This month we are approaching Easter Sunday which we often call Resurrection Sunday, for it is a remembrance of that first Easter Sunday on which Jesus Christ our Lord rose from the grave. While it is good and right for us to celebrate Easter each year, perhaps we also need reminding that every Sunday is a resurrection Sunday. Indeed, each Sunday that we gather is a continued celebration of the Risen King and of our expectation of His return to rule and to reign forevermore.
Pain, evil, and suffering do not win the day. Perhaps we struggle to believe that God has good reasons for allowing such things. Perhaps we struggle to hold onto the goodness and love of God in the present moment. This is precisely the point when we can comfort ourselves and others with the future promise of God. One day there will be no more tears or pain or death. God will himself comfort us for we shall see Him face to face.
What we mean by this is that suffering reveals things about God and His character that we wouldn’t know or experience otherwise. There are certain aspects of God’s character that would be unknown apart from an experience of evil and suffering. How would we know that God is compassionate if we never had a need? How would we realize that God is both just and justifier if there never was the evil of sin? How would we experience the comfort of God if we never felt loneliness, pain, or grief? How would we know that God as healer if there were no hurts?
“Pain insists on being attended to.” What an insightful statement. Pain is something that cannot be ignored, and God knows it. We are lulled into a deception about our own sinful condition, but God uses pain and suffering to wake us from our stupor—“to shout” to us. In other words, God allows for suffering and evil to get our attention so that He might draw us back to Himself. For in reconciliation with Him is the promise of healing and the wiping away of every tear.
Knowing why God allows suffering and pain won’t make me feel any better. It’s been said before that Job still had to face empty seats at the family dinner table even though he discovered (to some degree) that God had been doing a great work in his life even through his difficulty and grief. Asking why won’t lead me to an emotionally satisfying place, but it can lead me to a fruitful discovery nonetheless. Asking why leads us to some discovery about ourselves and our God that can lead us into a deeper relationship with and love for a God infinitely bigger, wiser, and more majestic than I can imagine.
“How can a good God who loves me allow me to feel do depressed and despairing? Why would He allow me to experience such terrible pain and suffering? Have you ever heard someone ask a question like this? Have you ever asked a question like this yourself? I’d venture that most of us have at least thought something like this even if we never put words to it. When we face difficulty and pain, our first inclination is typically “Why God?” Why do bad things happen to good people? Simply put, there are no “good people.” But we can take it a little further than this. This question has often come on the lips of Christians who know God and understand the gospel. They know that they aren’t a good person but a sinner saved by God’s grace. So, let’s take the question a bit further, “Why does God allow suffering and difficultyfor His children?” That might be an even harder question.
