Joy In Suffering
“Only the redeemed will walk there”
Isaiah 35
Stephen H. Becker, M.Div.
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church—Elk Grove, CA
3rd Sunday in Advent
December 16, 2007—Evening Contemporary Worship
In my secular job—my job outside of the church—I train people how to use some very industry-specific software, showing them how the program works and what it can do in various situations. Other times, I work on our help desk, where people call when they have questions or problems about the software. I’ve had irate people call and scream at me that the system isn’t working right. I’ve had new people to the job call in thinking that I can train them in five or ten minutes over the phone, what I spent a week on-site training their predecessor. But never once when I work the help desk do I get a call from somebody saying, “Hi I’m just calling to say things are running great with my system and I’m really thankful to you for showing me how to work it. Things are super!” I think I’d be dumbfounded if I get a call like that. Yet, I can tell you there are times when I’ve just dealt with ten major database corruptions or other major software problems where I could sincerely use a call like that.
Now, in our walk with the Lord Jesus, how often do we call up God’s Help Desk through prayer with our problems? We pray, “Heavenly Father help me with this problem.” Now friends, that’s exactly what we’re supported to do. We are to ask God for His help. One of my favorite spiritual disciplines is prayer, especially striving towards continuous prayer, because of the blessings it brings to our lives. But how often have you looked over your own life, and said to yourself, “wow, I am really blessed! God has been so good to me!” Our reading from Isaiah 35 today is just that—the prophet is describing the joy of being part of God’s family of redeemed people. Isaiah knows that faith in God isn’t going make our problems miraculously go away, but the prophet shows us how all of our challenges and problems in life with ultimately be a “highway…the Way of Holiness.” Let’s open with prayer…
How is your life going my friends? I mean, really going? This past week, I’ve made it a point to ask that of every person I could. Not “how are you,” but “how is your life going?” Some looked at me, and you could tell they were thinking, “what an oddddddd question…” Others started to unload their life stories on me. Others, it was just a quick “ok.” And yet others still explained how great their lives were going. Many times, as Christians, we don’t stop to look at how our lives are going until something goes wrong. And then the temptation is to wonder why these “bad” events have happened. And then we wonder why as Christians this can happen to us. We may even ask, “why doesn’t God do something about this?” Or “why doesn’t God stop this?” Or maybe even, “why is God allowing this to happen?...why is God doing this to me?” I don’t ever want to discount a person’s suffering, either physical or emotional or situational, because suffering is real, but one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned as a minister is how suffering can be viewed as a terrible, open-ended question, such as “why did this have to happen?” Or, as a positive opportunity that ultimately can be used by God for His glory and for our spiritual growth. I have a dear friend, a member here of our congregation, who has recently been diagnosed with cancer. In fact, she has had two cancer surgeries now and yet this child of God is growing closer to the Lord each day, despite her physical suffering; despite the very real, possible threat to her life, she sees her current condition in a way similar to what Isaiah is talking here, that we are in a desert, in parched land that is seemingly devoid of life, full of dryness and difficulty, with no beauty in sight, yet when touched by the Lord God, it can burst forward in beautiful life, “like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.” Here in this passage of Isaiah, we can form a clearer understanding of suffering’s effect upon our lives, and allow God to make it a positive, creative experience in our lives.
Life was difficult for the people of Israel. Wars were a constant reality in their lives. Wars bring with them not only bloodshed, but also destruction—uprooted crops and slaughtered livestock. Hunger, poverty, and disease were common themes of life. The prophet Isaiah speaks to the people of Israel in the middle of these struggles and suffering. His purpose is to help them see God and have hope. Moreover, Isaiah does not prophesize a quick end to Israel’s suffering. I think as Christians, most of us have come to the realization that God does not remove all of our problems that moment we enter into God’s presence and announce, “Hey, God, I’m hurting down here.” Isaiah seeks to assure Israel that God is present in their suffering; God has not deserted them. And it is no different for us Christians when our lives encounter a bump in the road or a grand canyon is our progress. It seems like when our world is crashing in around us, everything is out of control and we fear for our survival, and it is then that we sometimes doubt God’s presence in our lives. But this passage speaks the same message to us as it did to the people of Israel—God has not deserted us. God is present in the middle of our situations and suffering.
And even if it seems like there isn’t a single problem in your life today, remember, we all live in a fallen world, we live in a world where there is sin and corruption and evil all around us. And we as Christians know that this sin has earned each one of us. Things might be good right now, but there isn’t a single one of us who hasn’t sinned at some point, who doesn’t deserve God’s eternal punishment because of sin. Sooner or later, sin will catch up with everyone.
I have had difficult events in my own life. Perhaps the most intense physical pain I have ever felt is when I blew a disc in my lower back—in my lumbar spine. It hurt like crazy. But, compared to what I’ve seen in the world, I really haven’t suffered. Compared to what Israel went through during Isaiah’s time, the troubles of my life seem small. And yet, I have had real pain and real suffering. And I bet most of you all have as well. I know my friend who has had cancer surgery has felt real physical pain. Yet I heard her say that she knows that suffering and difficult times mold and shape us. They develop within us a certain resiliency and toughness. Suffering also smoothes off the rough edges of our lives and makes us more compassionate toward others—more human. The pain and suffering in our world is a direct result of that sin. Yet, God loves us so much, that He sent His only Son as the One who paid the price for that sin. God turned the horrible suffering of Jesus into our very salvation!
Paul makes a bold statement in his letter to the Romans when he states that, “All things happen for the good.” Some people may argue with this statement. It might seem hard to see any good in a drunk driver killing an innocent child. Certainly no parent wishes any pain or suffering for their child and when they do hurt, it’s not easy to see how there could be any good there. And when a child dies, we all would probably ask, “How is this good?” My friends, I must confess that I don’t know; I don’t have that answer. I do know, however, that we worship a God who took the greatest evil, the death of God’s son, and turned it into the greatest good, the gift of salvation for all humankind. Our sin is what God’s Law prosecutes; but our salvation is what Jesus’ Gospel promises. If God has done that, then God can create good out of the tragedies of our lives. God promises this to us.
The prophet Isaiah speaks great words of hope to the people of Israel. He says that the desert will burst into bloom like a crocus, water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert, and the burning sand will become a pool. These are images of hope to a people dried up by pain and suffering. Hope is an essential quality of life. Without hope, life becomes just existing—just getting by. Have you have encountered a person without of hope? Maybe that person was you…? Without hope, such a person goes through the motions of life, but he’s not living. My friends, without hope, there is a profound emptiness in a person’s life. See my friend who just had surgery for her cancer has an amazing power within her: (pause) hope. She has hope that there is something more than pain and suffering. See, hope is important for life, but it is equally important that we hope in the right thing. Some people place all of their hope in the illusion that they will someday win the lottery. At other times we place our hope on our intelligence, cunning, luck, or the generosity of others. But Isaiah speaks to the people of Israel and reminds them that their hope (pause) is in God. “They will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.” Isaiah’s words remind us also, that our hope is not based in something that might fail us, but in the powerful, loving God of all creation—who will never fail us.
You know, so many times God answers our prayers in ways that come as a complete surprise. Usually this happens because we’ve tried to tell God what to do. We think that we have God figured out. Based on passt experiences, our vast theological insight, and our close, personal relationships with the Big Guy, we think we know exactly what God needs to do and so we pray, “Lord please do this to help with that problem.” Friends, that’s fooling ourselves. God is bigger than our human thoughts and our small ability to understand His vastness. Telling God what to do then will always surprise us when God does what He deems to be best. Here is Isaiah, the prophet is telling the people of Israel to expect a miracle. He says, “only redeemed will walk in the Way of Holiness.” But Isaiah’s message is for us, today, as well. Now, for some people, that can be a miraculous healing. For others, their suffering might be what brings about the miracle of reconciliation between two people who haven’t spoken for years. Or their suffering might be that example that helps somebody come to Christ.
I can’t imagine any worse suffering in the world than being lost eternally in our sins. But that’s exactly how God’s Law sentences us sinners. And we live in a just such a world, a world lost because of sin, a world turning their back on God. But yet we Christians, at the same time, live in a redeemed world as well, a world that God loves so much that He saved it by literally assuming human flesh and then coming into it; a world that responded by beating and killing Him. God responded to that horrible death of Jesus, by raising Him from the dead, not to get even with the sinners, but to redeem those sinners! But talk about making good use out of somebody’s suffering. And talk about love, God’s love, real love. Talk about salvation and the Gospel!
So friends, how is your life going? I know mine has its daily challenges, but through it all, Jesus is there with me, changing my perspective. Do I still get in bad moods or get sad? Oh yeah. But in it all, I look to Jesus Christ and His promise to make good out of my bad. Let’s close with Paul’s words in Philippians 3: “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things.” Amen. Let’s pray…
Now may that true faith…
