Dear friends, tomorrow the man who killed 150 innocent people in Oklahoma City is scheduled to die for his crime.  Last week a suicide bomber killed 17 in Israel, many of them children.  Why do the innocent have to die?  How can there be hope amid suffering?  Consider this true story:

          Jim watched Frieda degenerate for 25 years from cerebral ataxia, an incurable illness related to MS.  During those years her smile became crooked due to a lack of muscle control, and she could no longer talk or sing in her lovely soprano voice.  Her wheelchair reminded him of the countless times he had lifted her, eventually ruining his back.  Her illness had cost him his health and his farm.  Despite this, each of their six children graduated at the top of their High School class.  Most were college graduates and at the time I met her, their youngest son was at West Point.

          Jim and Frieda lived in the farmhouse, the farm long ago sold to pay bills.  Their daughter Mary and her husband now farmed the land with their little daughters.  And now Frieda lay in a casket on a cold North Dakota winter day.  She had a slight smile on her face and Jim said she looked much as she did 25 years ago before her illness struck.  The people of the town say Jim is a better man now.  In his younger years he was vain and demanding and didn't appreciate his family.  Through the years he became gentler and kinder.  He kept Frieda out of a nursing home and faithfully cared for her every need.  The family seemed to get stronger through her illness.  Becoming better people, however, had a terrible price tag.

          Why is there suffering in the world?  The answer is simple:  because of sin.  Some suffering is a result of our own sin and some from the sin of others.  Some suffering comes from Satan, and some can even come from the hand of God, such as with Job.  All suffering comes from our sinfulness, not so much a punishment for sin, but as result of our condition of sin.  If there were no sin in the world, there'd be no suffering.  When Adam and Eve ate the apple, they opened a Pandora's box of trouble and woe that will be with us until the world ends.

          All suffering must be viewed through the eyes of faith, with God in the middle of it all, helping us trust His reasons.  If we don't see God in the middle of our suffering, it's all meaningless.  St. Paul, who knew a thing or two about suffering, once wrote to the Christians in Rome, "We rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character;  and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

          In the middle of troubles there is hope!  Through suffering comes perseverance, that quality of hanging in there, holding on and not giving up.  Perseverance, in turn, produces character, that quality in life that has strength for every situation.  Anyone can become upset by adversity, but a person of character looks past adversity to that which is lasting.  Character brings with it integrity, morality and honesty.  And, St. Paul says, character gives us something greater - hope, the singularly most important attitude we can have in life besides faith and love.  As Paul said so eloquently, "These three remain:  faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13)   Hope is one of the Big Three!  Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be obtained.  Hope believes events will turn out well.  Hope is the center of our expectations.  And so we sing:

"My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness
No merit of my own I claim, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand."

          All people need hope.  You and I need to know there is something greater than ourselves and the troubles of this life.  Several years ago when the writing of mission statements was all the rage, I wrote my own, and kept it simple - TO GIVE PEOPLE HOPE.  I still live by that mission statement, and try to implement it in all I do and say.  Giving people hope is more important than giving them bread or happiness or even healing.  Hope, St. Paul says, does not disappoint us when our hope is in Jesus Christ.  When our hope is grounded in Him, we will see the love God has poured out on us, and he said, "And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."  Through the Holy Spirit, we see God's love in what's around us.  We don't just see the suffering, we see past it to the possibilities, the progress and the power.  We see beyond the suffering to the joy God gives us because of His love.

          Suffering is a very subjective thing.  The teen who's grounded for a week may feel she's suffering at the hand of cruel parents, but the teen lying in a hospital burn center knows a real kind of suffering.  The parent of an unruly child knows one kind of suffering, but the parent standing by the casket of a deceased child knows a greater kind.  The arms of a man who has just shoveled a ton of dirt may suffer for a day, but the man who lost an arm will suffer for a lifetime.  Some might even consider it suffering if their team loses the big game!

          Elsewhere in Romans Paul wrote, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." (Romans 8:18)   That's hope talking!  Paul understood suffering, but he didn't let it ruin his life.  He was persecuted for his faith, beaten, imprisoned, whipped and ship-wrecked.  Right now today there are thousands upon thousands of Christians who are being persecuted for their faith, especially in East Africa and many Islamic countries.  Though there have been martyrs for the past 1900 years, more Christians have died for their faith in the last century than in all other centuries combined.  But glory awaits them!  No one who stands up for Jesus can be destroyed.  God opens His arms to them forever in heaven.

          Paul says our sufferings are nothing compared to the glory that God will one day show us.  In other words, troubles pass away!  They're not the center of life unless we let them be.  This, too, shall pass!  Thus we can rejoice in the midst of our struggles, not because of them, but in spite of them and for the endurance and character and hope they generate.  "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness... On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand."

          There is much one can say about human suffering, but one thing is for sure:  troubles prune our pride.  You can't be a proud person when you're being beaten down.  Troubles can shape unruly and unproductive people into caring and compassionate people.  If you want grapes, the vine must be pruned.  If you let vines grow wild and untouched, they'll stop bearing grapes.  That's why we must discipline our children.  What good is it to let a child grow up wild and unruly?  Such a child becomes useless, a nuisance, maybe even land in jail.  If you and I want to be like Christ, we must be pruned and disciplined, for only then can we bear the fruit of righteousness.

          But the real meaning of suffering is found in Jesus Who suffered for all of us.  In the creeds we say He suffered under Pontius Pilate, not to blame Pilate, but to include Jesus in a point of human history.  Jesus was a real man, who lived a real life for the real sins of real people.  His suffering was real and it was for us.  His pain may not have been the worst that all humans have ever endured.  Others have gone through greater pain for longer time, but He suffered for the sins of the world.  The intensity of His pain is not the issue;  the purpose of it is.  He suffered because God required perfection from sinful mankind.  God's justice required that someone must pay the price for sin, so He exacted that price on His only Son.

          Suffering is not punishment specific sins;  it's the result of all Sin.  For the Christian it is God loving us enough to keep us close to Him.  We're all a part of a fallen world who can still serve God amid our troubles.  For the unbeliever, however, all suffering is absurd, something to be avoided.  You've heard it said:  "I don't believe in a God who allows suffering."  It doesn't matter what we believe;  it only matters what is true.  Paul said, "Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us..."

          The Christian life will never be easy.  Jesus once said, "If anyone wants to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:24)   Sometimes we think God should treat Christians better than all others.  We question why non-believers prosper when Christians don't.  But Christians around the world know the awesome responsibility of being in the Christian faith.  There are Palestinian Christians being squeezed out of their homeland and Sudanese Christians being enslaved.  There are Ethiopian Christians being randomly killed and Pakistani Christians being exterminated by whole villages.  And there are Russian Christians who have more problems today than during Communism when persecution was official, but controlled.  Being in the faith means being on harm's way.  Christians must expect troubles to come to us.

          Today is Holy Trinity Sunday and it would have been much easier to expound on the nature of the Triune God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  But theology does not bring us peace with God.  That comes only through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and the hope He gives us.  Christ suffered so that we can have peace.  He died that we might live, and now He lives to prepare a place for us, so that when our time comes to leave this world, we'll be with God.  May your troubles, whatever they are and whenever they come, bring you closer to God.  May He give you hope through His love.  Amen

Copyright © 2001 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.