Pain and Suffering: Temporary! March 23, 2008

Acts 10:34-43

Will Willimon, chaplain on the campus of Duke University for 20 years, tells of a group of students approaching him and asking for help. They wanted a corner of the Duke Gardens to be designated as a "Spiritual Center". Willimon asked "What's a "Spiritual Center"? The students responded "It's a place in the garden, perhaps with a comfortable bench, where we could go and meditate. A quiet place, secluded by trees or shrubs, preferably. All natural." Willimon asked "What would you do there?" The students responded "Nothing, except to just sit quietly and meditate." "Meditate on what?" Willimon asked. "Just meditate. Think about nature, or ourselves, God or whatever."

Willimon shared that he couldn't muster any enthusiasm for a quote "Spiritual Center". Willimon said "I'm a Christian, and we're not spiritual. We are incarnational. We like flesh to look at when we're attempting to look at God. And the flesh we look at is bleeding and has some nasty holes through it, nothing natural about it." (THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY, Abingdon Press, Nashville, 2006, p. 88)

Karl Barth, one of those theologians that I don't quote much because I have a hard time understanding them, says that a preacher has nothing better to do than to stand like John the Baptist and, with a boney hand, point people toward the cross. (ibid) Today some think that we get to God by looking deeply into ourselves. It's trendy to talk about being "spiritual". The word "spiritual" is often used to refer to something vague, but hopefully, uplifting. Yet there was nothing vague about the incarnation of God in Christ, when God left His Heavenly home and entered the world through a flesh and blood human being. Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets, and was so specific about God's true will and word that he wound up driving money changers out of the temple, calling scribes "blind guides", and Pharisees "hypocrites." When word was out that Jesus was wanted by the authorities, people wondered if Jesus would dare to make a public appearance at Passover in Jerusalem. Not only did he appear; he paraded into Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey. Jesus was not content to teach in lofty generalities in the Temple, and then quietly slip away. He went to the cross willingly, intentionally. As Halford Luccock observed, "Jesus was not crucified for saying 'Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow', but for saying 'Look at the thieves in the temple, how they steal.'" Crucified by a public highway at the edge of town, the town fathers and all others got the opportunity to see what the incarnation of God in human flesh had come to.

What Will Willimon was trying to say to the well intentioned students at Duke was this: The way to God and ultimate peace does not come thru navel gazing, peaceful meditation, pondering the "wonderful you" locked up somewhere deep inside. The way to God involves gazing at an ugly death on a cross, an empty garden tomb, and walking beside the risen Christ who is the way, the truth and the life!

500 years ago, in Martin Luther's day, the church had devised a system of "spiritual disciplines" and good works through which a person could supposedly earn their way to God. People could even contribute toward the building of St. Peter's in Rome by buying "indulgences", giving money to get their loved ones out of a supposed place called "purgatory". But Martin Luther said "No, we can't earn our way to God by things we do or money we give. The only way we have to God is through the suffering love of Jesus on the cross." Easter is a wonderful day to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. But Friday came before Sunday, and Christ had to die before he could be raised!

Our scripture reading from Acts 10 tells the story of how Cornelius, a Roman centurion stationed in the Holy Land, was led to contact Simon Peter. Peter summarized the Good News by telling Cornelius how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the power of the Holy Spirit, and how Jesus went about healing and doing good. Then Peter shared that "they", including Romans like Cornelius, put Jesus to death by hanging him on a cross. Peter continued "God raised him on the third day.... and commanded us to testify that he is the one ordained by God to be judge of the living and the dead."

Philip Yancey tells of attending a "Make Today Count" group and meeting a 26 year old woman named Martha. Most of those attending these meetings had potentially fatal illnesses, and their appearance showed it. But Martha was young and very attractive. Yancey thought maybe she like he was attending as a visitor. But when Martha's turn to introduce herself came, she said she had ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. ALS is a terrible disease that destroys nerves, and is progressive, eventually causing death. By the time Martha attended her second meeting, she was in a wheel chair. She'd been fired from her job of working in a university library, because she couldn't physically do the work. Before long, Martha had to move into a rehabilitation hospital. Yancey talked with Martha about death and about the great Christian hope of eternal life and ultimate healing. But Martha, not a believer, was not interested in angel wings, but an arm that did not flop to the side, a mouth that did not drool.

Martha said she thought about God, but she could hardly think of him with love. She resisted the thought of making a deathbed conversion, insisting that she would only turn to God out of love and not out of fear. And how, Martha asked, could she love a God who did this to her? ALS continued its deadly progression rapidly. Martha indicated that, for her last wish, she wanted two weeks back in her Chicago apartment so she could invite friends over one by one to say goodbye. But two weeks outside the rehab center and its extensive services would cause huge problems. How could she stay at home in view of the need for round the clock care?

A group in Chicago offered the free and personal care Martha needed: Reba Place Fellowship, a Christian community in Evanston. The Reba Fellowship had a member named Sara who was a paraplegic. Sara knew the agony of living in a body that did not function properly, and talked other women in her fellowship into offering to help Martha. Sixteen Christian women from this group alternated staying with Martha, listening to her frustrations and complaints, bathing her, helping her change positions, sat up with her at night, prayed for her, and loved her. They gave her the opportunity to spend her last two weeks in her apartment, saying goodbye to friends. The Reba Place women also explained to Martha the Christian hope. Finally, Martha, seeing the love of God enfleshed in this body of believers, at a time when God himself seemed distant from her, came to God in Christ. She presented herself in faith to the one who had suffered on a cross and died for her. "Martha did not come to God in fear; she had found his love at last." (Yancey, WHERE IS GOD WHEN IT HURTS? Zondervan Publishing, Grand Rapids, 1990, p. 226)

Martha likely never would have come to faith in Christ sitting in a beautiful garden like the Duke students wanted to meditate in. It took a group of Christian women who were willing to line up babysitters, lose sleep, get close to a woman going through agony and in a sense share that agony with her to reveal the true body of Christ to her.

Not only did Christ suffer and die on the cross. Our call to faith includes our own invitation to suffering! In his letter to the Philippians, Paul wrote that he prayed "to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings" (Philippians 3:10). Paul knew that the casualties we sustain are wounds of honor that will one day be rewarded! Paul wrote to young Timothy (II Tim. 2: 3) "Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus." The students at Duke wanted a peaceful, beautiful garden bench where they could go and contemplate their existence and the future six figure salaries they might earn as M.B. A.s and corporate lawyers. The Apostle Paul told young Timothy that he was in the Lord's army, and he needed to be ready to face hardship and suffering!

Christ's suffering was transformed through the power of the resurrection, and so may ours!

The Christian faith is built on the assertion that Christ not only suffered and died on the cross. Christians believe Christ rose from the dead, and we can, too. Paul wrote "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." (I Cor 15:19.) And to the Philippians Paul wrote that Christ "will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." (3:21)

"The resurrection and its victory over death brought a decisive new word to the vocabulary of pain and suffering: temporary." (Yancey, p. 255) Rollo May, the famous therapist, recalls a visit to Mt. Athos, a peninsula in Greece inhabited exclusively by monks. May was beginning to recover from a nervous breakdown. May arrived when the monks were beginning to celebrate the Orthodox Easter. Symbols of the faith were plentiful. Ikons were everywhere, and the presiding priest gave those present three eggs, beautifully decorated and wrapped in a veil. "Christo Anesti", he said. "Christ is risen!" Each of those present responded "He is risen indeed!" Rollo May was not a believer, but he wrote in his book "My Quest For Beauty", "I was seized then by a moment of spiritual reality: what would it mean for our world if He had truly risen?" 258. The women of Reba Place Fellowship live as if Christ truly has risen, which he has, indeed!

When we walk in Christ's Way, by the grace of God, we and loved ones can experience the resurrection as well!

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