God Comes Close

Fifth Sunday of Lent

Today's Readings: Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What is the point? What are we here for? Have these questions ever crossed your mind? They’ve certainly been on the minds of Christians for centuries. Some have said we are here as a trial for our next life; our life here determines where we will spend eternity: heaven or hell. Some have said this life is meaningless; Vanity of vanities! All is vanity! (Ecc. 1) Some have said we are here to learn lessons or be tested by our Creator. Others, and myself included, have said that we are here to be in relationship; ultimately with God, but also and no less importantly, with one another and in these relationships experience a life of abundance. I also believe this is the hardest answer… for it forces us face the question, why then is there so much pain and suffering in the world.

It seems the overarching narrative I hear is that the pain and suffering must then be intentionally inflicted on us by God. This narrative says that our pain and sufferings happen for a reason – a lesson God needs us to learn or a test God wants us to pass. This seems to me, however, less like spiritual growth and more like the premise of a sick and twisted horror movie; where a mastermind inflicts pain and causes suffering as trial and error on their subjects for a specific outcome. Why then are we so quick to accept this narrative for our lives?

Christ suffered and tells us that as Christians we too will suffer. The suffering Christ experienced was from a society, an empire, that could not change to reflect God’s intended kingdom; that could not choose love for all people and creation as it’s main purpose. Jesus knows we too will face societies unwilling to relinquish power to the divine and therefore we too will be rejected, outcast, and even possibly put to death. This is a very different kind of suffering than the despair we encounter when we loose a loved one, or are diagnosed with cancer, or any other devastations we may encounter in this life. I assure you, those things that break our hearts, break God’s heart too.

When Jesus was alive, he did not turn away the blind or the sick, telling them, “Sorry pal, this is just your cross to bear.” Never! Jesus healed them. Healed their ailment, but ultimately in that encounter, healed their soul. Jesus longs to meet us in those moments. Jesus reaches out to hold us, weep with us, comfort us, and give us strength to go on. Jesus can follow us into our mourning, into our grief, our depression, our pain because he too has been there, and for our sake, he has overcome it; he has risen victorious in the face of death and intends to raise us up as well.

Too long have we as a society and as a Church (big C) encouraged submission and acceptance of suffering. We have silenced the suffering and kept people in horrific situations with the theory that God has somehow called for it. ‘Slaves obey and serve their master’… ‘Women submit to their husbands’ … ‘Actually, woman, there is no room for you to speak here at all.’ These glorifications of suffering have perpetuated injustice and oppression especially on women, children, LGBTQIA+, the differently abled and people of color for centuries. Can we grow deeper in our faith when we experience affliction? Yes. Can we have a spiritual encounter in our darkest hour? Yes. But is suffering the only way we can grow or experience the divine? Is suffering to learn lessons really what we were created for? I can’t imagine so.

Author and activist Adrienne Maree Brown says, “Suffering is a massively important and absolutely true part of life, a spiritual reality, but I deeply believe we were not placed on this gorgeous sensational planet to suffer. It is NOT the point.” I had not heard of Adrienne before coming across this quote as I prepared for my sermon today, but I felt a little ping in my heart as I read her name. Adrian was also the name of my friend who took his life when we were freshman in high school. That experience, combined with a whirlwind of family chaos at that time, made for the darkest years of my life. At such a young age I felt the kind of grief that seeps so deep it makes your bones ache, that strings so viciously your cries are either screams or silent because you cannot find the air to breathe.

This is where my mind drifted as I read from our scripture this morning that Jesus “learned obedience through what he suffered” (Heb. 5:8) and like a seed, had to die in order to bear much fruit (John 12:24). I was instantly haunted by the voices of well meaning Christians along the way of my journey that told me to be silent about my pain, especially about my home life, because as the commandment says, “thou shall honor your mother and father.” Or they’d ask me what sins I had committed to deserve the things that happened to me. Or then in college, when the Holy Spirit built up enough strength in me to turn that pain (those death experiences) into new life, people would say, ‘Ah, you had to experience those things in order to help other people.’ To which I would respond, If God killed my friends and purposely broke down my family so that I could tell other people about the importance of mental health and start support groups, then that’s not a God I want to believe in. I’d give up all the ‘good’ I’ve done in this world if it meant my friends could still be alive.. if it meant my loved ones never had to fight addiction or suicidal thoughts or personality disorders; take it back God, I don’t want it, I just want them to be alive and well.

But at this point you may be wondering, ‘why then are you still a Christian, a pastor even!?’ I’ll tell you why, it’s because despite the narrative that others tried to feed me, I experienced a comforting God in that deepest pit of despair. When I was alone and afraid, I encountered a God of love and compassion. I was the Greeks in this morning’s gospel who turned away from the Temple Priests, knocked on the disciple Philip’s door and said, ‘Sir, I wish to see Jesus.’ (John 12:21) I sought the Jesus the world crucified because that is the Jesus whom I personally encountered, whom I without a doubt can say that I would not have had the strength to be alive today if it weren’t for the Spirit showing up for me.

God comes close in our sufferings, but not because God wants us to learn something or pass a test. Scripture tells us of a God who wants to alleviate the world of suffering, not cause or perpetuate it. Good things may indeed come from our sufferings, because as we know God is in the business of turning death into life! What the world intends for harm, God intends for good. Our relationship with God turns us to relationship with neighbor, therefore opening our eyes to their suffering and our hearts to the desire to join Christ in alleviating it.

Perhaps like Jesus we do learn obedience from our sufferings.. but I think the kind of obedience our suffering teaches us is complete and utter surrender to God. We learn obedience to divine things, to GOD’S Kingdom because we learn the death and brokenness of this one. Jesus comes bringing news of NEW LIFE, of better things, of a world where suffering will be no more. Jesus invites us to shake off the shackles of this world and turn toward the God of abundant life. For also in this gospel of John, Jesus says he ‘came so that all might have life and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10). This is why others and myself included, have professed that we are here to be in relationship; ultimately with God, but also and no less importantly, with one another and in these relationships experience a life of abundance. God comes close in your sufferings, but beloved, suffering is not what you were made for. You have been redeemed and invited to join the redemption of this world, that some day ALL might have life and life abundant. Amen.