"The tragedy of the streets means few can delude themselves into thinking they have it under control. You cannot ignore death there, and you cannot ignore human fallibility. It is easier to see that everyone is a sinner, everyone is fallible, and everyone is mortal. It is easier to see that there are things just too deep, too important, or too great for us to know. It is far easier to recognize that one must come to peace with the idea that ‘we don’t and never will have this under control.’ It is far easier to see religion not just as useful, but as true.” Chris Arnade. Dignity.
It's not comfortable, or comforting.
Death chills us to the bone, and suffering tares like a wild beast, because we know where it's pointing - towards us coming to an end.
That's no doubt why we back away from thinking about God being the author and authority of life and death. It's the moments we have no control over, and when we suffer, we're bluntly reminded that destiny isn't ours and everything we do here is equally as fleeting.
That's why we need heros, no doubt; characters that transcend the norms even if they do die because they do so in a way that revels in their worthiness, making the universe better because they were here.
Our real heroics, of course, take on a much different guise.
Years of physical, emotional and psychological pain are carried by those of us who have been irreparably scarred by the cauldron that proves to be reality - a living hell for some, a terrible burden for others.
It's weird, then, that so many try to find answers in the temporary, when we need a far stronger medicine. A remedy as deep as the pain itself. As far reaching as lasting beyond our own small time and the dread of death.
That's where God comes in.
In one place He says:
"Can a woman forget the child she has nursed at her breast, that she would not have compassion on the offspring of her womb?
They may forget, but I never will.
See, how I have engraved you on the very palms of my hands".
Isaiah 49:15 &16.
Watching a scene from a recent TV soap last night on You Tube, which was speaking of how a woman's life is one of pain, pretty much from puberty to menopause, I found myself thinking just how little we can inhabit the skin of another, but how amidst all our different woes, we all know that life is totally astonishing and meant to be for something meaningful. We can play at saying we're just a bunch of atoms if we like, but deep down we know, like with our heros, that the pain has to count - it has to go 'into' something worthwhile to not be pointless and destructive.
Many who suffer do so for the sake of others, or because, in their lonely hardship, they hope someone will notice and value what they're doing.
Suffering can be worthwhile, when it leads to healing, not just in alleviation (what we deeply need) but in knowing that it is meaningful.
In our own sphere, suffering brings nothing but questions (even some answers merely amplify these), but God wants to look deeper - to see the marks on His hands that tell us life is like this for a far greater purpose.
When we step into a sphere of thinking where we can look beyond the moment and the transitory values of today, we find a much, much larger truth about reality.
In the opening scene in heaven of the last book of the Bible, all of history is focused on the appearance of one person. He doesn't come forward as some Caesar arrayed in triumph, but as one marked as a slain Lamb from the very foundation of the world. This is God's beloved Son, Jesus Christ.
The scene staggers John, the writer.
How can this be?
All of time and space, of what will unfold as history, will do so because of the centrality and significance of such a one.
The one who truly defines what counts is marked, bathed, in suffering and death, that from those ruinous depths, from those dreadful horrors, life might be made something precious and free in the totality of its goodness forever.
We look at ourselves, and we don't understand.
Why this trial, this loss, this suffering.
It doesn't add up - it just makes us think we're nothing but creatures made for the worst. Death rightly scares us rigid, and there seems no way out of our nightmare.
Christ identifies wholly with us in our need.
He is the one hanging in the agony of crucifixion, carrying our burden - our sickness and our sin - that He might deliver us from this on the day when our bodies are clothed with life without any more trouble.
The purpose so often is to bring something better, but the present is blighted only by the pain.
He comes to us, for us, that we can become whole again.
Amidst the trails, ask that Jesus to walk with you.
The pain will remain, but reality will become sharpened by a clearer, worthwhile truth.
Suffering won't last forever.
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2 comments:
This takes us into that 2 Corinthians 12 truth that suffering and weakness have a strange power to open us to the grace of the Living God so that it is even possible to boast in weakness, suffering and pain. This only makes sense when Church is the centre of our life. On our own we can soldier on with stoic intensity or that "heroic" independence, but the suffering and weakness only becomes fruitful when it opens us up to the shared life of Church. The seed becomes fruitful when it dies and produces so much for others to use and enjoy. The Lamb who is slain endures all that in order to gather people from every nation into that one shared Body of Church.
Suffering indeed gains significance when it becomes a means to share something deeper than just the hurt or pain, but the health of truly giving Christ to another through the veil of flesh and tears. Being part of a people that can share such wealth makes all of life, including such trials, worthwhile. Thanks, Paul.
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