David Orendorff · John 11:1-16

We don’t like suffering and we shouldn’t. A passion to avoid suffering is essential to our survival. But life, no matter how we might try to pretend otherwise, has seasons of Lent in which we know that suffering and death are soon to be upon us. The hardest question I am asked about God is, “If God loves us and is all powerful then why does God permit suffering?”

I am usually asked about suffering not as an academic curiosity but by those wanting to know why they suffer or why someone they love suffers. The question of God and suffering is most often raised by those with a dying loved one; or someone depressed or anxious; or someone sensitive to the innocent victims of inhumanity, violence, disaster or disease.

So what do I tell folks when they ask me? In a recent Amazing Grace class we spent quite a bit of time on the why of suffering. In that discussion we concluded two things: First, we suffer because the creation is unfinished. Hence there are natural disasters as the earth shifts with the movement of tectonic plates and the weather takes a nasty turn; and there is cancer, good cells gone astray in the mutation that also drives evolution.

Secondly, we suffer because God has given us free will. Instead of being the puppets of God, God has chosen to make us friends and partners in creation. We can choose to inflict suffering on ourselves and others or we can choose to be of healing and compassion. We have great power for good which means we also have great power for evil.

I am aware that our will is not perfectly free, that we are shaped by our genetic makeup and our experiences. But even so, unless we are severely mentally ill, we are responsible for the choices we make. We cannot escape responsibility by blaming our parents or others. We suffer because we or someone else has chosen hate over love, resentment over forgiveness, retribution over mercy.

I think there is a third reason we suffer. I think we need suffering in order to grow into being more of the mind and stature of Jesus; that suffering is indeed “for God’s glory.”

C.S. Lewis writes:

Does God want us to suffer? What if the answer to that question is ‘yes’? The fact is, I don’t think that God particularly wants us to be happy. I think He wants us to love and be loved. He wants us to grow up. You see, we are like children who think that our toys bring us all the happiness there is, and that our nursery is the whole wide world. But something has to drive us out into the world of others, and that thing is suffering. Put simply, pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. We are like blocks of stone from which the Sculptor carves a form. The blows of His chisel which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Publisher: HarperCollins, 2001

And again:

… pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.[2] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000, p.81.

Kevin Kelly in a “This I Believe” essay for NPR says it this way,

No matter how bad the weather, soiled the past, broken the heart, hellish the war, I believe all that is behind the universe is conspiring to help us - if we will humble ourselves enough to let it.[3] www.npr.org/templates/story/ story.php?storyId=18463814

Today’s scripture reveals the glory of God in Jesus and gives us a call to how we as disciples might react to the suffering that is ours and humble ourselves that the universe, or as I would say, the God who is servant love, would help us.

God has given us friends with whom to share suffering. Mary, Martha and Lazarus are Jesus’ friends. Like most great people Jesus knows loneliness in a crowd. The house of Mary, Martha and Lazarus is a place of retreat for him.

Vickie and I have been there. It is now a church. But across the street is another home, one that dates back to the time of Jesus and is still occupied by a family claiming descent from Mary, Martha and Lazarus. A few of us met the family and they invited us in. It was a small place, perhaps 25′ by 25′ with a sleeping loft. It was warm, intimate and very functional, just the kind of place that would ease Jesus’ pain.

God invites us to trust grace in suffering. Jesus was away from his friends when word came that Lazarus was dying. Most of us when suffering comes our way panic at least a little. We want quick if not immediate responses from doctors. We want to hop on a plane and get there as soon as possible. We want action.

We would expect, as the disciples did, that Jesus would immediately rush to be with his friends and end the suffering with a miracle healing. But Jesus waits two days before going to be with his friends. Jesus trusts God to be already on the scene with the loving care needed.

God invites us to see the gift in suffering. Jesus doesn’t call Lazarus’ death sad or tragic. Jesus grieves and weeps but he doesn’t wonder how God could let such a young and wonderful man die. Such cries, existential whines, in the face of suffering are often our response. It is as if life is supposed to be smooth and everyone is supposed to live a full four score and ten before dying in their sleep with a Lexus in their drive, steak in their fridge, cash in their bank, and peace in their heart.

While we may see suffering as contrary to the way life is supposed to be Jesus sees suffering as an opportunity for God’s glory. In the moment of pain he sees an opportunity for God’s glory to be revealed. Suffering, for Jesus, is an opportunity to see the miracle of God with us.

God invites us to embrace the full pain of suffering and to see beyond it to God’s mercy. A common response to suffering is to try and deny its happening, to mentally run away. It is no surprise that when Jesus says Lazarus is asleep, meaning he is dead, the disciples hear “asleep” and say, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus tells them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.” Jesus does not deny suffering and death but sees it fully and plainly for what it is. And then sees beyond that to God’s grace in the suffering.

Jesus risk suffering and death for compassion. The disciples say to Jesus, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Loving Lazarus and believing that God will use him to reveal the glory of God, Jesus turns toward his own suffering and certain death by going to Bethany which is just across a small ravine from Jerusalem. Jesus so loves Mary, Martha and Lazarus that he risks death to be with them. Even more surprising and remarkable is that Jesus so loves us that he chooses death that we might know the full possibility of life.

God invites us to follow Jesus to the cross. The last instruction comes not from Jesus but from the disciples. When Jesus finally says to them, “Let us go to Lazarus” they have their own decision to make. The disciples might have said something reasonable like, “Look Jesus, you have been a good friend and fine teacher but Lazarus is already dead and you will probably die as well. And with your death our own deaths become much more likely. So we have talked this out and we think it would be prudent for us to stay here and keep the faith safe.”

But that is not what they say. Thomas speaks for all the disciples when he says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” It is one thing to believe with Jesus that suffering is for the glory of God and our spiritual maturation, or to believe that Jesus loves us enough to go to death for us. It is quite another thing to intentionally go with Jesus and risk our own suffering and death because of some vague promise.

We have come full circle. We may not be able to prevent the suffering caused by natural disasters or human decisions but we can choose to go with Jesus into suffering for the glory of God. We can choose to follow Jesus to comfort the ill and the dying. We can choose to follow Jesus when it seems foolish to go into the dangerous places. We can choose to look for the mercies of God in suffering and proclaim the glory of God in our dying.

Following Jesus is not an escape from suffering but a descent into death and only then an ascent to life. Following Jesus is a call to take up our crosses, our suffering, that they might reveal the glory of God and that we might grow more like Jesus.

It is surprising that any of us go. It is surprising that millions offer their lives each week during offering time in the worship of God. It is surprising that still there are those who risk imprisonment and even death so they can sing:

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong, they are weak but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me the Bible tells me so.

Jesus loves us enough to tell us the truth; suffering is for the glory of God. Jesus loves us enough that he gives his life that we might see God glorified and that God might be glorified in us. And because Jesus loves us we can choose to follow him into suffering as a witness to God’s unfailing mercy. Because of suffering we choose to reveal the glory of God and to grow in the mind and stature of Christ. I don’t seek suffering, mine or yours, but I am grateful that God turns suffering into compassion. And I choose, with the help of God, to follow Jesus that I might grow in the mind and stature of my Lord.

Shalom and Amen.

[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Publisher: HarperCollins, 2001

[2] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000, p.81. Get it on Amazon.

[3] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18463814