Suffering and Loss

Each week we are required to write a theological reflection paper on a particular topic related to our Clinical Pastoral Education. Each of us finds ourselves scrambling to get these assignments done in the evenings after emotionally exhausting days. And we are never given any details regarding the topic, other than the title. For example, this week's reflection paper is titled, "Suffering and Loss." Wow. Not a single library in the world could hold all the books related to this topic. And when we ask for clarification or some specific guidelines, our supervisor undoubtedly says, "This is for you. Write what you want us to hear." As a result of no guidelines and little time, I generally end up writing a hodge-podge of jumbled thoughts. So here is my hodge-podge for this week:

Suffering and Loss

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’—John 11:28-37 

The expression of Jesus’ emotion at the tomb of his friend, Lazarus, is perhaps one of the most astonishing instances in the gospel story. The shortest verse in the Bible carries with it immense theological implications: Jesus wept (v.35). There is no direct statement that reveals the exact object of Jesus’ weeping. Was he weeping at the unbelief of the Jews? Was he weeping at the common misery of the human race? Was he weeping because his friend was dead? Was he weeping out of empathy for Mary? We could go on to discuss each of these theories. Yet,the fact remains, Jesus wept. John is not so much trying to convince his readers that Jesus was, in fact, human, for nobody in the first century would have questioned such a claim, but rather, God incarnate. So what does this say about God in response to the suffering and loss of human beings? N.T. Wright puts it this way, “The Word, through whom the worlds were made, weeps like a baby at the grave of his friend. Only when we stop and ponder this will we understand the full mystery of John’s gospel. Only when we put away our high-and-dry pictures of who God is and replace them with pictures in which the Word who is God can cry with the world’s crying will we discover what the word ‘God’ really means.”1 Calvin suggests, “Jesus is as much affected by our ills as if He had suffered them in Himself."2   

Suffering and loss is all over scripture. It is unavoidable. And one can look to different passages and stories to gain a variety of theological insights related to human suffering, such as the sharing in the cross of Christ, or the hope of the resurrection found in the midst of suffering. What I gain from this passage and others like it (such as Phil. 2), which is helpful for me in my ministry and my own life’s suffering is this: I am not alone. I find great comfort in knowing that the God who holds the entire universe in the palm of his hand, weeps when I suffer. 

I’ll never forget a dream I had the first night after coming home from my first week of chemotherapy. Up until this point I had displayed a great sense of strength and confidence in regards to my cancer. I showed no fear. I expressed no anguish. When I came home that night I broke down in the shower, sobbing. I was scared and weak. Chemotherapy has a profound way of beating a person down and stripping one of any sense of control over his life. I was helpless and afraid. That night I went to bed and dreamed of being alone on a Skipjack-type of boat trying to drive through a terrifying storm. When I felt like all sense of control was gone, Jesus came to me on the boat and said, I’m not going to take away this storm, but I’ll help you drive through it. I woke up and told Devon about my dream. It was vivid enough to stay with me until this day. I needed to know that God was with me, and that dream gave me the assurance to fight through. 

In my ministry, I find an immense responsibility to embody this truth of God for others. I am not able to succeed at this in every encounter, but here is one “success” story. On Saturday I visited with a client in Behavioral Health Services (BHS) who was suffering from severe depression. He had attempted suicide the night before. He communicated to me his belief that he had abandoned God. My verbatim will go into more detail about this. When he described to me that the source of his depression was related to a constant, immense back pain that no pain killer could ever take away, even for a moment’s time, a back pain that left him physically unable to do anything as much as walk upstairs, I welled up with tears. In that moment I felt his pain, and he knew it. And I think that’s what he needed in that moment: to know that he wasn’t alone, that someone else could bear the burden he bore, even if just for a second or two. I did not go in planning for this. In fact, given that he was a patient in BHS, I went in with all kinds of preconceived notions that caused me to be overly emotionally reserved and cautious. It was nothing short of the grace of God. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to let him know that I care, but rather, God wanted him to know that God was there, that he loved him, and that he felt the man’s pain. It was not me who cried in that moment, but God in me. Jesus wept.

_______________________________________________

1 N. T. Wright, John for Everyone, 2nd ed. ed., -- for Everyone. (London Louisville, KY: Spck; Westminster John Knox Press, 2004). Pg. 11. 

2 Jean Calvin, The Gospel According to St. John 11-21 and the First Epistle of John, Calvin's New Testament Commentaries ; V. 5 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1994). Pg. 11.

Comments

[Edward Kim]

Thanks for sharing this in printed form Chris. It was a blessing hearing it, and it's a blessing reading it.