We live in a world at
war with itself. It is filled with beauty and incredible wonders perfectly
designed for us to live in, enjoy and rule over (Genesis 1 & 2), yet we know
from a thousand experiences that life on planet earth is not as it was designed
to be. Since Sin & Death entered the world we experience life as a 'half
life', a sinking cruise liner, a banquet on Death Row. We experience the joys
and beauty of life much less than what it was meant to be, and have added death,
decay, pain and suffering into the mix. (Romans 5:12-14)
More disorienting
still, there is no distinction between a "good" or "wicked" person when tragedy
strikes. Whether you believe in God or not, whether Christian or not, life is
full of 'the good, the bad and the ugly'. We only have to look at Job, who was
considered to be blameless and upright because as a sinner he had faith in the
promise of the coming of Jesus, yet suffered immense loss and
pain.
For years my parents
took me back and forth to doctors and the children's hospital until finally my
chronic renal failure rendered me close to death and needing a kidney
transplant. What parent can make the slightest sense of watching their child
spiral this way before them? Thanks to two blessed kidney transplants I have
survived for decades but the disease and the treatments are killing me slowly.
My husband and 2 daughters also bear the burden of this, along with my extended
family and those closest to me.
Where is God in all
this? Doesn't he care? What hope is there? What's he doing
about this? After all he is God.
The temptation we all face is to put our
hope in the various things this life has to offer. Pastor Matt Richard wisely states in his sermon 'Hope in the midst of despair' that "If we look for hope by how
things are going in this life and how we believe things will be going in the
future or if we try to derive hope from our past, we can end up hopeless. Hope is then attached to things that are temporary and fading.... Hope must always have an
object that it can anchor to. Hope needs a source and hope is only as
good as the source that it is in.... Christian hope arises
only from the fact that God has mercy upon us and instils hope into
us. Christian hope never has any other
object or matter or foundation than simply the mercy of God, not our works, not
our abilities, and not our feelings.... Hope must have an object and that
object is God’s faithfulness shown to us in the person and work of
Christ." Homiletic
Sources: Sermon Studies On OT Texts (NWP) ~ Pericope.org
We may not understand or be able to answer the
questions to do with why these things happen, apart from the fact that sin is in
the world, but we do have an assurance of hope that as painful as the situations may be,
they are temporary and fleeting and God is our refuge and strength and because
of his grace it will not always be like this. Revelation 21:1-5a promises us this: Then
I saw a
new heaven and a new earth, for the
first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And
I saw the
holy city, new
Jerusalem, coming
down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for
her husband. And
I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He
will dwell
with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be
with them as their God. He will wipe away every
tear from their eyes, and death
shall be no more, neither
shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things
have passed away.”And he who was seated on the
throne said, “Behold, I am
making all things new.”
So what is God doing about it? The answer
is that he already has done something about it. It is the
mystery of his grace delivered in his own suffering that is our help.
"The words ‘Only the suffering
God can help’ come from Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison:
The
same God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34!). The same
God who makes us to live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is
the God before whom we stand continually. Before God, and with God, we live
without God. God consents to be pushed out of the world and onto the cross; God
is weak and powerless in the world and in precisely this way, and only so, is
at our side and helps us. Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us
not by virtue of his omnipotence but rather by virtue of his weakness and
suffering! This is the crucial distinction between Christianity and all
religions. Human religiosity directs people in need to the power of God in the
world, God as deus ex machina. The Bible directs people toward the
powerlessness and the suffering of God; only the suffering God can help. (pp.
478–79)" Taken from Jason
Goroncy in Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, God http://cruciality.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/looking-for-god-%E2%80%93-a-short-reflection/
In the meantime we can bear the pain, because
Jesus bore the pain and he suffers with us and for us. In his letter to the church in 
Andrew Peterson 'All Things New'
Come
broken and weary
Come battered and bruised
My Jesus makes all things new
All things new
Come battered and bruised
My Jesus makes all things new
All things new
Come
lost and abandoned
Come blown by the wind
He’ll bring you back home again
Home again
Come blown by the wind
He’ll bring you back home again
Home again
Rise up, O you sleeper, awake
The dawn is upon you
Rise up, O you sleeper, awake
He makes all things new
All things new
The dawn is upon you
Rise up, O you sleeper, awake
He makes all things new
All things new
Come
burning with shame
Come frozen with guilt
My Jesus, he loves you still
Loves you still
Come frozen with guilt
My Jesus, he loves you still
Loves you still
Rise up, O you sleeper, awake
The dawn is upon you
Rise up, O you sleeper, awake
He makes all things new
He makes all things new
The dawn is upon you
Rise up, O you sleeper, awake
He makes all things new
He makes all things new
The
world was good
The world is fallen
The world will be redeemed
The world is fallen
The world will be redeemed
So
hold on to the promise
The stories are true
That Jesus makes all things new
(The dawn is upon you)
The stories are true
That Jesus makes all things new
(The dawn is upon you)
Words by Andrew Peterson
Music by Andrew Peterson, Ben Shive, and Andy Gullahorn
Music by Andrew Peterson, Ben Shive, and Andy Gullahorn
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Andrew Olsen for his input and edits and to Matt Richard for his wisdom and resources! More of their work can be seen at
http://andrewolsenblog.blogspot.com.au/ and http://www.pastormattrichard.com/
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