Chan Willis – C.P.C.

                                                                                                                                                Trinity Sunday – 5/30/10

“Suffering Produces… Hope?” 

Romans 5:1-5

            Last week, as some of you may recall, in our prayer time we lifted up the family of a young man who, tragically, took his own life.  Many of you know that the depth of this tragedy went much deeper.  For early in the morning of that same day we prayed for his family, the boy’s teenage sister… his only sibling… was killed in a one-car accident in which she ran off of the highway.  In the brief span of just a few days, a mother and father had lost their only two children.  Two young lives were suddenly ripped away from those who loved them.  And as the details of their death became known, the sorrow of their loss would grow even more painful:  the young lady was found to have been driving under the influence of alcohol.  And the young man not only committed suicide, but did so in front of his mother.  As I heard more about what this family was experiencing… as I spoke with those who knew this family… my heart grew heavy.  My soul ached.  My eyes welled up with tears.  Not because I knew them.  But because I have those children, and grandchildren, whom I love.  And I cannot imagine the horror of losing any of them… particularly in such a terrible way.  What I do know is that the depth of that family’s suffering is something I pray that I never have to experience myself…

            With these heavy thoughts weighing on my mind, I began to consider the passages for this Trinity Sunday.  A day on which we call special attention to one of the foundational aspects of our faith:  the 3-fold nature of the God we worship.  God the Father.  God the Son.  God the Holy Spirit.  And as I looked over the Scriptures, I came across this passage from Romans.  A passage that talks about having peace with God.  Verses that proclaim the hope we have in Jesus Christ.  Words that say we are to rejoice in our sufferings.  Because suffering produces perseverance.  Perseverance produces character.  Character produces hope.

            “Rejoice in our sufferings”?  “Suffering produces perseverance…character… hope”?  With my mind reeling from the tremendous suffering being experienced by that grieving family, the ‘blasphemy’ of these words jumped off the page at me.  I know that Paul said that “All of Scripture is useful,” but if I were the pastor having to comfort that mother and father, how could I have used these words to do so?!  If a member of that family would have picked up the Bible and opened to this passage, what would they have thought about God’s ‘inspiration’ of those words?  What ‘peace’ could they find?  How could they even utter the words ‘rejoice’ and ‘hope’?  How would they feel about that statement that “God has poured out his love into our hearts”… when all they can feel is pain, loss, anger, doubt, betrayal?

            This unimaginable situation is one that defies our human understanding.  It reminds me of how woefully inadequate I can feel as to how to bring comfort to someone who is hurting a deep and inexplicable hurt.  As I…we… try to console a friend or family member who has suffered great loss, too often we can say some pretty ‘dumb’ things.  “I know how you feel.”  No we don’t! “They’re in a better place now.”  How do YOU know?  And anyway, I want them HERE!  “God has a plan for everything.”  If this is His plan, I’m not sure I want any part of this God.  “He never gives you more than you can handle.”  Tell that to my beloved one who just gave up on life.  As we seek to bring some light of hope in the deepest darkness of another’s suffering, mere words most often will fail us. 

            For hope to come out of suffering, it will not be from anything you and I can do or say.  It’s not about us.  It is about God.  It is about that Triune God that we profess.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  It is through the power of that Holy Trinity that we can have the peace, the hope, the perseverance, the character, that will sustain us in the face of the at-times overwhelming suffering humankind can experience.  Only as we embrace the reality of the 3 persons of God can we truly face the harsh realities of life.

            God the Father.  Our Heavenly Father loves us with an everlasting love.  The same love that He has for His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  I believe that when God the Father watched His precious Son suffer unimaginable pain (to us) on that cross, He wept.  I believe that he also weeps for the great pain that the children of His creation endure.  But that those tears are not ones of defeat, but ones that will give way to the joys of final victory.  That just as Jesus trusted in His Father’s will for His life, so too must we trust in God’s will for our lives.  God did not abandon His Son… He will not abandon us.  As Paul says to the church in Galatians 4:6, “Because you are sons (and daughters) God sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’”  Because God,  our Abba Father, has promised to us the same victory that His Son has experienced,  “We (too can)rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”

            God the Son.  While the Father watched in agony as His Son suffered, it was Jesus who actually received those blows; it was Christ who heard the angry cries to crucify him; it was our Lord whose hands and feet were brutally nailed to that cross.  As much anguish as we can experience in our earthly lives, none of it can compare to the suffering Jesus experienced on our behalf.  He can relate to our every ache, our every hurt… we, in turn, must be willing to relate to His.  To be a follower of Jesus, we must remember that it’s not just about parables and miracles and healing… but about sacrifice, humility, suffering.  In the words of Philippians 3:10-11, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death… and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”  To know Jesus is not only to know the power of the resurrection, but the pain of the cross.

            God the Holy Spirit.  Last week, for Pentecost Sunday, we considered the gifts of the Spirit… and how the most important one might just be the gift of peace.  “A peace that surpasses all human understanding.”  In those times when we just don’t understand why a tragedy has happened, we must rely on a ‘super-natural’ presence to comfort, to counsel us.  We need to be loved.  In those darkest hours, we must pray for “God to pour out his love into our (aching) hearts by the Holy Spirit.”  The same Comforter, the same Counselor that Jesus promises to send after He has left to be with the Father. “Peace I leave with you…” Jesus says.  “…My peace I give to you.  I do not give as the world gives.  So do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.”

            The world gives us heartache and loss… the Spirit gives peace.    God the Father and God the Son stand by us, bringing their peace, through the presence of the Spirit.  Perhaps we don’t hear them in audible tones, but by faith we know that they are there.  Standing beside those whom they love as an example to us of how we are to be there for others.   Not so much by our words… but by our presence.  Like I always say to those who struggling with visitation of the sick and infirm, and the fears of not knowing what to say:  people who are hurting will, in all likelihood, not remember a word that you say… what they will remember is that you were there!

            This week, as I reflected on those whom I love, who have been there for me in good times and hard times, I thought about this family who had suffered the tragic loss of their loved ones.  If I were their pastor, their close friend, what would I say to them?  What could I say to them?  Perhaps, I could think of the Father’s love and compassion, and tell them how much I hurt with them.    Perhaps I would be reminded of Jesus’ sacrifice for me, and I would offer to do anything I could to help, anytime, anywhere.  Perhaps I would be mindful of the Holy Spirit, and simply hold their hands and look into their eyes… to be present.  Whatever my response would be, I would pray… pray that what the Father and the Son speak through the Spirit of Truth would also speak through me:  that “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 

            Of course, none of us can promise to ‘never’ leave or forsake someone else.  We cannot be there for another person 24/7, try as we will.  And even if we could, there’s only so much we could do to bring hope to someone who is suffering.  Only God can bring true hope to the hurting.  God is the source of healing our broken lives must seek. I leave you with words from God’s source of wisdom for our lives, the Bible.  Words that perhaps you might leave with those who suffer:  “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you… ⁶In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:3-4, 6-7)

            The only way I can make it through the trials and pain of this world is to know that the grave is not the end.  That through Jesus Christ, we will have a “new birth”… a “living hope”... “an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade.”  This faith I hold on to through the power of the Spirit… the Spirit of Truth.  For as Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”  Free from the bondage of suffering… free to live in the “hope of the glory of God.”  A hope that will NOT disappoint us.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN!

CHARGE

In an e-mail from a fellow with whom I am working on a project here in the Presbytery, he used the following Scripture verse from Heb. 6:19 as his closing:

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”

Not only was it quite relevant for today’s message, but it also brought to mind words of a favorite hymn of mine:

  “My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. 

On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand…”

In the future, we will be-come… in the present, we must over-come.

We can ‘overcome’ only by a power greater than our own… a ‘hope built on nothing less that Jesus Christ, the ‘Solid Rock’ on which we will stand.

Jesus IS the ‘anchor’ for our souls, ever firm and secure…