4th Sunday of Easter
May 3, 2020
1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10
I was reminded a couple days ago that while the
liturgical calendar has changed to Easter, it does not feel like Easter. It
still feels like Lent. And I knew this was going to happen, that we’d pass
Easter Sunday and the resurrection, [pause] and life would still feel like
Lent. I think, though, that I forgot. I thought that if we put on enough happy
faces and did enough celebrating, that we could physically push thru to Easter.
Instead, I don’t know about your house, but we’ve had a rough last two weeks. Things
are not as they should be. It feels like more has changed than has stayed the
same. I feel like I’m constantly learning new skills, none of which are hard,
but which I’m required to learn and there are a lot of them and they are very
technical, as in often involving technology. So, if during the last couple
weeks you feel like I’ve moved beyond Lent, that I’m trying to force us into
Easter, that I’m putting too happy a spin on things, I’m sorry. If I’ve been
too quick to offer comfort, if I’ve treated your pain lightly, I’m sorry.
Today, our theme on rising up is about suffering, and we’re going to sit with
the suffering.
There is a hymn in our hymnal that I don’t know, but
maybe you do. It’s called “Come, Ye Disconsolate.”[1]
The first verse says, “Come, ye disconsolate, wherever ye languish, come to the
mercy seat, fervently kneel. Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your
anguish; earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.” Come, ye disconsolate; disconsolate,
as in “not comforted.” The hymn is an invitation just to come, as you are. It’s
not necessarily an invitation to receive comfort. Sometimes in our pain, we’re
not ready to move on to comfort. Sometimes, we need to just sit with our grief.
Through the prophet Jeremiah, “the Lord says: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah,
mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because
they are no more.’”[2]
The world tends to want us to move on with our pain. To get over it, push past
it, get back to life as usual. And sometimes that’s a good response. However,
the world says it because the world is uncomfortable with pain and grief and
suffering. The Bible, and Jesus, on the other hand, are quite comfortable with
pain and grief and suffering. Rachel weeps for her children and refuses to be
comforted. Jesus suffered death on a cross, and stayed in the tomb for three
days before rising again. It was not immediate. It was not even just 24 hours.
It was three days, that must have
felt like an eternity. Christ didn’t move on quickly from suffering. He stayed
there; disconsolate.
In 1
Peter we read, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you,
leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no
sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When they hurled their insults at
him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he
entrusted himself to him who judges justly. ‘He himself bore our sins’ in his
body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by
his wounds you have been healed.’” About half of that section 1 Peter quotes
from Isaiah 53, one of the three Suffering Servant passages in Isaiah. It’s one
of the ways we see Jesus fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies. By his
wounds, by his suffering, we have been healed. We understand our suffering only
in light of Christ’s suffering. As part of the Church, Christ’s body, we
participate in the suffering of Christ.
There’s
a seminary word, “cruciform,” that if we were together I’d ask how many of you
have heard that word. Cruciform means cross-shaped, or in the shape of a cross.
Think about traditional sanctuaries, or even ours, which is only flattened a
little bit. Churches used to always be designed in the shape of a cross. The
pews where the congregation sits form the longest leg down of the cross. The
altar and maybe a choir and chancel area are the top vertical part. Then
there’s the transverse that’s horizontal on each side. In our sanctuary, the
choir sits in one of those sides. In large cathedrals, there’s often a small
chapel on one or both sides, or the votive candles to light, some have
additional doors on one or both ends of that horizontal piece. The church
building used to be literally cruciform, in the shape of a cross. It’s also the
shape of our faith. We are part of a cruciform community; it is only through
the cross that we get to resurrection, that we get to rise up, that we get to
healing. But sometimes, you gotta stay there in the cross a while. “In the
cross of Christ I glory, towering o'er the wrecks of time; all the light of
sacred story gathers round its head sublime.”[3]
However,
this is where a word of caution is needed. I do not want you to hear me
glorifying or valorizing suffering. Suffering still hurts. Much suffering is
outside of God’s will. This passage from 1 Peter is a text that has been used
to harm people. On the one hand, it’s relevant to our theme of suffering,
because it was written to a community suffering persecution because of their
Christian faith, which was illegal. The letter is addressed to exiles who have
been scattered in provinces throughout the Roman Empire. In the Roman Empire,
you worshiped the Emperor; he was god. That’s why Christians had to recant
their faith or be fed to the lions. So, this
is a community who is suffering. However, here in chapter 2 are what are
known as the Household Codes, instructions for how husbands and wives and
masters and enslaved persons are to treat each other. Slavery was a reality in
the Roman Empire and the lectionary cut off that part of the paragraph. So,
yes, it’s about how to treat each other well. But this passage has also been
used to keep people subjugated and oppressed, and that is never the goal of the
Gospel. Jesus says to love your neighbor as yourself, and taking away someone’s
freedom is not loving them. Causing someone to suffer on purpose is not loving
them. I’m getting a little off-topic here, yet this is important. My New
Testament professor believed that the heart of Paul’s message was Galatians 3:28,
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male
and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Yes, in the Roman Empire
there was a social hierarchy. However, there is not any hierarchy in God’s
kingdom and we are to live as the kingdom of God is here, just as Jesus
proclaimed and as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “thy kingdom come.” In God’s
kingdom, every tear shall be wiped away and “there will be no more death or
mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”[4]
That’s what we’re working toward. But we’re not there yet. In the meantime, as
we talk about suffering, please don’t hear me say that you should want it or
deserve it. It’s simply part of life. The good news is that Jesus knows what
it’s like. And God can redeem it for good.
However,
knowing the good news, let’s also be careful not to dismiss it, either. Jeremiah
6:13 says, “They have treated the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘all is
well,’ when in fact nothing is well.” Have you been in pain, and someone has
tried to gloss over it? I imagine we’ve all been there, both on the receiving
end and as the person glossing over
it. When you’re in pain, when you’re disconsolate, the least helpful response
is to be told it’s nothing. At least when someone tells you to suck it up and
move on, they’re acknowledging that there’s something there! But to carelessly
respond, as if the wound were not serious, is malpractice. I read an article
last week about how some Christians are responding to the pandemic in a very unchristian
way, treating it lightly, responding with judgment instead of with love, and it’s
hurting our witness and turning off non-Christians.[5]
Jesus hung out with those who were
suffering. He did not condemn them, did not judge them, did not turn them
away; he chose to be with those who were suffering. He said the sick need a
doctor, not the healthy. And many times in healing people he’d say, “Go and sin
no more.” But he did not judge them on their sin. He treated them lovingly and
carefully and patiently and restoratively. He restored their souls.
I don’t believe that suffering is necessarily evil, nor
do I find it helpful to focus on figuring out why it exists. The blame game
never helps anyone. Nor is it particularly helpful to look at it as a problem
to be solved. “Do x, y, and z you’re your suffering will be over.” Remember,
the world does not want to hear about suffering. Instead, consider it a
situation that offers you the opportunity to respond faithfully. The best
response is to figure out ways to resist and transform evil and suffering.
Sometimes, you start by sitting with it. Sometimes, you start with lament that
all is not as it should be. And you don’t jump quickly to change. Sometimes you
have to sit with it. This is why it’s critical to be part of a Christian
community that can help “absorb suffering and enable faithful living even in
the midst of suffering.”[6]
Together we can help each other respond faithfully in the presence of suffering.
That’s what Jesus did, and we are called to do that work as well, especially
during this time. The world is hurting. The world is in pain. And while they
may not be ready yet to hear that “earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot
heal,” let us sit with them until they are ready. And then together, we can
rise up. Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy,” to
cause suffering; “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”[7]
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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