Tag: Pain

Yet Will I Trust Him, Part 6: The End of Suffering (Job 42:1-17)

On By Tim ValentinoIn SermonsLeave a comment

Everyone loves a happy ending. Most of our fairy tales begin with, “Once upon a time,” and they end with, “And they lived happily ever after.” That’s the way they’re written because that’s the way we want them. That’s the way we like them. Some would say that that’s the way we need them. In The Wizard of Oz, for example, Dorothy finally makes it home, where she’s longed to be from the very beginning. In Beauty and the Beast, the prince is restored, and the curse on the castle is finally lifted. In It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey learns it was better for his town that he lived instead of jumping off a bridge. In Willy Wonka, Charlie Bucket inherits the entire chocolate factory for passing a test and returning the Everlasting Gobstopper.

Now, it’s certainly true that when it comes to life and literature, the good guys don’t always win, the hero doesn’t always get the girl, the man in rags doesn’t always make it to riches, and the wrongs endured aren’t always righted. In such cases, the audience is left with unanswered questions, moral ambiguities, a sense of disappointment, or perhaps even the anger that comes with unfinished justice. People generally aren’t inspired by a miserable ending. That’s because it conveys a lack of rhyme or reason to the universe—a sense that there’s no benevolent sovereign authority overseeing life as it unfolds before us. We’re just doomed creatures with bumper stickers announcing, “Excrement Happens,” and we think, “Hopefully it won’t happen to us.” But that seems horribly unsatisfying. Even depressing.

Research indicates that given a choice between happy endings or sad endings, we tend to choose the happy ending by a 10 to 1 margin. Even if we have to re-write the author’s original conclusion, as in Pretty Woman, we’ll get our happy ending. Human beings crave it. Job craved it. Fortunately for Job, he eventually got it. He had to wait for it, and he had to be divinely prepared for it, but he eventually got it. In spades. All that he lost was restored to him two-fold. 

For many people, if the happy ending takes too long, they simply settle for the happy hour. They anesthetize the pain of life, never really facing up to it or being completely honest about it. But Job did face up to it. And he was honest about it. In the end, after his painful ordeal, Job gets his happy ending. That tells us the God who knows his people’s suffering will someday end his people’s suffering.

This message explores how the end of suffering commences with our restoration to God, continues with our reconciliation to others, and culminates in our reversal of painful circumstances forever. The Apostle James wrote, “As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy” (James 5:11). That’s why there’s a happy ending for God’s people—precisely to demonstrate that the Lord is full of compassion and mercy, even if we have to wait for it to fully realize it.

Sermon Resources:

The End of Suffering (Sermon Outline PDF)Download

Contact This New Life directly for the sermon audio file.

Yet Will I Trust Him, Part 5: What Good Is Suffering? (Job 7:20-21; 10:18-20)

On By Tim ValentinoIn SermonsLeave a comment

If suffering has no ultimate meaning or purpose, then God is a monster. He’s mean, cruel, ugly, vicious, and sadistic. He’s like Sid Phillips in Toy Story—that little hellion who likes to torture his toys, pull them apart, set them on fire, and give them brain transplants. A popular online skeptic writes:

“The existence of such large quantities of suffering, despair, pain, natural disasters such as earthquakes, the death of the unborn, and the immense suffering of lovers, and kind-hearted people means that god is evil and intentionally creates life in order to create suffering.” In other words, God is the celestial Sid; therefore, he cannot possibly exist.

But what if God can do something incredibly good with the things that are bad? Moreover, defining good and evil without some sort of fixed, objective reference point by which the two are distinguished is impossible. Is the difference between good and evil just a matter of the skeptic’s feelings or opinions? Well, who died and left him boss? Why should we listen to him? What’s his authority for placing the dividing line where he does?

If he appeals to the strength of his own logic, as his website boasts he does, we still have to ask, “Where do the laws of logic come from?” The laws of logic are timeless, immutable, and non-material—just like the nature of God himself—the “Logos”—whom the skeptic seeks to deny. No, Mr. Skeptic, in the biblical worldview, suffering does have meaning and purpose, even if in yours it doesn’t.

Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, wrote, “In some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” In other words, if suffering has meaning, we don’t have to jump off the bridge of pain into the angry waters of skepticism. We can jump off the bridge of pain into the soothing waters of hope. The meaning of our suffering is not always clear, but God has made it clear that our suffering always has meaning. 

As such, This message catalogues some possible causes for human suffering. It also highlights some possible benefits of suffering according to the biblical worldview. As Simone Weil has noted, “The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering, but a supernatural use for it.”

Ultimately, the greatest act of evil, pain, and suffering in the history of the world took place at the cross of Christ. It was there that Jesus bore the sins of humanity in his own body, mind, and soul. Out of that unique and incomparable ordeal, God pulled the greatest good known to the human race—the salvation of those who would trust in his Son for the forgiveness of their sins. 

As Job declared in the midst of his pain, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him,” so Jesus also declared from his cross, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” We can do the same—precisely because our suffering has meaning.

Sermon Resources:

What Good Is Suffering? (Sermon Outline PDF)Download

Contact This New Life directly for the sermon audio file.

He Laid Aside His Immunity to Pain

On By Tim ValentinoIn GeneralLeave a comment

“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as “God on the cross.” In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his.”

– John R. W. Stott

Reflections on ‘The House Without a Christmas Tree’

On By Tim ValentinoIn ReviewsLeave a comment

Families have December traditions, but so do individuals within those families—perennial routines that need not involve everyone in the house. Last night I engaged in one of those traditions myself. I watched a 90-minute Chritsmas movie that I would try to catch every year growing up. (I say “try to catch” because streaming movies wasn’t a thing back then. We had thirteen channels and a TV Guide, and we had to make our schedule work around whatever it was we wanted to watch at the time it was on.)

Based on a novella by Gail Rock, The House Without a Christmas Tree always resonated with me as a child, not because we didn’t have a tree, but because the relational dynamics in the home seemed all too familiar. A grouchy, emotionally constipated father has a rocky relationship with his young child, who just wants to be loved. Just wants to be accepted. Alas, I could relate.

It’s a sad flick in many respects, but it trudges onward, executing a few subplots along the way and dragging itself toward a satisfying conclusion, though not in a Hallmarky kind of way. No one is happily every-aftering at the end of this no-frills, low-budget production. The characters are simply in a better place to live healthier, more integrated lives in the future. It’s a step forward, not a leap, but things are looking up when the curtain comes down.

Addie Mills (Lisa Lucas) is a feisty, precocious 10-year-old in 1946 living in rural Nebraska. She can’t understand why her prickly father won’t allow them to have a Christmas tree in the home. James Mills (Jason Robards) doesn’t communicate well with his daughter. In fact, he can barely look at her most of the time, only grunting out terse corrections of the chatty child when his annoyance threshold has been crossed. Reading the newspaper always seems more important to him.

Fortunately, Addie’s grandmother, Sarah Mills (Mildred Natwick), bridges the gap between the two combatants. Grandma helps Addie see the situation from her father’s perspective, that of a man who’s stuck in his grief, still lamenting the loss of his wife from ten years ago, shortly after Addie was born. Simultaneously, Sarah counsels her son to see the impasse from his daughter’s point of view, and the importance of loving the ones who are still with us, even if deep down we wish things were different.

As Christmas approaches, it seems Addie will never get her tree, something she believes would bring a modicum of cheer to an otherwise gloomy house. But then an act of generosity touches her father’s heart and teaches him an important lesson about the spirit of Christmas. Indeed, a universal theme in literature makes an appearance in the movie—the loving sacrifice of the weaker party softening the callous pride of the stronger party, prompting a genuine change of heart.

Addie becomes the catalyst for her father’s epiphany. It’s her sacrifice that jolts him out of the selfish rut he’s been stuck in for the past decade. Fortunately, he comes to see that God has blessed him with a truly remarkable child, whom he’s been using as a repository for his pain all these years. 

I suppose I always connected with this movie because my own father was much like Addie’s. And I likewise held out hope for relief and resolution someday. Dad was not a widower, but he did carry a lot of personal pain for other reasons. That pain came largely from his being the child of two alcoholic parents who were harsh with everyone around them. Being poor didn’t help, either.

The ensuing strife led other family members to develop ties to the mafia, first as an escape, then as a quest for acceptance, and then as a way of life. For that reason, I never met most of my father’s family. He never talked about his parents or siblings, and I only ever saw his mother one time—when she was in her casket. He was protecting us from his family, which was an act of love on his part that we knew nothing about when we were children.

Despite his pain—or maybe because of it—my father trusted Christ for salvation six months before he passed away. He came to see the kindness of the heavenly Father toward him, and it captured his heart. Genuine transformations began to take place in his life, and he was growing in grace by the time he left us. I’ll take that over a Hallmarky ending any day.

Image Credits: pexels.com; fuzzy64.livejournal.com.

Infinite Grace for a Finite Number of Tears

On By Tim ValentinoIn Bible & TheologyLeave a comment

You have kept track of my every toss and turn;
You have collected my tears in your wineskin.
You have recorded each one in your ledger.
Psalm 56:8 

Easter Surprise

Many more tears will wash my face,
But each one a promise that God is mine;
For only the breakable heart can break,
And show forth the gold of image divine.

Love is exalted in grief-stained loss,
And hope brought near to vanquish the pain;
In weakness a Lamb has led the assault
On darkness of soul to Paradise gained.

Dreaming of Eden, longing for home,
Screaming for comfort and striving alone.
Then in breaks the angel of Easter surprise,
And suffering must kneel at the Savior’s throne.

Heroes indeed are my wisest friends
Who embrace their wounds as sovereignty’s call;
Fighting for courage when the mind is bent
By bitter trials where God seems small.

Yet true faith is strong, a resilient force,
Which anguish of soul lacks power to kill;
On earth, even now, every scar and thorn
Is scoffed by a Tomb lying empty still.

Dreaming of Eden, longing for home,
Screaming for comfort and striving alone.
Then in breaks the angel of Easter surprise,
And suffering must grieve at the Savior’s throne.

Soon we’ll see Him face to face.
Soon we’ll we understand the grace
That led us on a path of loss—
A path that vindicates our cross.

Dreaming of Eden, longing for home,
Screaming for comfort and striving alone.
Then in breaks the angel of Easter surprise,
And suffering must die at the Savior’s throne.

Many more tears will wash my face,
But numbered tears only can have their place.
Numbered tears only can have their place.

An Exegetical Note

Psalm 56:8 presents a translational challenge in the original Hebrew. My own resolution to the difficulty is as follows:

v. 8a

“You have kept count of my tossings (nôḏ)” = (1) moving back and forth, wandering, as of an aimless fugitive; or (2) lamenting, mourning. The first sense yields the translation “my tossings” (ESV, NRSV) and “my wanderings” (NASB); the second sense yields the translation “my sorrows” (JB, NLT) or “my lament” (NIV). Both senses can fit the larger context of Psalm 56, though the first seems more likely

v. 8b

“List (śîm) my tears on your scroll (nōʾḏ)” = set, put, place, install; set down, arrange. But where are the tears “placed” or “set down”? The word nōʾḏ usually refers to a leather bottle (i.e., a wineskin or waterskin), hence the NIV footnote and other translations: “Put (śîm) my tears in your wineskin (nōʾḏ).” But some have suggested that in this occurrence, nōʾḏ should be translated “scroll” or “leather scroll” because: (1) there is a documentation/record keeping motif in the three lines of this verse, with the word “scroll” being a corresponding element to the word “book” in the next line of the parallelism; and (2) there is no record from the ancient biblical world of a practice of keeping tears in a bottle.

To these objections one could reply: (1) the word nōʾḏ is translated as “scroll” nowhere else in the Old Testament; (2) there is a poetic quality to the image of “tears in a bottle” that would need no literal attestation for it to be valid; (3) recording tears on a scroll would be just as poetic as putting tears in a bottle—“tears” being a metonymy for all kinds of negative personal thoughts and feelings that God records; indeed, tears are poetically “in the book/record” in the next line of the parallelism; and (4) HALOT cites a later use of “the little vase for tears mentioned in fairy-stories, Meuli Romanica Helvetica 20 (1943):763ff.”

Resolution

The psalmist is asking God to transform his situation in the first verse of the center section of the chiasm (i.e., v. 7). Might he not also be asking God to transform his thoughts and/or emotions in the second verse of the center section (i.e., v. 8)—just as liquid is transformed into wine inside a wineskin? Various translations go in this direction:

  • “Put my tears in your bottle.” (ESV)
  • “Put my tears in Your bottle.” (NASB)
  • “You have collected all my tears in your bottle.” (NLT)
  • “Collect my tears in your wineskin.” (JB)

The JB captures it well, I think, and the implications are devotionally rich. Not only does God notice his people tears, he collects them and transforms them (over time) into new wine. By trusting in God, then, life can go from salty to sweet, from fear to freedom, from anxiety to joy. David experienced these transformations firsthand. So can we.

old-wineskins

Image Credits: unity.org; charismamag.com.