Wednesday, Dec. 3rd

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Wednesday, Dec. 3

John 1:14

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Like most pastors I am often invited into people’s lives at times of great suffering and pain.

I serve as an on-call chaplain for our local hospital so there are several weeks during the year when I am on-call to respond to emergency situations. As you can imagine, when I get that call from the hospital, it’s never good news.

In June of this past summer it was Saturday of my on-call week and I hadn’t had a call all week. In fact, I had kind of forgotten that I was even on call.

Then my cell phone rang late in the afternoon and I looked at the number and recognized it as the hospital, and I remembered I was on call.

When I answered the head ER nurse said they had just brought in a 4 year-old little boy who had drowned in a swimming pool. She said doctors were working on him but it didn’t look good. Could I come in and be with the family?

By the time I arrived at the hospital the boy had already died and his parents were thrust into the agony of grief and loss. It was one of the most difficult and painful situations I have ever encountered.

One of the great questions of human life is, “Why is there suffering and evil in the world?”

This is a very difficult question but to answer we have to start with the love of God.

Sin and evil exist because God created everything that is in love. With love comes freedom and with freedom comes the possibility of sin and evil.

For example:

I love my children. I could prevent them from doing evil or experiencing evil by chaining them in their rooms their whole lives. Nothing bad would happen. But that would not be love at all.

So, as parents, we teach, we give boundaries, we discipline, but because we love our children we eventually must give them freedom.

So when God took on flesh; when Jesus entered this world, he entered the same world that we live in; a world created in love but broken by sin.

In Jesus God became vulnerable to suffering.

Isaiah 53:3

He was despised and rejected by mankind,
 a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

In Jesus God entered into at least three kinds of human suffering.

First, he became vulnerable to physical suffering. This is most visible, of course, as he endured the pain and torture of the cross. But we can also assume that fi he fell and skinned his knee as a child he would have also experienced physical pain.

Second, in Jesus God became vulnerable to what could simply be called basic human needs. Jesus knew what it was to be hungry and thirsty; to be dog-tired and in need of rest.

Third, and perhaps most significantly, in Jesus God became vulnerable to spiritual suffering.
Temptation is a form of spiritual suffering.

Matthew’s gospel tells the story of Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness. I think most of us tend to underestimate this aspect of Jesus’ humanity. In Hebrews 4:25 we read:   

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin.

Jesus also experienced the agony of spiritual abandonment. Scripture tells us that as he was dying on the cross he cried out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Jesus also suffered terrible injustice and unfairness.

Sometimes people ask: “Why is life so unfair?” or even, “Is God fair?”

Jesus is God’s answer to that question. If “fairness” means; “If I am a good person, will good things happen to me?” Then the answer is “No, not always.”

God is love; God is just; but in this life, in this world, there is no such thing as “fairness.”

Jesus was without sin; lived a perfect human existence; yet suffered almost unimaginable injustice and cruelty.

The gospel is not about fairness, it’s about grace. And grace is this:

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son...

Pastor Brian Coffey