The Fellowship of Sharing in His Sufferings

Habakkuk 3:17-19               Psalm 23                Philippians 3:4b-14                      John 12:1-8

The Fellowship of Sharing in His Sufferings

“This so-called God, you say you believe in. Where is He when I need Him?” 

Have you ever had anyone ask you such a question? “Where is God when I cry out to Him for help? Can He not heal me? Can He not change me? Can He not change my circumstances? Can He not stop the pain?” 

Where is God in times of trouble?

On July 30, 1967, 17-year-old Joni Eareckson dove off a platform into the Chesapeake Bay and fractured her neck between the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae. In an instant, she went from being a very active teenager to being quadriplegic. During her two-year long rehabilitation, Joni begged God to heal her. Christian friends rallied around her, praying the same prayers…when she was not healed, some deserted her. Joni herself struggled with anger, depression, suicidal thoughts, and she wrestled with doubt. Why did God not heal her? Could He heal her? Of course, He could…but He didn’t…and for two years, the battle raged on in Joni’s soul. Where was God?

Some faith healers claim that God does not heal because the sufferer does not have enough faith. Joni agonised over that. Some taught that sickness and suffering were directly linked to disobedience. If you are sick, you must have sinned…the age-old accusation of Job’s friends and the question of the disciples in our Gospel lesson. But this type of theology was not at all helpful for Joni. On top of her doubts and struggles, it added a sense of condemnation. God doesn’t hear me because I am bad. But this can very easily turn into “God doesn’t hear me because He is bad”. Why would a loving God let me suffer like this? And it is not like Joni’s suffering ended with quadriplegia. Through the years, Joni has had to deal with various complications and other life-threatening diseases, most recently breast cancer and Covid. 

And yet God has used Joni in ways she would never have thought possible…in her singing, her artwork, her writing, her motivational speaking, and in the establishment of Joni and Friends, an organisation that helps the disabled worldwide. Our own special needs grandchildren have benefitted from what the Lord has done in and through this quadriplegic woman…He has used her suffering to bring blessing to so many people all over the world.

When discussing the words of Paul recorded in our Epistle lesson for today Joni said, “Amen! I want to explore the golden treasures of the knowledge of Christ . . . losing all things for Him is tough, but worth it. I want the righteousness that comes from God through the faithfulness of Christ to God’s law which is received by faith.” 

While Joni may have planned for a different life, one without suffering, it is in this life of torment – a life unknown to most of us – it is in this life of suffering that she has found something far greater. In losing her life on so many levels, she found a call and a purpose she would never have dreamed possible. Like the Apostle Paul, she found that all she once considered gain suddenly lost its lustre and its attraction in the light of the surpassing greatness of truly knowing Christ Jesus her Lord. 

In so many ways, Joni has one up on us. Paul speaks about knowing Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like 

Him in His death. Which one of us can truly say that we share in the sufferings of Jesus? 

Consider this. On the night He was betrayed Jesus agonised in prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. He knew what lay ahead. He knew how those who were crucified suffered before they died.  Crucifixions were commonplace at the time. Hundreds of crosses dotted the Judean landscape as it was the most common method of Roman execution. But I believe it was not the cross alone that made our Lord sweat drops like blood. It was the awful realisation that the iniquity of humankind would be laid on Him and that He would die a death for something He had never known. He who was totally sinless, would die for the sinful. And yet, for the joy set before Him he endured even this. His submission to the Father was complete. “Not my will,” He said, “but Your will be done!”

Moreover, when Jesus died, He died without having lived out all the natural years of a normal man. He died in poverty – without owning any property on earth, no place to lay His head, as He once put it – quite literally with only the clothes on His back. He died without having seen and enjoyed all there is to see on this earth; Without honour among men as He was greatly misunderstood by both friend and foe; Without having His family believe in Him; Without the blessing of marriage or of having any physical children or grandchildren; Without solving Judea’s political problems much less the world’s political problems; Without fulfilling his complete potential as a man.

In the eyes of the world, Jesus died a failure, a loser, a traitor, an apostate from Judaism, a rebel to Rome, a criminal, a delusional apocalyptic preacher, a pauper, a deceiver, a liar, and a powerless man.  

Which one of us can honestly say we know the fellowship of sharing in the sufferings of Christ?

Paul could certainly say it. Before coming to faith in Jesus, he had it all. Respect, wealth, education, and a bright future. But that one meeting with Jesus changed everything. In an instant, everything he had worked for all his life came crashing in around him. The hunter became the hunted. His friends became his enemies…his fellow countrymen sought to kill him…all the respect, all the prosperity, all the dreams of being a star in Israel…gone forever. For the sake of knowing Jesus, he lost all things. But still he wrote that he counted all of that which he once held dear, as nothing more than dung in comparison to knowing Jesus. 

But let’s get back to our initial question: Where is God when I need Him? Or, more pointedly, Why does God allow so much suffering in this world? I’ll tell you. I honestly don’t know.

Theologians down through the ages have debated this question ad nauseum. There are so many books written on the subject. Some claim that God is indifferent and couldn’t care less. Others say that He is a tyrant and a sadistic despot. Then there are those who say no, He is love, but the sins of humanity render Him impotent. And so on and so forth…all these arguments for why the world still rocks and reels in agony year after decade after century. But at the end of the day, if we are humble and truthful, we must admit that with our finite minds, we just don’t know. 

You will always have the poor among you, Jesus said. In this world you will have tribulation, Jesus said. As we read through the Scriptures, we see struggle and suffering written on just about every single page. And this didn’t end at the cross. Paul was both a persecutor and a persecuted man. Together with all but one of the Apostles, many First Century followers of Jesus were martyred, some in the most horrendous ways. Where was God as the flames licked at the feet of the Reformers? Where was God when the Ethiopian believers were beheaded on the beach? Where is God in the rubble of Mariupol? 

The Scriptures tell us, He is with us. In the darkness of the valley of death He is right there before us, behind us, on either side of us, below us, above us, within us. And it is in that valley of death that He prepares a Table before us…right in front of that which seeks to harm us…our enemies, our sickness, our poverty, our anxiety…it is right there that He anoints our heads with the oil and causes our cup of blessing to overflow. It is there, in the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, that we find Him to be a God who is present. It is there in the darkness, where our own sense of control and independence is stripped away to nothing, it is there that we see Him most clearly. It is there in the stillness of emptiness that we hear His voice. 

In the beginning of his short book, the prophet Habakkuk cried out to God for justice. “How long, O Lord must I call for help, but You do not listen?” Wicked leaders in Judea disregarded the law and were oppressing their own people. But, when God responded and showed the prophet what He was about to do, the prophet was shocked and launched into a tirade. “What?” he basically shouted. How can God use the Babylonians, people even more wicked than the wicked Judeans, to punish God’s people? Is God not holy? Is God not pure? The language the prophet used in his angry response to God’s revelation is strong battle terminology. He will stand on his rampart, challenging God, as it were, to explain himself. Of course, you’ve never done anything like that…but Habakkuk did. And God, in His mercy, gave the angry little prophet a vision…and after this vision, Habakkuk changed his tune completely.

Even if there was total disaster, he said…even if there was total economic collapse and complete destruction in Judah, yet, he said, I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. 

You see it is in the crucible of suffering that we are stripped of all human ingenuity, human explanations, human knowledge, human support, human sufficiency, and dare I say, human pride. It is when we truly comprehend the frailty of life itself, that we begin to understand our absolute 100 % dependency on the Creator and Sustainer of all that exists. Without Him we are nothing and without Him we can do nothing. 

But, unfortunately dearest beloved brethren, we do not learn that lesson on the mountain tops of life. We do not learn that lesson as we lie down in green pastures beside still waters. No, we learn that lesson in the valleys of desolation and destruction and despondency. It is in our emptiness that we are filled. It is when we share in the sufferings of Christ…when we are crushed…when we are abandoned…when we are stripped naked of all dignity…when we are at our very weakest…it is then that we know, to paraphrase the words of a Dutch woman by the name of Corrie Ten Boom, who suffered unbelievably in a Nazi concentration camp, it is then that we know that there is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still…with Jesus even in our darkest moments, the best remains and the very best is yet to be.

To share in the sufferings of Jesus is to discover the surpassing greatness of knowing Him…knowing Him despite losing everything this world holds dear…knowing Him for the sake of knowing Him and nothing more. 

Let us pray.

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2022