John Lee
Thoughts
John Lee
On walking as Jesus walked in painful times
When people first began to follow Jesus their world was a harsh place. By our standards their lives were short and painful; their experience of justice was unfair and arbitrary; the strong and the rich held all the cards; many people were slaves; everyone was vulnerable to natures whims - flood or drought, storms, famine, earthquakes and volcanoes were all very dangerous to these people. And yet - knowing this and experiencing this - these first followers of Jesus let go of the few secure moorings they had in order to walk as he walked.
Our experience of things, in the relatively rich world at least, is mostly much more comfortable than theirs. Many of the illnesses that killed them and their children are dealt with, we rarely experience uncontrollable pain, on the whole we live in peace and with justice; the heat and the cold do not usually kill us and hunger is far away. In rich and organised countries even quite large earthquakes can be coped with.
And yet sometimes the harshness of the world breaks through and those of us trying to walk as Jesus walked are shocked and confused. We thought we were on a path where this sort of pain would not be met – somehow we had not taken this into account.
Why did we think this? Was it because the general experience of Christians in history has been trouble free lives? Was it because churches are now filled with people whose lives are free of pain? Is it because Jesus made a firm promise that being a follower of his would be a way out of suffering? If we thought any of this we were sadly misinformed.
The truth is that what Jesus promised his followers was a cross for each of them, nowhere to lay their heads, a great deal of rejection and a narrow, difficult path. Special privileges were never on the table – the promise was a share in the work of bringing about the reality of the Kingdom of God, walking with Jesus through life and in due time experiencing what the victory of life over death means in all its fullness. Its good – it’s the best – but its not a life without pain, not for us and not for the people we care about.
Many great philosophers and religious thinkers have taught and pondered on the problem of pain. Jesus was not one of them. When people asked Jesus to explain suffering he resisted but when they asked him to relieve suffering he acted.
I cant tell you the answer to the pain of the world - or your personal pain or mine – but I can tell you how I am trying to make sense of it.
Firstly I won’t pretend to have answers I don’t have.
Secondly I’ll try to recall that my brothers and sisters in Christ, all the way back to the first ones, have lived in the same pain filled world and been full of hope and fruitful in it so I’m going to trust Jesus and do the same.
Thirdly I’m going to try to walk as Jesus walked which will mean that I won’t do much philosophising about suffering but I will do what I can to help. I do know, by the way, that what Jesus can do and what I can do are pretty different but I think the purpose will be the same and that purpose is to point to the love of God active in the world