Suffering and Hope

Today we wrap up our series on the ‘Masters,’ people who have radically helped to define what Christianity means for the world. We first looked at Augustine and his Confessions of both praise and guilt. Next we looked at Martin Luther and his declaration that “faith alone” can save us. Then last week we heard the story of Mother Teresa, and the deep doubt she struggled with. We found that doubt is not the opposite of faith, and, in fact, doubt can help us have better faith. As we wrestle with our conception of God, of what God is and is not, what God does and does not do, we get better at living a faithful life. Mother Teresa was an incredible example of this; despite her sense of separation from God, she continued to faithfully care for the poor, blessing the world with her work.

Now we look at our final ‘master’ and I have to admit, I struggled with who to end the series with. There are so many incredible people that have impacted Christianity and some of you have told me by name some of your favorite modern masters. They all have something good and valuable to bring to the table, but I thought we would end with someone you probably aren’t familiar with. I want to share with you about Jurgen Moltmann. Charlene/Karen is going to read for us our scripture for today about the creation of the world. This is probably familiar to many of you, but I want you to listen for faint notes of what is missing. What is absent from this world that God so beautifully created? That will help launch us into a discussion of our topic for the day - suffering and hope. This is Genesis chapter 1, verses 1-4 and chapter 2, verses 4-9. Hear now the word of the Lord.

Genesis 1:1–4 NRSV

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

Genesis 2:4–9 NRSV

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

and from Philippians 2:5-8

Philippians 2:5–8 (NRSV)

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.

This is the word of the Lord for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Let’s open with a word of prayer: God, may we be an inclusive community passionately following Jesus Christ. Open our hearts to what you have for us as we consider our own suffering and yours. Reveal to us the hope we find in Jesus Christ. In your name we pray, amen.

Jurgen Moltmann is a name not many are familiar with, but he continues to impact a generation of Christians with his incredible insights. At 95 years old, he is a force when it comes to what is called ‘systematic theology.’ That’s a way of talking about how all the different pieces of the Bible and how they fit together. His ideas stem from his childhood. He grew up in Germany, he loved mathematics and idolized Albert Einstein. He had no religious background at all and describes his upbringing as ‘thoroughly secular.’ It wasn’t until world war 2 that his life began to change. He was drafted in 1944 as a soldier and sent to the front lines against the British. Six months in he encountered his first enemy combatant. He was in Belgium at the time, and instead of using any kind of force against this enemy, he immediately surrendered.

He was put in a POW camp, first in Belgium, then moved to Scotland, and finally to England. In these camps Moltmann saw how his fellow prisoners would give up hope inwardly. At times they were tortured, not with words or actions, but by pictures that were posted in the camp from Auschwitz and other concentration camps. They were confronted with the suffering so many had faced at the hands of their own government. It wasn’t the conditions of the camp, or the food they were provided that caused them to die; it was that they had given up all hope. Moltmann even said himself that he wished he could have died along with his comrades, rather than having to face what their nation had done.

But his experience was very different in those camps because he had met an American chaplain who gave him a Bible. For the years he was imprisoned he read it initially out of sheer boredom, but the more he read, the more it impacted his imagination and emotions. He didn’t have an outright religious conversion, though. He says God seemed to evade him even as he tried to experience God’s presence. He says, “All that was left was an inward drive, a longing which provided the impetus to hope."

I’ve never heard of this before, but apparently they had educational camps available to the POWs, and Moltmann was able to go to one while supervised by the British military. He studied theology while a prisoner at a camp run by the YMCA. At the end of the war, in 1948, he returned to Germany and continued his studies, now at a university, and got a doctorate in systematic theology. As he has studied, taught and written over these last 60 years, perhaps the most important idea he’s contributed is that theology, our understanding of God, is not some set of rules. Its not a creed or one statement from the Bible versus another. Theology is a voyage of discovery into an unknown country. Knowing God is a creative act, that needs a spirit of curiosity at its core.

Even in his own pain and suffering from the atrocities of world war 2, he understood how complicated the picture was. People he knew and loved were not monolithically good or bad; they were a mixed bag and understanding that, working out the implications of people who did both good and bad, had to be done with a curious spirit. He is an adventurer out to understand how God relates to the times we live in. This is not some far off thing settled a thousand years ago that we gaze at and wonder about in a museum. No, today, right now, there is an adventure God has for us.

When we hear about the creation in Genesis we get a sense of that. As the creation story begins God is creating out of a formless void; literally out of nothing. There is no design, no function, no difference anywhere in the universe. But then the spirit of God comes; God speaks light into existence. And this distinction between light and dark is good. There is now a design and a way to differentiate between two things.

In chapter 2 God creates humans, and as the underground streams water the planet, a garden is planted for these humans. Trees sprout, fruit is born, and a tree of life is placed in the midst of the garden. I can just see God conjuring these ludicrous creations. When you go to the zoo, especially with children, if you go through it slowly enough, you’ll notice how unique some of these creatures are. My boys, they love to hear about bizarre animals. I remember last year when the Spinosaurus was declared the first and only true swimming dinosaur and we all sat and watched with fascination a youtube video that recreated the look and feel of this enormous dinosaur swimming in the water. What imagination; what creativity! If you go where nature is raw and wild, you’ll see the same thing. It would take such inventiveness to come up with this world of all possible worlds.

Along with this artistry, as all these incredible things are created, and the differentiation that happens, is a particular act of Jesus. We find it described in the passage from Philippians, chapter 2. It says that Jesus emptied himself. That probably doesn’t mean much to you on its surface, but think about God. God is boundriless, borderless; God can be whatever God wants to be, or do, right? There is infinite possibility with God. But in order for God to be something to us, for God to connect with human beings, God needs to become a reality to us. So God empties himself and becomes Jesus. God has taken on flesh. That’s the story of Christmas and why Christmas is always a big deal around here. Jesus is God taking on a “real form.” Of all the infinite possibilities of the form God could take, he chose Jesus.

Maybe you wonder sometimes like I do…why is the world the way that it is? Why do we have pain and suffering? Why does God let bad things happen in this world? And I’m not sure we have a good answer for that other than....it is what it is. This is what God chose. I think its sort of like the creative process people go through. Every week I’m sitting and writing out a sermon. Maybe you create when you cook food, or paint, or play. Just a night out when the kids stay with the babysitter can feel like overwhelming possibilities! Now you may feel differently when you get home and pay the sitter a hundred bucks and think “was that worth it?” But before you go out, with all those possibilities before you, a few hours of freedom - it is definitely worth it!

When I was little I always loved to make up new games; it was my creative act. Why did I make the game I did? I just did. Someone was telling me this week how they know a TV producer and they were sitting down to go through the rough cut of their new series. And he had asked his friend “how are you feeling? Are you excited?” And his friend said, “actually this is really hard. This is a death I am going through. There were infinite possibilities of what my tv show could have been, but now it takes permanent shape. Now I’m locked in and I have to be present with what is, not what could have been. I have to deal with reality.” He mourned the loss of those possibilities, but he needs to attend to what the series actually is now.

That’s a little bit like what Jesus went through. When he emptied himself, the infinite took on form. It was a loss, it was the end of all possibilities of who or what God could be to take on one specific shape. And if we look at the sweep of the whole story of Jesus we see the specific shape God took on. Jesus wasn’t just a man with good ideas and moral values. Jesus lived to show us how God would live. Jesus suffered by death on a cross to show us how much he loves us and how we ought to love one another. When Jesus emptied himself he became someone we could love…but he also became something that could experience pain and suffering and death like the rest of us. That’s a pretty dramatic change isn’t it? I may not understand why the world is the way that it is, but I definitely understand that God risked himself in taking on flesh. Jesus is just like us, exposed to dysfunctional family members, conspiracy theorists, hunger, poverty, cancer.

In the midst of all these challenges, all this suffering, what do we find in Jesus? Do we find him ignoring it, complaining about it, running away from it? No, he embraces it seeing how his death means life and hope and freedom for the rest of us. And that’s what Jurgen Moltmann teaches us, too. The suffering those soldiers went through in those POW camps didn’t have to be the end. They didn’t have to despair! They could have found hope in Jesus, that even though we suffer, even though this life means things are going to be difficult sometimes, there is more to life than getting what we want, or being happy. Real life is found in sacrificing for others. We suffer not needlessly, but so that others may experience life in its fullness.

Here’s what I mean by that - In 1986, a man named Steve was traveling through Mali in Africa when his car broke down. He was stranded and tried to rent a truck even as people warned him that he wouldn’t survive trying to cross the Sahara Desert. After nobody would let him rent one he thought about his own father, how he was a missionary in Ecuador and the troubles he had there. At one point his father was confronted by some native people. His dad was with four other missionaries and all five of them were killed by spears.

Steve thought he could find some help if he went to a local church, so he asked around for directions and a few children led him to a tiny mud brick house with a poster on the wall showing wounded hands covering a cross. A man came out and introduced himself as the pastor of the church. The pastor shared his story; as a Christian his family had disowned him; his mother tried to poison him, but it had no effect on him.

When Steve asked this pastor why he was willing to pay such a steep price for following Jesus, he said, “I know God love me and I’ll live with him forever.” But Steve wasn’t convinced, “but how can you be so courageous?” And the pastor explained how a young missionary had once given him a book about Christians who had suffered for their faith. He added, “My favorite was a story about five young men who risked their lives to tell people about Jesus in the jungles of Ecuador. The book said they let themselves be speared to death, even though they had guns and could have killed their attackers.”

Steve was utterly stunned and said, “one of those men was my father.” The two understood that Steve’s father and his story of suffering, rather than fighting, had caused this pastor to become a Christian in the first place and offer the man’s son help all these years later.

Jurgen Moltmann would tell us that we do good and we do bad. We suffer and we cause others to suffer. We sin, we offend and we judge others too quickly. God sees all of this at once and he doesn’t use it to condemn us. God doesn’t say our differences don’t matter, no. He says all of it is a means to offer us universal mercy. Romans 11:32 says

Romans 11:32 NRSV

For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

Our sin and the suffering we cause one another ought to turn us back to God and to increase our love for one another.

I think of a dear woman I knew many years ago. Her son was just a teenager when he tragically took his own life. I have heard similarly awful stories of heartache and heartbreak from some of you here at Grace, but the turmoil she and her family went through was immense. When her husband died many years later she told me about the hymn she had picked for his funeral, which was the same one she had sung at her sons funeral. It was “the hymn of promise” that says “In our end is our beginning, in our time, infinity. In our doubt, there is believing, in our life, eternity. In our death, a resurrection, at the last a victory.” Our suffering, even our death is not the end. God weaves these difficulties into a great triumph; God has overcome death and suffering and pain. Our great hope is that just as Jesus was raised from the dead, we too will raise with Christ.

So, as you struggle in this life, remember that things won’t be perfect. You won’t always be happy, but you will always have Jesus, and there is always hope in him. As it saved Jurgen Moltmann in that POW camp it can save you. As Jesus gave faith to Mother Teresa and Martin Luther and Augustine, he can give you faith, too. Hope lives in Christ because his suffering was all so that we might know the mercy of God. Now he tasks us with sharing that same mercy and love with the world around us. May you know God’s mercy today, so that all may know Christ. Amen? Amen.