Suffering and the Love of God

SUFFERING AND THE LOVE OF GOD

Romans 8.26-39

I first met David and Diana when my late wife and I were holidaying in Greece some four years ago.

Both of them were on their second marriage.

David's first wife had played "away from home" on at least three occasions. Although he took her back twice - three times was once too many and so he had divorced her and raised his son and daughter by himself during their troublesome teenage years.

Diana's first husband had regularly treated her as a punch bag when he returned home from his drinking bouts. She had divorced him some seventeen years earlier. She retrained as a nurse and brought up her only daughter by herself.

Both had vowed never to remarry. The experience of marriage had been too much for both of them. Over the years, they had become to being “lone parents”.

Then five years ago they had met each other and a year later had remarried. They were idyllically happy behaving like two teenagers in love for the very first time.

But two weeks ago I got a letter from them both to say that Diana had terminal cancer and there was little the doctors could do for her, save to focus upon the quality of life rather than the quantity of life.

And so I found myself sitting with a blank piece of writing paper in front of me, wondering what I could say which could be of help to both of them as they face the remaining weeks, or maybe months, together.

Needless to say, my thoughts went back to my own personal experience of about two years ago.

What can one say as a fellow human being, let alone a Christian, which can be of support and comfort?

I am sure, some of you have faced similar experiences and have looked vacantly at that blank piece of writing paper, struggling to know what to say and how to say it.

It is all too easy to detach oneself from the situation and recite the various traditional answers that have been offered over the centuries as to why a good and powerful God allows a person to suffer.

You know those answers as well as I do and there is truth in all of them.

We are told that suffering strengthens a person's character; suffering provides an opportunity for others to show charity; suffering is rewarded in an afterlife; suffering is limited to that which we can endure, and suffering is relieved by the intervention of merciful sub-consciousness.

I repeat, there is an element of truth in each of these explanations. As such, they may help us as observers to deal with the suffering, but do they help the person slowly dying upon their bed of sickness?

I think not.

It has been my experience throughout my ministry, which has been reinforced in recent times, that the person suffering does not want words of explanation but rather words of consolation.

The person suffering is not so concerned about the reason why – much rather they are concerned about help in accepting their suffering.

The person suffering is not wanting philosophical or theological explanations as to why they are suffering.

Much rather they are stretching out their hands to grasp hold of anything which will enable them to accept and endure their suffering. In short, they want words of consolation not words of explanation.

And what word of consolation can a Christian give to such a person?

Where better can we look for an answer than to one who endured much suffering of various kinds throughout his life, namely, the apostle St. Paul.

In his Second Letter to the Christians living at Corinth, chapter 11, he gives a list of some of his experiences of suffering including, "imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near to death". And he goes on, "Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked: for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night hungry and thirsty often without food, cold and naked”.

And he concludes: "Besides other things I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for the churches".

Few there can be, whose medical record card bears such a testimony to persistent suffering.

What was it then that kept the apostle Paul going? What was it then that enabled him to endure all that suffering thrust upon him?

The answer I suggest can be found in his letter to the Christians living at Rome.

He wrote this letter on the eve of his last voyage to Jerusalem when he knew he would be putting his head into the lion's mouth. In the Acts of the Apostles he records, "I am on my way to Jerusalem, but have no idea what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit in town after town has made clear enough that imprisonment and persecution await me”.

So Paul sets off on that last voyage certain of one thing only, namely that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

He surely of all people had good grounds for doubting God's love of him when one considers the sufferings he had already endured.

He surely of all people could have been excused for thinking God had let him down and forsaken him.

Yet he is able to say "who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?.......

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord".

That, my friends, is a pretty exhaustive and comprehensive list of suffering which could befall each of us at any time. It covers anything from the fear of redundancy in the future to the pain of sickness in the present; the material loss of everything on the stock exchange and the personal tragedy of a husband deserted by his wife.

Despite such suffering, Paul maintained that nothing can separate us from the love of God.

This surely is a message of consolation, of hope and of assurance which Christians can share with those who are approaching death.

No matter how much pain and discomfort one is obliged to endure, either as patient or as carer, God still goes on loving and loving and loving, and nothing can separate one from that persistent love of God.

What better prayer can Diana recite, than those words of the hymn by G. Mattheson:

"O love that will not let me go

I rest my weary soul in thee,

I give thee back the life I owe,

That in this ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.”

And now to him who loves us and will allow nothing to separate us from him, be all honour, praise and glory today and forever. Amen