Scripture: Psalm 38
Sermon: Talking With God through Pain and Suffering
Topics: suffering, wrestling, pain, paradox, Tim Keller
Preached: March 15, 2015
Lent Series No. 4 Learning to Walk in the Dark
Rev. Mike Abma
A Psalm of David, for the memorial offering.
1 O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger,
or discipline me in your wrath.
2 For your arrows have sunk into me,
and your hand has come down on me.
3 There is no soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation;
there is no health in my bones
because of my sin.
4 For my iniquities have gone over my head;
they weigh like a burden too heavy for me.
5 My wounds grow foul and fester
because of my foolishness;
6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
all day long I go around mourning.
7 For my loins are filled with burning,
and there is no soundness in my flesh.
8 I am utterly spent and crushed;
I groan because of the tumult of my heart.
9 O Lord, all my longing is known to you;
my sighing is not hidden from you.
10 My heart throbs, my strength fails me;
as for the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
11 My friends and companions stand aloof from my affliction,
and my neighbours stand far off.
12 Those who seek my life lay their snares;
those who seek to hurt me speak of ruin,
and meditate treachery all day long.
13 But I am like the deaf, I do not hear;
like the mute, who cannot speak.
14 Truly, I am like one who does not hear,
and in whose mouth is no retort.
15 But it is for you, O Lord, that I wait;
it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.
16 For I pray, ‘Only do not let them rejoice over me,
those who boast against me when my foot slips.’
17 For I am ready to fall,
and my pain is ever with me.
18 I confess my iniquity;
I am sorry for my sin.
19 Those who are my foes without cause are mighty,
and many are those who hate me wrongfully.
20 Those who render me evil for good
are my adversaries because I follow after good.
21 Do not forsake me, O Lord;
O my God, do not be far from me;
22 make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation.
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
INTRODUCTION
We have been reflecting on the Psalms of Lament this season of Lent.
I hope you all realize that these Psalms are forms of wrestling:
wrestling with our own pain and suffering
but also wrestling with God.
These Psalms give us a language to do that –
to talk with God through our pain and suffering.
This morning I would like to do something a bit different.
I would like us all to think about what our theology of suffering is.
What is our theology of suffering?
Sometimes the best way to answer a question like that is to first think about what other people’s theology of suffering is.
* I am first going to talk about 4 broad ways people have approached suffering.
* Then I am going to talk about what the modern or secular view of suffering is.
* And then by the end, we will get to the Christian view of suffering.
Do I ever start a sermon with a mini-outline like that?
Not usually, but for this sermon, I thought a short outline would be helpful.
II. 4 VIEWS of SUFFERING
Throughout history, various religions and philosophies have tried to make sense of suffering. That impulse is partly what distinguishes humans from every other creature on the planet. I am going to tell you the 4 categories that Tim Keller outlines in his recent book on Suffering, namely the Moralistic View, the Detached View, the Fatalistic View, and the Dualistic View.[1]
If you didn’t get all 4, don’t worry, I will go through them, one by one.
MORALISTIC VIEW
First, the Moralistic View. This view is as old as time itself. In a nutshell, this view believes that if we are suffering in the present,
it must be because we are paying for some sin in the past.
Call it Karma, call it a Just-World theory, call it “you reap what you sow”
whatever you call it, the assumption is that all suffering is “just” suffering — you can draw a line from someone’s sin to someone’s suffering.
Remember back in January Bryant had that sermon about the man who was born blind in John 9. Do you remember what the disciples asked Jesus? They asked, “who sinned, the man or his parents?” The disciples had a moralistic view – if there was suffering, someone must have sinned. The friends of Job had the same view.
DETACHED VIEW[2]
Second, there is what Tim Keller calls the Self-Transcendent view, but I will simply call it the Detached View.
You can find this view in Buddhism and some other faiths. According to this view, being overly attached to the things of this world is the root of suffering. All we need to do is become enlightened enough to see all our desires as illusions, and all suffering as nothing. Detachment is the answer – it is the way to transcend suffering.
FATALISTIC VIEW
Third, there is what Tim Keller calls the Fatalistic View.
In many ways, this is a very realistic view.
It simply states “it is what it is.”
Ours is not to question why.
Ours is simply to do our duty, to endure, to obey.
Islam, as well as other faiths, fit into this category
DUALISTIC VIEW
Fourth, there is what Tim Keller calls the Dualistic View.
This view sees all of life as a battleground between two evenly-matched forces: good and evil. Some days good wins. Some days evil wins. People who suffer are simply casualties of this cosmic war.
Now we may not like any of these views very much, but at least they are attempts to give suffering some meaning,
and to also see suffering as a responsibility to live a certain way
or an opportunity to improve our lives.
All 4 of these views would nod their heads in agreement with that classic Shakespearean line,
“Sweet are the uses of adversity.”
III. THE MODERN VIEW
In his book, Tim Keller introduces these 4 traditional views of suffering mainly as a point of contrast to the modern view of suffering.
By modern, Keller means modern and secular.
By modern, Keller means a world that has asked the question, “If God is both all good and all powerful, why is there so much suffering in the world?”
By modern, Keller means a world that assumes that because there is so much suffering,
God must not exist.
In this modern world,
suffering serves no purpose.
It has no meaning.
A New York Times article this week put it very succinctly.
We live in a world where
pain is pointless
sin is so yesterday
and death is a taboo subject.
The result is that we live in a society
that does not know what to do with suffering.
God has been pushed out of the picture,
and pain is pointless.
So what does our modern society do with suffering?
Well, it avoids it at all costs,
and it eliminates it whenever possible.
Now in theory this may sound fine.
But in practice, that is another story.
DOWN SYNDROME CHILD
In fact let me tell you a story that Will Willimon, former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University tells. He was called to the hospital for a family conference.
A couple in his church had just had a baby, the couple’s 3rd child.
The baby was born with Down Syndrome
and also had some respiratory problems that were correctible with surgery.
The family conference included the Mom, the Dad, the Doctor, and Willimon, the pastor.
The Doctor began by saying that in his opinion they should let Nature take its course. If things were left as they were, the baby would not live long and would die a natural death.
The Mom and the Dad were confused.
Hadn’t they been told that the respiratory problems were correctible?
Was the Doctor recommending that nothing be done to keep the baby alive?
Yes, the Doctor replied, that is what he was recommending,
because raising a baby like this would cause lots of stress in their marriage,
and that studies showed that parents facing this kind of thing often divorced,
and was it really fair to bring this kind of suffering into the lives of their two other children?
When the doctor said “suffering” the Mom suddenly began to understand where the doctor was coming from.
This was all to avoid suffering and hardship.
So the Mom said to the doctor:
“So far, our family has lived a comfortable and stable life.
If a little difficulty or stress or yes, even suffering, enters in
I think we can handle it.
Who knows, maybe we’ve been given this child for a reason.”
At that, the doctor looked at Willimon, the pastor, with a looked that said,
“I tried, now you talk some sense into them.”
But it was the doctor Willimon wanted to talk some sense into.
That would not be easy because Willimon realized that he and this couple simply
saw things so differently than this doctor.
They saw life through the lens of the Christian story –
the story of Creation, the Fall, Redemption through the suffering of Jesus,
and the coming renewal of all things.
CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SUFFERING
In the Christian story,
suffering is real,
suffering is difficult,
it drips with all the pain of Psalm 38.
But in the Christian story
suffering is not necessarily meaningless,
and should not always be avoided.
In the Christian story
we live in the tension of two seeming paradoxes.
Paradox One is that
suffering is sometimes just and suffering is sometimes unjust.
We know that suffering sometimes comes as a result of our own sins,
the consequence of our own actions. Those we can kind of understand.
But we also know that sometimes suffering just comes.
Sometimes there is no line from sin to suffering.
The book of Job teaches us that in the Old Testament.
Jesus teaches us that in the New Testament.
So what do we do with that suffering that seems to come from nowhere?
The second paradox is an even more complicated one.
On the one hand, we confess God is Sovereign.
It is not as if there is a cosmic tug-of-war between good and evil
and we wonder who will win.
No, God is Sovereign. God is all-powerful.
God is good. That goodness is the only real thing there is.
Evil and suffering only have the ability to twist or deform what is good.[3]
But if God is Sovereign and God is good,
why is there suffering at all?
Why the pain of Psalm 38?
When facing a really deep question like this,
I like to quote people with deeper thoughts than mine.
So let me quote Alvin Plantinga who writes that most attempts to answer this question seem tepid, shallow, and ultimately frivolous.
In other words, we will never know why there is suffering
because we cannot know the mind of God.
What we do know is the other side of the paradox:
not only is God Sovereign, but God suffers.
God suffers.
This is the unique character of the Christian faith.
We worship a God who suffers
who knows what pain feels like.
In fact, suffering is a key part of the Christian story.
Suffering is the way Christ became like us.
Suffering is the way Christ redeemed us.
And the truth is,
sometimes suffering is one of the ways we become like him.
And sometimes suffering the way we experience his redemption.
STORY OF TESS
This week, I read the story of Tess,
a medical doctor familiar with pain and suffering in others.
Well, in the course of the summer of 2102
her mother was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer
and within weeks she died.
One consolation was that Tess and her husband had a newborn son about that same time.
Not long after the Grandma died, Tess and her husband’s newborn son
was found dead in his crib.
The cause of death? SIDS – Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
In a matter of a few months,
Tess had lost her mother
and her infant child.
She writes that she expected to be totally swallowed by sorrow.
She thought she might be totally non-functional with grief.
But, surprisingly, she felt lifted and carried
but a strength that was not her own.
It was hard for her to explain how she could feel such pain
and yet such peace at the same time.
She writes that this could have only been the work of the Holy Spirit.
I mention Tess’ story only because I have sat in your living rooms,
and you have told me similar stories:
Stories of how you faced great heart-aches
tragic losses
and yet somehow
in some way
uou were given a peace that passes our human understanding;
You were given the strength to go on.
CONCLUSION
In all its pain and suffering
Psalm 38 tells us two main things:
Wait for the Lord; wait for his answer.
And trust that he will never leave us or forsake us.
How does one do that?
Andy Kuyvenhoven[4] was in the hospital last week.
When I visited him, he was living through Psalm 38.
He was utterly spent.
There was no soundness in his body.
And yet, while holding my hand,
and closing his eyes,
and licking his lips to get out the words
he whispered in his Dutch-accented way:
“I consider my present suffering
Not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us.”
Though the outer nature is wasting away
The inner nature is being renewed day by day,
For this momentary affliction
Is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory
Beyond measure (2 Corinthians 4: 16-17)
Amen
Prayer
Lord, whatever wilderness of pain and suffering we must face,
We cannot face it without you.
Be near. Stay close. Lead us. Guide us.
We pray in Jesus’name
Amen
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See Tim Keller, Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering, Dutton, 2013. The title for this sermon is simply borrowed from the title of this book. ↑
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Keller calls this the “Self-transcendent View” but that seems harder to grasp in a sermon. ↑
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This is the classic Augustinian definition of evil. ↑
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Andy Kuyvenhoven was a pastor in the CRC and former editor of The Banner. ↑
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