Senselessnes, Suffering, and Salvation

Scripture: Romans 5:1-11

There are two things going on in this Romans 5 passage—two related things maybe—but two things for us to wrap our heads around. There is this whole business about justification and reconciliation and salvation and all of these words that we tend to associate with salvation and God and Jesus Christ dying for us, and all of that is very obviously at the forefront of what we do and talk about here. Then, there’s also this business about suffering producing endurance, and endurance producing character, and character producing hope, which is not the same thing, and is maybe also a stumbling block for those of us living down here.

When I read Romans 5 I tend to think of being a Minnesota sports fans, because we know a lot about suffering, and we’ve built up our endurance, and we hope we have character, and we definitely have hope, even if it is completely unfounded.

Unfortunately, this is not the major way we suffer in this world. I wish all there was to worry about in the world was the Minnesota Wild’s complete inability to beat the Chicago. I wish that was all we have to deal with. Unfortunately, there are worse things in this world.

I wish also that we had the perspective and wisdom to stand where Paul stood. But we don’t always. For a well-adjusted person what Paul writes is true: You do suffer and then gain endurance and character, and you do find hope on the far side of it. This is actually a promise that God gives us—you get through that suffering and this is what happens.

The problem is that we don’t always get through it, and not all suffering is even or equal or easy.

I know what this looks like for people to preach. I have listened to pastors who preach from their open wounds and it’s frankly uncomfortable. They just cannot have the perspective necessary to say the words they need to say. We see this at funerals when people get up to speak, and we say great things, but it ultimately feels too raw—like we need time to reflect. A pastor is most effective when he or she preaches from his scars; not when he’s preaching from his open wounds. 

This means that some of you are not at a place to hear this scripture about suffering, endurance, character and hope, because it’s still too raw or because you’re still in the midst of it. We’ve had plenty of reminders in this community that we don’t always (or even often) know the pain that one another carry with us; we don’t one another on a deep enough level. Maybe it’s our northern stoicism, maybe it’s no worse here than anywhere else, or maybe it’s something else. But we just don’t know each other at that level, or at least there are enough of us we don’t know.

There are no easy answers here. We are fix-it people; we want to fix things, but if you’re in desperate pain you aren’t going to hear the good news in this scripture just because we tell it to you. The best we can do is to be a community; to learn how to walk together, to be with one another, and to stand with one another even when it hurts.

That’s the one side of Romans 5. The other side—the one that matters more than anything else—is that God is going to take our suffering and he is going to say, “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you came through your suffering or not, because this is about a gift I have given for you.” This is about a promise of what God does with broken people. Yes, you should get through your suffering, and I hope you do, and I hope you have the support you need to find hope again, and if you don’t please talk to somebody—talk to me, talk to somebody else. That’s what we need as a community to get through. But even if you don’t get through it; even if you can’t; God loves you so much that he sent his son, Jesus Christ, for you. That’s the dual promise of Romans 5, and it’s tough because we want to fix everything.

But there is such a thing as senseless suffering. There’s senseless suffering that is large-scale suffering—genocide, terrorism, you name. There’s also really individual senseless suffering. And on Mother’s Day maybe more than any other day these things tend to bubble up inside. We have mothers who have lost children—and there is no purpose in that. We have people who have lost loved ones for no reason. It’s not that God allowed this to happen so that you will suffer, endure, and become a person of character with hope. Yes, looking back, we can say that through that suffering, we endured and became a person of character with hope. Yes, I hope to God that happens, but that’s not why it happened. That’s not why. There are no justifications for some things in life—it’s just a part of a broken world.

Everything that happened to Paul should happen. We should learn and grow to teach from our wounds, but the good news of Jesus Christ is not that that will happen. That’s what should happen, but, then again, we shouldn’t have to suffer in the first place.

Jesus came along to make this right in the end, and so, yes, here we are—saved by grace through faith apart from the works of the law. And Jesus came especially for those who experience senseless suffering.

Paul’s words might be for well-adjusted individuals who have been through pain and loss, but our job is to be a community that helps people make it to that point. By the grace of God we will. And where we fail, God saves it all anyway, picking up the pieces where we fall short.