ENTERING A WORLD OF PAIN

Our world was thrust into a spiral of grief several weeks ago, and we don’t know where the bottom is. First it was canceled events, then came travel plans, then school, work, and now health. 

Less than a week ago I told my wife it was only a matter of when, not if, we will discover that somebody we know has the virus. Last night the older brother of one of my best friends died from it. He was only in his 40s; far too young. Yesterday our state here in Brazil lost a young man in his twenties to the virus. He might have been an older brother too. He was definitely someone’s son.

While Brazilian culture has the norm of swift burials, often within hours of the time of death, American culture stages a visitation for family and friends, a funeral, and then a graveside service. Given the isolation measures, such things seem impossible right now, heaping up more grief upon grief.

Yes, we can send texts of thoughts and prayers. And I do believe in prayer. But there is grief in being distant from those who are hurting. Likewise, grief is even worse when we are distant from those who can cry with us, hug us, and silently sit with us and listen.

I don’t think the world has any inkling of the grief it will be enduring together in the coming weeks. And to make matters worse, we will likely have to figure out how to grieve while being isolated. However, God has given us some sources for experiencing grief in The Old Testament Laments, Jesus’s Cries, and the Spirit’s Presence.

Old Testament Laments

So much of our Holy Scriptures, given to us by God himself, are about grief and lament. Old Testament wisdom literature and much of the of the writings of the prophets focus on grief. Throughout these texts God speaks to those who are hurting, lost, exiled, mourning, and aching.

In a mysterious twist their crying out to God is simultaneously God’s inspired words back to us in the Psalms. We have permission to grieve. We have permission to cry. We are prodded to yell out when we hurt. We can still shake, knowing that God sees us and hears us.

When I trained to be a hospital chaplain I learned how listening is an active skill you can develop.* In order to listen well to someone else who is in pain and grieving you must choose to enter into your own pain. Their pain almost never was a choice. It was likely thrust upon them unexpectedly. When we care for those who are grieving we must choose to enter into both their pain and ours. It’s a choice few want to make. And we must be careful, for in these deep moments we as listeners can absorb all the pain, rendering our bodies, souls, and minds exhausted.

We may have our limits as active listeners, but God is limitless, and he has chosen countless times to listen to our cries and in his own way even enter into our pain. The Son of God chose to take on human nature in all its limitations, weaknesses, and pain in order to redeem us, which leads to Jesus’ cries.

Jesus’ Cries

The Book of Hebrews was written to convince people in pain, grief, and fear not to turn back from Christ, who is the only one who could save them. Part of the book’s argument is that pain is part of the journey of the adoption process God has laid out to call to himself many sons and daughters. In Chapter 5, the author writes:

During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.…

What strikes me about this passage is the imagery from the Garden of Gethsemane, where on the night Jesus was betrayed, mere hours before his crucifixion, he begged to be saved from death. And yet he still laid down his life. He died the next day. Were his prayers heard? The Holy Scriptures in Hebrews say yes. 

In Scripture as in life, loss and pain lead us to think God doesn’t hear or care about our cries, but he does. As he heard Christ’s pleas, he hears ours too. For we are his children. And as the way for us to become children was blazed by Jesus who suffered, died, and then rose again, our way too may include suffering, loss, pain, and even death. But on the other side of death is new life and the promise of a kingdom.

The Spirit’s Presence

The fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel famously begins with Jesus telling his disciples not to be troubled in their hearts that he will soon leave them because he will return to them after preparing a place for them.

After a brief discussion of what Jesus means by leaving and returning, he says to his disciples: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18). I’m not one to bust out Greek word studies all the time, but right after making this promise Jesus talks about sending the Spirit to his people. He calls the Spirit a paraclete, which translations correctly render as advocate or comforter. Literally, though, the word carries the image of someone who comes alongside one who is crying out.

And now we return to verse 18. Anyone who has been around an infant knows that they can only communicate by crying out. Their cries prompt their parent to come to them. But orphans cry out and no one often comes. And so they continue to cry out again and again and again.

But Jesus says he will not leave us as orphans. He will come to us. And he already has through his Spirit. When we cry out we have someone who not only sees and hears, but someone who also comes alongside us. As Paul describes in Romans 8 the Spirit is in us, even groaning out to God in ways we cannot fully grasp whenever we hurt. We are far from being God’s orphans. We are his beloved adopted children.

When I put together the Old Testament laments, Jesus’ cries, and the Spirit’s presence I come to this conclusion: Our grief matters. It is heard. And God himself joins us in our groanings. As Hebrews goes on to say we have a high priest in Jesus who is just as human as we are, and because of this he empathizes with us in our weakness. And so let us not only hold firmly to our faith we profess as Christians, but let us also “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb 4:16).

We are all going to need a lot of mercy and grace in the coming days. May God bless each of us with the strength, creativity, and love to receive and channel it.

*For more about this, I recommend John Savage’s book, Listening & Caring Skills. For those offering pastoral care, I describe the role as a low-anxious witness of the pain people are going through, representing God’s own presence in the situation. It means I listen calmly, ask productive, open-ended questions, refrain from telling people what they should do or becoming an “answer-fest” in trying to rationalize the situation. And so on. It’s not the same as pastoral counseling.