Pain and Joy

I have had a tough week.

Too much to do

Too much complexity

I just kind of hit a wall

I think we all have really difficult moments.

Moments when it seems as if it is all too much

As if, no matter what we do, we can’t find out way out of the fear, the pain, the anger

There are times when it seems as if none of our normal coping systems work.

Yes, there are times when chocolate is not enough….

The upper room was a really bad time for the disciples of Jesus.  Jesus has been really blunt.

He was going to go away, he was going to be rejected, he was going to die.

Jesus had taken their entire vision of how the future was going to unfold…. and destroyed it.

But Jesus says these words:  “I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.” 

This is a complicated passage in many ways, and one can go a lot of directions.  This passage is about the resurrection at the very least, and about the presence of the Spirit.  Perhaps even about the second coming.  But because of where I was this last week I ended up getting this from this passage. 

Pain and loss are real

but so is God

and so is God's love...

And God and God’s love can help us, even in moments of pain

Can help us find joy, even in the midst of tears, and can help us live that joy. 

Pain and loss are real…We can’t intellectualize the pain away, we can’t justify it with theological formulas.  It is.  It is ugly and it hurts.  It is part of living in a fallen world

But God’s love is real.  If we need proof of that we need only look at the cross, where Christ took on our pain, our suffering, our alienation from the creator.  God’s presence is real.  That is what the Spirit is all about, the presence of the living risen Christ, in us.  And the bottom line is that in the end, there can be peace and joy

This may not mean it all “works” out.  The illness goes away, the relationship is restored.  It may not mean that from an earthly perspective “all is revealed”…   We may never understand.  We may never get it.  Things may never “resolve” the way we want them to.

It just means that the reality of God, and God’s love and presence

If we can grab hold of them, can help us be in a different place

So that we are not hopeless and helpless, not powerless.

But instead joyful, and at peace.  And able.. and this is the key, and able to live joy.  Able to be

Different people

In the midst of our pain.

Think for a moment about the thing that in your life, right now, gives you the most pain.

What would it mean, if you were alone with that pain?

With that hurt, that fear, that sense of guilt, with whatever it is?

What would it mean to be alone with that?

Now think about the idea of God being in you, present as the risen Christ?

Think about the idea of God going through what you are going through, with you…

Knowing your hurt, your pain, your fear, your loneliness…

Imagine God experiencing what you are experiencing with you….

It is so good to have someone with you….  And that someone is God!  That someone is one who loved you so much he died for you.  That someone is one who has the power to heal, and comfort, and guide and advise…..

When I can go to that place in my pain it begins to feel different

It doesn’t go away.  I wish it would but it doesn’t -  But it begins to feel different…

I get to a place where I am not stretched the to the breaking point

I get to the place where I am not devoid of resources, emptied of hope and love

Instead there is still something there

In the midst of it all

There is God

And so instead of being trapped into a place where I must be angry, or bitter, or hopeless

Where I am closed down and have nothing to give

I can be in a place where goodness, and love, and hope, and yes, joy, still live

And that can change who I am in my pain

We all know people who have let their pain turn them bitter, angry, resentful

We also know people who because they have God, a sense of God’s presence, are people of amazing peace and joy in the midst of pain

When my father had cancer, he had a lot of pain.  Physical pain, from have a tumor in his pleura

The emotional pain of facing death, of having to leave his career as a physician behind

The spiritual pain of wondering why this happened to him…

But in the midst of the pain,

There emerged a gentleness, a peace

That was infectious and impacted those around him….

That gentleness and peace came because of the Christ in him

The pain doesn’t go away, the situation often does not change  --  But it is transformed, by the presence of the one who is in us.  Going through it with us… experiencing it as if it were his pain, his loss

Just as on the cross he experienced our pain and death……

I really don’t know what else to say.  Except to share the words of Christ again.

“I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.”  I believe that!