Greentree Community Church

The Wounded Healer

 One of the biggest reasons many refuse to believe in or listen to “God” in our day and age is quite simply the reason of suffering and pain.  As a pastor and as a human being, I have witnessed unmitigated suffering—death, disease, famine, abuse, abandonment, loneliness, tears.  Sometimes, just upon approach, my stomach churns, my heart races, fear sets in.  What will I say?  What does God do or say?  At a hospital bed or in a funeral home, a good God who allows suffering and evil transitions from philosophical conundrum to devastating reality.  In such situations, we are rightly skeptical of pious platitudes or feel good inspiration from smiling pastors or back slapping well-wishers.  Usually, at times of our greatest pain, we only admit an inner circle of people to witness—those who have been wounded like we have, those who have suffered too, those who are broken too.  Those are the people who have the ability to enter our pain because they have been there first, and they are the people with the power to help us down the healing path because they know it well.  It is an ironic truth that only the wounded can really heal. 

Given this reality, most people reason, that since God is apparently enjoying the show in heaven, removed from fear, doubt, pain, financial ruin, disease, and death, He is the last person, if He exists at all, who I would want to consider or trust during suffering.  But consider this little anonymous playlet:

At the end of time, billions of people were seated on a great plain before God's throne. Most shrank back from the brilliant light before them. But some groups near the front talked heatedly, not cringing with cringing shame - but with belligerence. "Can God judge us? How can He know about suffering?", snapped a pert young brunette. She ripped open a sleeve to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp. "We endured terror ... beatings ... torture ... death!"  In another group a Negro boy lowered his collar. "What about this?" he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn. "Lynched, for no crime but being black !" In another crowd there was a pregnant schoolgirl with sullen eyes: "Why should I suffer?" she murmured. "It wasn't my fault." Far out across the plain were hundreds of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for the evil and suffering He had permitted in His world.

How lucky God was to live in Heaven, where all was sweetness and light. Where there was no weeping or fear, no hunger or hatred. What did God know of all that man had been forced to endure in this world? For God leads a pretty sheltered life, they said.  So each of these groups sent forth their leader, chosen because he had suffered the most. A Jew, a negro, a person from Hiroshima, a horribly deformed arthritic, a thalidomide child. In the centre of the vast plain, they consulted with each other. At last they were ready to present their case. It was rather clever.  Before God could be qualified to be their judge, He must endure what they had endured. Their decision was that God should be sentenced to live on earth as a man.

Let him be born a Jew. Let the legitimacy of his birth be doubted. Give him a work so difficult that even his family will think him out of his mind.  Let him be betrayed by his closest friends. Let him face false charges, be tried by a prejudiced jury and convicted by a cowardly judge. Let him be tortured.  At the last, let him see what it means to be terribly alone. Then let him die so there can be no doubt he died. Let there be a great host of witnesses to verify it.  As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up from the throng of people assembled. When the last had finished pronouncing sentence, there was a long silence. No one uttered a word. No one moved.

For suddenly, all knew that God had already served His sentence.

Christianity is the only religion that gives us a God who is not removed from suffering but comes and Himself takes on suffering. So, we don’t know for sure what the reason for suffering is but we know what it isn’t, what it can’t be.  It can’t be b/c He doesn’t love us; it can’t be b/c He doesn’t care.  God loves us and hates suffering so much that He was willing to come down and get involved in it.  If only the wounded can really heal, then Jesus would be the healer supreme.  More on this next time…