Christian Caregiving- Suffering

Job 2:8-3:1; Ps 22; 2 Cor 12:1-10; Mk 14:32-43

We are continuing our series on Christian Caregiving this week. Last time we spoke about listening to someone we are caring for. This week we are speaking about caring for someone who is suffering.

Suffering can be one of the most difficult issues we deal with as Christians. I have found it helpful to deal with suffering on two levels. One level is the theological reality where we try to understand why suffering exists in the world. The other level is the emotional reality of the person who is suffering.

On a philosophical/theological level you may have encountered the following train of thought. In a world where there is suffering, we can’t have both a God who is all-loving and all-powerful. … So, God is powerful enough to do something about suffering, but isn’t loving enough to do anything about it. … Or, God is all-loving and would like to stop suffering, but isn’t powerful enough to do anything about it. … This is a famous dilemma any first-year philosophy student has encountered. And many have used this as a reason for not believing in God at all.

Thinking about suffering can leave your head spinning. It is one of the major questions that trouble theologians. As caregivers I think it can be helpful to have some explanation of suffering for yourself, but that doesn’t mean you are dumping your theories about suffering on the people you meet who are suffering.

One understanding of suffering (that is meaningful to me) is that I believe that God cares more about us developing holy character than he cares about us being comfortable in this moment. If delaying healing will bring some development of holiness to me, I suspect God will choose that over healing me in that moment.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12, 

“a thorn was given me in the flesh … to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:7-10).  

So, for Paul there was some suffering that was allowed in his life that he understood would lead to greater holiness, in the end.

To learn to be courageous people we probably need a world with some danger. To be patient people we need a world with annoyance. To be compassionate people we probably need a world with people whose suffering we can share.

I believe that God can transform suffering to good ends. What was meant for evil, God can transform and use for good. This is the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. Joseph says to his brothers, who sold him into slavery, 

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Gen 50:20). 

And this is one of the lessons that the cross teaches us. The cross was a terrible evil, but it was redeemed into resurrection and salvation. …

This has been a strong teaching throughout church history- that God can redeem our suffering. For example, St. Mark the Ascetic (writing in the early 400’s) has said, 

“Do not claim to have acquired virtue unless you have suffered affliction, for without affliction virtue has not been tested.”[1] 

St. Diadochos (writing in the mid 400’s) said, 

“As wax cannot take the imprint of a seal unless it is warmed or softened thoroughly, so a man cannot receive the seal of God's holiness unless he is tested by labours and weaknesses.”[2]

God’s presence in the midst of our suffering also has a long tradition in the Church. Someone once asked me how I can believe in God when someone I love is suffering. I told them that in Christianity, the place when God was most present in the world was Jesus dying on the cross. So, I have to believe that while we feel like God is absent in the midst of suffering, the cross tells me exactly the opposite. God is incredibly present in the midst of suffering. Incarnation could be understood as compassion. Compassion means to “suffer with”. God takes on flesh to suffer with us.

Remember that Jesus wept. And Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane also seems to imply a prayer that was unanswered. Jesus says to the disciples, 

“My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Mark 14:34). 

Then it says, 

“And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will’ (Mk 14:35-36). 

Jesus suffered, even before he went to the cross. God, through Jesus, knew suffering. Jesus’ suffering is, in a sense, God’s answer to the question of suffering that we began with. He is, perhaps, mystically present in the midst of that suffering.[3]

The Creator of the universe took on weak, suffering, human flesh. God has not abandoned us in our suffering. He has joined us in our suffering. God does not sit off in the distance watching us suffer. He joins us in it. … But, He will not leave us there. God will not let suffering have the last word in His good creation. Life does not end with a cross. It ends with resurrection and new life.

Most people aren’t bothered by suffering in an abstract philosophical way. Most are bothered by suffering in an experiential way. When we are suffering, or (what is sometimes worse) when we are watching someone we care about suffer, that is when most of us feel tested. We can feel God has left the building. I think it was a moment like that that led to the psalmist writing, 

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps 22:1), 

which became Jesus’ words on the cross.

I remember being with my son Seth in the hospital when he was 2 years old and praying for him to be healed and being incredibly impatient with God. It felt like, if Seth is healed God is here, if Seth is still sick God is not here. … Sometimes in the midst of that kind of suffering we start to wonder- Maybe we have sinned and deserve what we are getting. Or, maybe we just start feeling like God is mean.

When dealing with suffering I have often thought about Jesus’ mother, Mary, watching her son die on the cross. On that Friday, is there anything that you could have said to Mary that would have made her feel better? … What if you were standing next to her as she watched her son dying, what might you say? … “Mary, don’t worry, God is going to use this to do something great”. … Wouldn’t she just be offended if you said something like that to her? Even though it’s true, it probably wouldn’t be appropriate, and probably wouldn’t help her in that moment. … It’s rare for a logical answer to address an emotional problem.

I think suffering can be transformed to good ends, just as the cross was transformed into resurrection and salvation. I don’t believe God causes suffering, but I think God can transform suffering- God can redeem suffering. I think from the point of view of eternity, our suffering will be viewed the way we view the cross now. But, that is not necessarily something we can say to someone who is in the midst of their suffering- just as we couldn’t talk to Mary about the good that will come from the cross as she watched her son dying on it.

So, what does Mary need in that moment? She doesn’t need an answer to explain suffering. She needs someone to share her tears. She needs someone to suffer with her. She needs someone to hug her. She needs a listening ear and a quiet presence.

Job’s friends started off quite good. We read that, 

“They made an appointment together to come to show [Job] sympathy and comfort him. And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads towards heaven. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.” (Job 2:11-13).

Compassion means to “suffer with” someone. Job’s friends cried with him, and they sat in the dust with him for seven days before saying anything. … There is something about being with someone who is suffering that silence is often the only helpful response. Job lost his family, his possessions, and his health. His friends wept with him and sat in silence. And that was probably the best thing they did.

I don’t think we can stay there forever, but neither can we be rushed out of that place. … At some point, we have to choose between suffering with meaning, … or suffering without meaning. At some point, we participate in the redemption of our suffering, or we allow it to break us, and we become bitter.

So, what does Christian caregiving look like in the face of suffering? It looks like sitting in the dust. It looks like silence when words are likely to wound. It looks like tears shared, not answers offered. It looks like being present, broken-hearted, and faithful.

But it also looks like hope.

Not the kind of hope that rushes in with platitudes, but the kind that waits patiently in the dark, trusting that resurrection is coming. The kind of hope that trusts that suffering will not have the last word, and that the cross is not the end of the story.

As caregivers, we are not called to fix suffering. We are called to enter it- To “suffer with”- as Christ did. And in doing so, we become part of the redemption story- where suffering is not erased, but transformed.

So may we be people who sit in silence, who listen with love, and who carry the hope of resurrection- not as a quick fix, but as a quiet promise. Amen.

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[1] St. Mark the Ascetic in the Philokalia. Volume 1 p.114 (numbers 66-67)

[2] St. Diadochos of Photiki in the Philokalia. Volume 1 p.291 (Number 94)

[3] While I believe some suffering is used to some good purpose, I also believe there is some level of suffering in the world due to the sinful choices of human beings and the presence of some level of chaos.