The Lutheran Hour
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"Responses to Suffering"
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Text: 1 Peter 4:12
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Think back to the last time you had a bad splinter. I bet you can recall at least one or two encounters with a splinter, with an unwelcome foreign object painfully lodged in your flesh. How is it that the smallest piece of wood or glass can stop you in your tracks, in your hand or in your heel or under your fingernail? It doesn’t matter how small it is, you might not even know it’s there at first. It’s just a vague awareness that something isn’t right, a small ache that wasn’t there before, almost imperceptible. But in time, that pain can become debilitating, especially if it’s been in there for a few days. What started as a minor annoyance grows into an all-consuming thorn in the flesh, and you’ll do almost anything to stop the pain. You will gladly put yourself in the most awkward, most humiliating, most vulnerable positions, lying face down, biting on a wooden spoon, barefoot in the air, some trusted agent performs minor surgery, digging around in the wound with a safety pin because the pain has become unbearable. That’s why we submit ourselves to such conditions.
And then, oh, then you know the flood of relief when the splinter is out. “I got it,” the volunteer surgeon says, holding up the tweezers to your nose, and then the mountains and the hills break forth into song before you, the trees of the field clap their hands, and you go out like a calf, skipping from the stall. The pain and the misery are gone almost instantly. It’s like being reborn in a new world.
This common experience of a splinter pulled out can give us language to describe other experiences. Maybe you’ve had others splinter-like moments. You’ve felt the pain of an unwelcome intrusion, a vague new aching, an almost imperceptible sensation that something in the world isn’t right. How do you respond to this pain, this suffering, that can shatter the illusion that all is well? Do you ignore it, hoping that it will work itself out eventually? Or do you perform the operation yourself armed with a safety pin, craning your neck trying to see the bottom of your foot? Or do you humble yourself? Do you entrust your suffering and your healing into the care of someone else, someone who can help? How do you respond to suffering?
Over the last five weeks on this program, we have been listening to a letter written by a man named Peter, one of the first followers of Jesus, who is called the Christ, the Messiah. Peter has had much to say in response to suffering. In this brief letter, Peter uses the root word of the verb “to suffer” 16 times. And in addition to this, he also speaks of testings and difficulties and fiery trials. Now, in Peter’s immediate context and in the context of the people who first heard the letter, suffering probably included religious persecution. He was writing to followers of Jesus who lived in the Roman Empire, a government that didn’t take kindly to those who refused to worship the Roman emperor. And this sometimes led to violent persecution of Christians in that day. But Peter’s talk about suffering includes more than that. Suffering as a Christian could come from violent persecution, but it could also come from the subtle insults and slights and demeaning comments of the people around you. Suffering could come from living with a stubborn person or from working for a bad boss. Suffering could come from your own conflicting desires that wage war within you or from any number of various trials that test your faith in God. In addition to all this talk of suffering in this life, Peter also warns about eternal suffering for those who refuse to humble themselves into the care of God, the great Physician.
But as much as Peter speaks of suffering, he speaks more often of joy and gladness of that future day when the mountains break into song and all the trees clap their hands. He even speaks of loving life now in the present. So Peter speaks of suffering, not in a general way, but suffering as a Christian, as a follower of Christ. So how do Christians respond to suffering? Peter’s answer is simple: humble yourself into the care of your Creator while continuing to do good and receive good from others.
Listen to how he says it at the conclusion of his letter, 1 Peter 4, beginning at verse 12.
“Beloved, do not think that it’s strange when the fiery trial comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. Instead, insofar as you share in the sufferings of Christ, rejoice so that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. If any of you all are insulted for the Name of Christ, you are blessed. Because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Be sober minded, be alert, your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a growling lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him firm in the faith because you know that the same sufferings are being accomplished, are being completed in your brothers and sisters in Christ in the world. And after you all have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, God Himself will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be the power into the ages forever. Amen. (1 Peter 4-5)
Twenty years ago, I got the worst splinter of my life. Two decades have passed since this event, and I can still remember portions of it like it was yesterday. But funny, I don’t remember how I got it. I just remember that one day I woke up to a pain in my thumb and I can see the smallest sliver of something, wood maybe, lodged under my thumbnail. The pain was minimal at first, so I ignored it. Over the next few days though it got worse, and I try a variety of home remedies. I try soaking it and pressing it and poking at it, but nothing worked. About a week later, one night, I’m having a dream. I’m standing in a workshop, my hand is lying palm side down on a workbench and the head of a hammer wielded by some invisible force was falling rhythmically onto my thumb. I tried to pull my hand away, but it was glued to the table. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. The hammer kept pounding onto my thumb like a heartbeat. I wake up from the dream, rush into the bathroom, turn on the light, hold the thumb over the sink and squeeze. And when the stream of puss and blood shot out from under the thumbnail, it became clear to me that this was not something I could handle any more on my own. I needed a doctor.
Pain, suffering in its many forms is an indication that all is not well with the world. Everybody can agree to that, right? Whether you’re religious or not. And many also agree, both religious and irreligious, they would say that much of the suffering in the world is caused by humans, by ourselves or by others, by cruelty or carelessness or shortsightedness. Now, some religious people would go a step further and say that this suffering is punishment from God for our sins. Or that it is some form of tough love or instruction from God or maybe from the universe, teaching us lessons that we can only learn through suffering.
Now, let’s say that we could account for half of the world’s suffering through such explanations, that we could explain how suffering leads to some greater good. Even so, there would be much suffering left over for which we have no answers. Whatever your worldview, atheist, Buddhist, Christian, none of us have all the answers about suffering. But Christians have a unique response and unique resources to endure suffering. As Pastor Tim Keller once put it, “We do not know what the answer is, but we do know what the answer isn’t.”
See, Christians believe that Jesus, that famous Guy from Nazareth is God Himself. He is God’s Son become a human being who suffered on the cross for us in His mission to rescue God’s good creation. So when someone asks us why does God allow suffering and evil to continue, we don’t know what the answer is. But when we look at the cross of Jesus, we know what the answer isn’t. It cannot be that God doesn’t love us. It cannot be that God is indifferent or detached from our suffering. That cannot be the answer because God has taken our suffering so seriously that He took it into Himself. When you see God’s willingness to suffer for us in Jesus, then you can begin, as Peter said, to suffer as a Christian. Christians do not know the answer to suffering, but we know what the answer isn’t. It cannot be that God doesn’t love us. Jesus suffered to death for you, for me, not so that we might never suffer, but so that our sufferings would become like His, sufferings entrusted into the loving hands of our Father, into the hands of our faithful Creator.
When Peter calls God the faithful Creator, he is recalling the account of creation from the book of Genesis. There in Genesis, we hear how the all-powerful God created all things and that everything He created was good, but that something went wrong. There was a prideful rebellion against God. There was a spiritual thorn embedded in our flesh lodged into the souls of all humankind, and it has infected us with diabolical pride, with the belief that we don’t really need God or maybe that we only need Him like a pilot needs a parachute who knows that it’s there but hopes he never has to use it. That’s what pride would lead us to believe about God, that for normal everyday life, we don’t really need Him. And if pride had its way, it would lead us all to eternal suffering.
Think of it like this. One day, it will become clear to everyone that there are only three ways to exist. Either option one, you are the creator of all things, or option two, you are a creature sharing in the goodness of your Creator through humble trust and grateful love, or option three, you’re miserable. So if you’re not the creator, but pride keeps you from trusting your Creator, ultimately, eternal suffering is the only option left.
Christians are people who, by God’s grace, have started to accept reality on these terms, but Christians have not solved the problem of pride. We are still somewhere in between humble trust and prideful independence. And until Jesus returns in glory, we still need voices like Peter’s calling us to humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand.
See, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble, not for His sake, but for ours. God opposes our pride, not like an insecure bully trying to bolster his ego, but like a physician who knows that we cannot be helped if we refuse to come under his care. Or like a surgeon who knows that the splinter will only come out with difficulty. Christians have not solved the problem of pride, we’ve only checked into the hospital, and in some ways this can put us at greater risk: at risk for a spiritual pride that assumes that being under the physician’s care is the same as being free from the infection. It’s a subtle pride the devil uses to tell us that we’re better than others, and so he would devour us all over again. Maybe that’s what Peter means when he says that judgment begins at the household of God and that those right with God by faith are only scarcely saved or saved with difficulty because we still have a difficult operation ahead of us.
The belief that suffering is a path towards salvation is not unique to Christianity. The ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, for example, said that true wisdom is practicing how to die. Buddhism teaches that freedom from suffering comes only through acceptance of suffering. Even fitness gurus will tell you that pain is weakness leaving the body. Many people will tell you to embrace suffering as a path toward healing. What makes the Christian response to suffering unique is the promise that this healing suffering has already been done for us, ahead of us, in Jesus Christ. And that when we go through it, we don’t go alone. Jesus takes us by the hand and leads us through it.
C.S. Lewis wrote in his book, The Problem of Pain, that all arguments that try to justify suffering provoke bitter resentment against the person who makes the argument. And oh Lord, here I am trying to justify suffering, comparing it to getting a splinter taken out. And maybe you’re rightly wondering how I would behave if I were actually suffering and not making cute analogies about it, and I will echo Mr. Lewis and say that I am a coward. When I suffered a little splinter under my thumbnail, not only was I irritable, short-tempered, and grumpy, I was too proud to admit that I needed help. And it was only when the pain became unbearable that I surrendered into the hands of a physician. And during the operation, when he used a pair of needle-nosed pliers to dig under the nail of my anesthetized thumb, I was good for nothing, absorbed in my own misery.
Look, I may not be your model for how to suffer as a Christian, but I can tell you about the examples that I look to, to better brothers and sisters in Christ that I have known in God’s church. I look to Karen who is stuck in a nursing home bed for years with arthritis so bad that she could barely hold her cross-stitch needles but devoted endless hours to knitting blankets and scarves and hats to give as gifts to everybody she knew. I look to Pat who used his long and agonizing stay in the hospital where he would eventually die, I saw Pat devote that time to visiting with people, with the doctors and the nurses and anybody who came to see him, telling them about the blessings of his life, the goodness of his Creator, and the love of his Savior. I look to Dana, paralyzed by medical malpractice, confined to a wheelchair since she was 16, yet by God’s grace has become a joy-filled, faith-filled wife and mother, business-owner and community leader. I look to Jeremy, sometimes ostracized and ridiculed for his faith, yet still sharing Jesus wherever he goes. I look to many brothers and sisters entrusting themselves to a faithful Creator while doing good.
I’m not quite there yet. The operation is still ongoing for me. But I’ve got a good Physician and a sense of the joy that will come when the splinter is out and all creation is put right. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
Reflections for May 21, 2023
Title: Responses to SufferingMark Eischer: You’re listening to The Lutheran Hour. For FREE online resources, archived audio, our mobile app, and more, visit lutheranhour.org. Now back to our Speaker, Dr. Michael Zeigler.
Mike Zeigler: Today I’m visiting with Dr. Dale Meyer, a leader and a scholar who served in our church body for 50 years. You were ordained in 1973. Is that right, Dale?
Dale Meyer: I graduated in 1973, started my graduate work and then was ordained the next year.
Mike Zeigler: So, we’re coming up next year on your 50th ordination anniversary. Praise be to God!
Dale Meyer: Eh, I wish I were younger again.
Mike Zeigler: Well, in your leisurely years now, you’re working on this Bible commentary for 1 Peter. And we’ve been listening to it on the program, and we’ve invited you to help us become better readers and hearers of 1 Peter. And it’s because of you, partly, that I’ve been trying to make an effort to keep referring to Peter’s hearers. So why is that appropriate to talk about Peter’s first hearers, rather than his readers?
Dale Meyer: Well, this is a great Bible blinder, and I thank you for asking the question. Scholars estimate that only 10 to 15 percent of the people in the Roman Empire were literate. Epistles were read to people who could not read and write by those who were literate. So, it was literally true what Romans 10:17 says: “Faith comes by hearing.”
Mike Zeigler: So the Good News primarily is a spoken word. Is that right?
Dale Meyer: I mean, if you know me, I enjoy tweaking people. I enjoy a little humor and I’ve done this several times in sermons. I ask people to show me the Word of God and congregation is looking back. I said, “No, no, no. Show me the Word of God,” and a brave soul will hold up the Bible and then others hold up the Bible from the pew in front of them. Well, having the Bible in print is a late development. I mean, today every home can have a Bible. You can buy Bibles in the bookstore. That’s a late development going back to Gutenberg and the printing press. And it’s a blessing, of course. But the Word of God was first understood, and it still should be understood today as a living voice. The Latin is “viva vox evangelii,” the “living voice of the Gospel,” something that is spoke and is not bound and put on a shelf.
Mike Zeigler: Now just to clarify, we’re not saying that God is still speaking in a way that’s going to contradict anything that’s in His written Word.
Dale Meyer: That’s a great observation. One of the things about 1 Peter, and this is true of other books in the New Testament, is that the apostles and the evangelists were very zealous to show that what happened with Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled Old Testament prophecy. Time and time again, Peter makes direct quotations or allusions to the Old Testament, so he was norming his understanding of Jesus on the basis of the Old Testament. We today, in our time, do not expect a new revelation from God. He has given us the eternally valid revelation in the Old and the New Testament Scriptures, which are both centered on Christ.
Mike Zeigler: Sometimes I think about the Bible, and again, let no one hear Dr. Meyer and I disparaging the printed word. It’s a treasure just like he said. But what we are trying to say is that you could think of the Bible like this: like sheet music for a pianist. The goal is not to have bound sheets of music in a book somewhere, but to play, to give them sound. So Dr. Meyer, what would be some dangers of seeing the Word of God only as written as a historical document?
Dale Meyer: Well, the temptation is to put it on a shelf and think of it as a spiritual resource book. So let me give you a scenario. You have two church members, faithful church members, church members who believe in Jesus and have the hope of heaven. Well, each of them on their own gets into a spiritual conversation with somebody in the neighborhood, somebody at work, somebody at the fitness club, wherever. The one person in this spiritual conversation knows the Bible, lives in the Bible, like Peter says, desires it as a pure milk of the Word. That person is going to be able to engage in a good spiritual conversation with a person who is outside the faith. Now, let’s take the other church member. Again, believes in Jesus, goes to church, all of that, but just really doesn’t get into the Bible, doesn’t take it down off the shelf. How much is that person going to be able to witness at this impromptu spiritual discussion that comes up? Not as much. “I can check this,” or “I can Google this,” or “I can talk to my pastor about it.” Now, which of those is going to be the most credible witness? The person for whom the Gospel is the living voice of the Word of God present in their lives, present in their minds, their hearts, their studies. There’s a credible witness.
Mike Zeigler: It’s like Peter says in chapter 3, always be ready to give an account or make a defense of the hope that you have in you.
Dale Meyer: It sounds like you read the letter.
Mike Zeigler: So that verse you mentioned earlier about craving or longing for the pure, and some translations say, “spiritual” milk, but the Word is the milk of the Word in 1 Peter 2 there. So to crave that pure milk of the Word, it’s just to hear it—hear it from start to finish, again and again, or hear other books of the Bible like that.
Dale Meyer: Babies instinctively desire milk. We followers of Jesus should desire time to read, to hear, to discuss, to talk with one another, and to meditate privately on the Word of God. This is our life. And by the Word of God, He has given us new birth to faith and hope in Him.
Music Selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.
“Up Through Endless Ranks of Angels” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.