suffering isn’t real, as for Christ’s very incarnation invites us to acknowledge our pain and give full recognition to our suffering.

Second, it’s absolutely imperative to remember that suffering is not God’s will. … God may know about our suffering because he is after all omniscient, or all knowing, and God may be present in our suffering, because he is also omnipresent, or ever present. … But, and this is singularly important to remember: God is not the cause of our suffering.

We must understand that there are forces in this world and human choices in this life that land us where we do not want to go and cause us suffering that did not come from God. … Blaming God for our suffering is a distortion of God’s relation to the world, and in the long run poses a serious threat to our belief in a gracious and crucified God.

Third, despite our abandonment of God, we are not forsaken. … Think about that, even though there are times that we indeed abandon our God, He NEVER abandon us in our grief. … And while this may not be apparent to those who are suffering, it is often when the suffering is lifted that we realize that God was there all of the time.

Fourth, God’s role in our suffering is not passive, it is indeed very active. … Mind you, he didn’t cause our pain, and he does not merely stand by in our pain. … He’s actively consoling us in all of our affliction so that we may be able to console others in affliction. … In other words, either God strengthens the sufferer and enables them to get through the crisis ... or God rescues the person from the situation. … But in either case, God sustains the sufferer, not just as a temporary reprieve from the situation but as a continually empowering presence.

Fifth, with God on our side, suffering can be transformative. … It can help increase our faith and our reliance on God. … Suffering, seen in the right perspective, may drive us to God, because it helps us to see life from a different perspective.

The suffering helps us to realize that we live in a fallen world and that in our brokenness we make decisions and get into situations where suffering is the consequence. … In other words, we see that we are part of the problem and that we cannot get out of it by our own power. … We realize that we must put our trust in a power that stands above and is more powerful than the finiteness and the distortions of life.

Sixth, suffering in the name of Christ can edify or build up our Christian fellowship. … Having experienced God’s comfort, we can enter into the afflictions of others in a much more empathetic way, and in this sense we build up the entire human family by representing the comfort of Christ to our wounded neighbors. … We also build up our fellowship with the entire human body because our suffering has redemptive value for others: It can serve as an inspiration to them, especially if they are weak in faith. … When we endure our sufferings for the sake of the church, we are carrying on Christ’s mission and work.

This, of course, is not to say that any of this is easy. … While it is indeed a virtuous and noble thought that our suffering serves a purpose, for anyone who is going through a trial, big or small, it’s hard in that moment for us to grasp the notion that God is suffering along with us.

Sure, in our head, we may know that God is there in our suffering, but under the actual weight of the pain, it can be very difficult to believe or to feel his comfort.

But this is where we need each other’s help; indeed, the entire church’s help. … We need each other to remind us that God is suffering with us because our sympathy and care brings to life God’s emphatic suffering in our human relationships. … It it reminds us that Christ did indeed come to earth to know what it is like to be human, and that he did indeed die on that cross to conquer sin and to conquer death, and take both to his death for us.

Remember, dear friends, that with God, the worst is never the last. And that is the “Good News” for this week. ... Amen.