Good Friday Sermon: How to Deal with Suffering

April 3, 2015 

Come, Holy Spirit, let these words be more than words and give us the spirit of Jesus. Amen.

Jesus suffered. We heard in tonight’s gospel about how in his final hours, he experienced: betrayal, rejection, denial, torture, shame, and finally, on Good Friday, physical death. Jesus knows human suffering.

Each one of us here tonight also experiences suffering. Divorce. Sickness. Getting fired. Loveless marriages. Sick children. Suicide.

I did a little research on El Cajon, the city of El Cajon, and I learned some interesting things. Did you know that it is third in the nation for the percentage of people living in homes for mental illness? There is also a high percentage of people living in nursing homes. There’s air quality issues and poverty and the list goes on. El Cajon knows human suffering.

Tonight’s readings touch on and connect with some of this suffering. The passage from Isaiah, written 2,500 years ago, says of the servant: “He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;” It also says: “Out of his anguish he shall see light;” But today, we do not rush to the light. We wait here for now, and we are present to the suffering of our Lord, and to our own suffering, and that of others.

This can be one of the hardest things for humans to do. Have you ever been talking to a friend, or an acquaintance, maybe you’re in the grocery store and you’ve just bumped into each other, apparently at random, and you ask, “how are you,” and he says, “Oh good, you know, I just got back from a trip,” and then proceeds to tell you about the funeral he attended and he starts to tear up. Does it make you uncomfortable? Do you shift your eyes? Do you change the subject? Or offer empty platitudes like “God has a plan,” or “It’s ok, he’s in a better place now?” Or do you just listen and be present to the child of God in front of you, in pain?

So often we squirm. And we find it especially hard to sit with the reality of Jesus’ death. Here he was, this man of incredible power and presence, God incarnate, interrogated and tortured, and finally hoisted up on a cross to die. And what does it mean?

That’s where we are on Good Friday.

When we experience suffering, whether we like it not, an emptiness, a hollowness enters our being. We are haunted by loss. That can be a scary feeling. Which is why we squirm.

When someone else is experiencing profound suffering, sometimes the best thing we can do is to honor it with silence. Because suffering exists in a realm beyond words. Words that rush in to make sense of suffering do not help. They actually hurt. Pat answers and Bible verses and misguided sayings such as, “God has a plan,” or “some good will come of this.” No, those things do not help. Suffering isn’t something we can understand with our intellects. It’s something that must be felt and empathized with. Hebrews tells us tonight that Jesus is our high priest who is able to “sympathize with our weaknesses.”

So when a friend is in pain, I might say only, “I’m so sorry, that really sucks.” And you just stay there for a moment. Because to rush on to anything else minimizes her pain. Pain that needs to be felt.

That’s where we are on Good Friday.

You must make room within yourself for the suffering. You feel it and then you expand to accommodate that hollowness within you. And you allow the Spirit to help you transcend it.

What did Jesus do when he encountered Peter? Peter was truly suffering. Not because of something bad that happened to him, but because of something he had done. There are different kinds of suffering, and Jesus understood that. Did Jesus scold and reject him Peter? No, incredibly, he looked him in the eye, was present to Peter’s pain and suffering, and asked him three times, one for each denial, “do you love me?” yes. Yes, Lord I love you. Christ have mercy.

Wow. That’s the kind of God we have. One who redeems even the most messed up thing we have ever done. I can’t make sense of the suffering in our lives, nor do I think that’s our job. But I can believe, with everything in me, that God redeems.

I believe that one way that God redeems is through our being present to suffering, our own and others. When someone opens up and shares their pain, don’t look away. Don’t change the subject. Don’t walk out of the room. Listen. Be present. Make room inside yourself to hear and bear witness to that suffering.

As we do, something remarkable happens. Our listening, our empathizing, our eye contact and human connection, our presence in the midst of pain and suffering, restores a bit of that person’s dignity and humanity. To be heard, truly heard, and seen, that is what we all yearn for – for those we love to see us for who we really are. For Jesus to have breakfast with us on the beach and redeem all our brokenness through his presence.

In feeling the suffering, in going through the pain, instead of trying to go around it, or avoiding it, we emerge, limping, as Jacob limped after struggling with God, but with the ability to be just a little bit more present to someone else’s pain when it interjects into our lives.

That’s where we are on Good Friday.

And as we stand still, at the foot of the cross where our savior hangs on Good Friday, or sit in the coffee shop across from a friend who is hurting, maybe, just maybe, you are able to be a channel for God’s love to flow through you to them. In that moment, when they’re feeling all alone in a cold, dark universe, they know that you are with them, present to their pain. And that is the action that heals and redeems.

May the God that is in Christ Jesus be present to your own pain, and help you to just stop, to stop and feel that which we cannot understand. May God restore others’ dignity through you. May Christ’s love surround you and those whom you love, on this Good Friday, and always. Grace and peace be with you.