The phone rings. The voice on the other end says, “I need you again,” then hangs up. Through the tonal pitch of anxiety in her voice, no other information was needed. Her voice trembled with the uncertainty of a jovial future, for the demon of her past has reared its ugly head once more.
Such is the exasperation of demons. Through trial and tribulation, you pray fervently as it whispers temptations of giving up in the back corner of your mind. Somehow, you muster the courage to continue praying. You realize the strength comes not from within, for there is none of your own strength to summon. It comes from without—the God of mercy who lends His limitless strength.
Yet her demon has returned, and like a knight Javi grabs his Bible as his sword and a prayer of faith as his shield and makes his way to her home.
Before he knocks on the door, it opens as she exclaims, “Pastor! Please, come in.”
Javi adjusts his clerical collar and walks in. Her home smells of lavender, bringing to mind memories of his own. Cowering in the corner of his bedroom, he awaits the inevitability of his suffering. As he hears the heavy footsteps coming up the stairs, his drunken father bursts through the door to beat him.
“Pastor Javi?” she says. “May I get you some lemonade?”
It’s a warm May afternoon. “Yes, Amanda, that would be great, thanks,” he replies, having almost forgotten where he was.
“Please, sit. I’ll get your drink.” She motions for him to sit on her sofa, which matches the rest of her minimalistic interior decorations.
As he sits, she quickly ambles her way to the fridge and pours some lemonade. How could I refuse her lemonade? Her recipe is famous at church.
She hands him the glass and sits next to him, saying, “Thank you for coming. I know how busy you are.”
Why do they always say that? “It’s my pleasure, Amanda. What can I help you with?”
“Remember when I was suicidal, and you helped me see the Light?”
How could I forget? She was my first suicidal parishioner as a new pastor five years ago. I barely knew what I was doing. Her son had died at only three days of age from sudden infant death syndrome. He appeared to be perfectly healthy, until one night he suddenly stopped breathing and passed away during the night. It tore Amanda apart, as it would any mother, and we had our first funeral for a baby… a newborn. Fortunately, the baby was baptized. With no husband to return to, who had died in Afghanistan, and no friends she felt would understand, she turned to the only thing that would listen to her: the demon in her mind who convinced her that life was no longer worth living without a son and a husband to love.
“Of course,” Javi says. “What about it?”
She hesitates. “I feel it’s kind of ironic I never killed myself then.”
Shocked, he says, “Why do you say that?”
“Because now I have cancer.”
Javi stares at her in bewilderment. Just so soon after Laura, and after what Amanda has gone through? Why, Lord?
Finally, Javi says, “When… when did you find out?”
“A couple weeks ago,” she says with a hint of shame. “I know I probably should’ve told you! And before you say anything, it’s not treatable. I have an inoperable malignant tumor in my brain the size of a lime. There’s no way for them to get around it. I only have a few more months to live.”
Tears were filling his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Amanda. What can I do for you?”
She gave a humorless chuckle. “It’s kind of funny. Years ago, I was so convinced life was not worth living, and you convinced me it was—that it was only the devil giving me those thoughts and I can still live life with the love of John’s family,” that’s her dead husband, “my friends, and my church family. And, most of all, the love of God. Then I get cancer and I’m gonna’ die anyway! How hilarious is that!”
Javi frowns and says somberly, “It’s not hilarious at all, Amanda. It’s tragic.”
“That’s why it’s so funny—it’s a tragicomedy! It’s like Shakespeare wrote my life!” Then she suddenly turns to anger, “Why would God make this happen?”
Her blame came as no surprise. Whenever things go right, people are quick to thank themselves rather than God. But as soon as something bad happens, God is to blame. Not themselves, and not the devil.
“What makes you think God made this happen?” Javi asks.
“Well, He certainly didn’t do anything to stop it! Why would He allow me so much suffering?”
“I don’t know,” Javi admits, “because I’m not God, so I cannot presume to know His mind. But if you’ll allow me to pontificate for moment, I do know this: He is the God who is present in suffering.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “This does not mean He immediately removes it at the moment of prayer as if this gift to us were a magical incantation like the pagans did to manipulate the will of their gods. God never promised us a life without suffering in this world; it’s nowhere in the Bible. ‘In the world, you will have tribulation,’ Jesus said. ‘But take heart, I have overcome the world.’ Suffering is not some accident we Christians come across; it is the norm, because Christ suffered for us. That’s what it means to bear our cross as we follow Him, which oftentimes looks eerily similar to how He bore His own cross.
“So, I don’t know where people have gotten this idea that God will or must prohibit any kind of suffering just because He’s good. It’s certainly not from God. But this I know: God’s goodness is present in suffering.” He takes out his compact Bible from his satchel and opens it to Romans 5. “I find the words of St. Paul comforting, ‘suffering produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.’ Suffering produces endurance, which builds our character; basic human experience knows this. We all grow from our mistakes and even our tragedies, as you well know. They do not define us. Neither do they dictate where we’re going, but only mark where we’ve been. But that last thing is key: hope.
“For a fuller understanding of what this hope is, we must turn to St. Peter, because Scripture interprets Scripture.” He turns to the first chapter of 1 Peter and reads, “’Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!’ Why? ‘According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.’ Our suffering produces hope because Christ lives, who Himself suffered and died for you.”
He closed his Bible. “If I can dare to conjecture why God permits suffering, I would dare only to look to the cross: that perhaps He permits our suffering because His only-begotten Son suffered and died for you and me, that we may have hope in His resurrection—that just as He suffered and died and rose again, so we shall suffer, die, and rise again ‘in the last time,’ that is, the Last Day when Christ returns to raise His people from the dead to the eternal glory that awaits us. This is granted to us in our Baptism wherein we are born again to this living hope, which, Paul says in Romans six, unites us not just to Christ’s death (and therefore His suffering), but also His resurrection. Until then, He makes Himself present in Word and prayer, which we must return to as our heavenly bread more than we daily turn to our physical bread because man does not live on bread alone ‘but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ He also makes Himself present in His people who love one another, that the world may know we are His disciples.
“This is only one reason why we weekly attend the Divine Service, that we not only be fed the forgiveness of sins and the strengthening of our faith in Word and Sacrament, but also that these might give us rest in our suffering until that ‘last time’ when Christ returns in glory to behead the evil one—the devil—who is the author of evil and loves to use disease as his biological warfare against God’s saints.”
There’s a short pause before Javi decides to risk more sermonizing, “One of God’s final words in Revelation is to let the evildoer continue to do evil and the righteous continue to do right in order to fulfill the prophecy of that book. I believe it’s chapter twenty-two. It is a book of Good News for Christians like you because it tells us of Christ’s glorious return. So, why does God permit evil and suffering? According to His own words, to fulfill the words of His prophecy that will lead the world to the return of Christ—in other words, to give Jesus cause to come again and usher in the new creation. Suffering and evil, then, only serve the will of God that will bring the return of Christ. They are in service to the salvation He will bring us. Until then, the evildoers continue to commit their iniquities and the righteous continue to do right by those who suffer such injustice by loving one another, as Christ has commanded us.”
Javi finally takes his first sip of lemonade.
Some silence ensued before Amanda said, on the verge of tears, “I believe everything you just said, Pastor. But one more thing, if you’ll please allow me.” Javi nods. “I still don’t understand how Christ is present in my suffering.”
Javi decides to open up to her. “Have I ever told you about my father, Amanda?”
She leans back. “No, you haven’t.” She’s intrigued.
“My father was an abusive drunk. Every night, he would come up to my room and beat me—sometimes because I had accidentally left the TV on, or no explanation at all.”
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not.” She looks confused. “Don’t get me wrong, what my father did was inexcusable. But because of what my father was, I learned what a real father looks like, which is everything he is not. Which, I think, enables me to be the spiritual father I am today—and hopefully a father with kids someday. It also helped me to see how God is my Father. Everything my father was not, my Father in Heaven is. My heavenly Father is gentle; my earthly father was not. My heavenly Father forgives freely; my earthly father had no sense of the concept. My heavenly Father loves me in spite of my failures; my earthly father hated me because of my failures, both real and imagined. Most of all, I learned that the presence of evil does not mean God is absent.”
She sits in silence. Javi decides not to break the silence; he wants her to sit on those last few words: The presence of evil does not mean God is absent.
“But… how?” she finally says. “How is God present when evil is present? If there’s evil, and God is good, how can God be there?”
Javi sips his lemonade. “Before I was a pastor, I was a missionary in Africa as a layman with my pastor who served there. There, evil was ubiquitous. I smelled the devil, I felt the devil, I saw the devil. I smelled the devil in mass graves of the slaughtered innocent. I felt the devil when people who were ill, stabbed, shot, and women raped and subsequently mutilated died in my arms. And I saw the devil in the eyes of evil men whose only love was the massacre of innocents.
“Yet in the midst of this profound suffering and agony, I saw Jesus. In spite of their suffering that for us are merely our worst nightmares, the people rejoiced in the Lord. They gathered in church every day—every day!—to sing praises unto the Lord, even though they knew it could mean their deaths. The children still summoned the fortitude to play outside. The people prayed together, sometimes for hours. The people were extremely kind toward each other and even me, an outsider. Somehow, in the midst of this horrific suffering, there was joy. Joy that I had never seen until I came there. It was the utter joy of the Lord. And finally, I knew what Nehemiah meant when he said, ‘The joy of the LORD is your strength.’”
Amanda was in tears. “How in the world could they have so much joy with all that horrible suffering and senseless death?”
He leans in close to her, cups her hands in his, and says, “Because, Amanda, they had Jesus!” He could see that hit her—the Holy Spirit was moving—as she began crying more. “They knew their loved ones had died in the Lord, so they had nothing to fear. Rather, they could rejoice, because He called them home to a place where there is no suffering and death—the same place God is taking you. Even more, their hope in the bodily resurrection gave them incredible strength, which Christ has also promised to you.
“If there’s anything I learned during my time there, it’s that even when you have nothing, if you have Jesus, you have everything. In Romans 8, Paul said, ‘For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.’ God didn’t give you cancer, Amanda. The devil did; it is the result of sin that we helped him bring into the world. This crap happens because of the sinful condition of the world we live in—fallen human nature and the fallen world, which we and the devil are to blame. But in Christ, the blame has been removed. Your suffering will be so insignificant when compared to the weight of glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ that you will soon encounter.”
Javi leans back into the couch and says, “So, we suffer in this life. What of it? We will dwell in the glory of Christ when our suffering ends.”
There is a short moment of silence before Amanda says through sniffles, “But… how can I experience the joy those African people had in my own suffering?”
Javi thinks for a moment. “Maybe do what they did: turn to God and praise Him, even when you don’t feel like it. I don’t doubt for a second that those African people were not in the mood to praise God most of the time. They lost hundreds to the evil tribes. Yet as they turned to God in prayer and praise, they found joy in Him.”
Not having planned it, Javi suddenly decides to walk over to her piano. “Will you please sing with me?” he asks.
He leads them in the singing.
If Christ had not been raised from death
Our faith would be in vain,
Our preaching but a waste of breath,
Our sin and guilt remain.
But now the Lord is ris’n indeed;
He rules in earth and heav’n:
His Gospel meets a world of need—
In Christ we are forgiv’n.
If Christ still lay within the tomb
Then death would be the end.
And we should face our final doom
With neither guide nor friend.
But now the Savior is raised up,
So when a Christian dies
We mourn, yet look to God in hope—
In Christ the saints arise!
If Christ had not been truly raised
His Church would live a lie;
His name should nevermore be praised,
His words deserve to die.
But now our great Redeemer lives;
Through Him we are restored;
His Word endures, His Church revives
In Christ, our risen Lord.
†
Four months later, in September, Javi sits at Amanda’s deathbed. The nurse had informed him that Amanda wants to speak to him alone.
As soon as she saw him, she smiled. He sits by her bedside and gently holds her hand.
“Pastor Javi,” she said with a weak voice yet vibrant joy, “you were right, that one night you told me about your time in Africa. I know now that God didn’t cause this to happen, even though He didn’t stop it. I realize our suffering is merely another opportunity for God to shine His abundant mercy and grace upon us, and for us to return that grace to our neighbor. Even when the devil gets his way over God’s faithful, God still wins because we return to Him in eternal peace and grace, and life infinitely better than the life I would have lived as a healthy woman.”
Javi doesn’t say anything, but merely grins and holds her hand.
Amanda falls asleep in the Lord as Javi, through tears, sings:
Be still, my soul; the Lord is on your side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to your God to order and provide;
In ev’ry change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; your best, your heav’nly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
Be still, my soul; your God will undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.
Be still, my soul; though dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in this vale of tears;
Then you will better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe your sorrows and your fears.
Be still, my soul; your Jesus can repay
From His own fullness all He takes away.
Be still, my soul; the hour is hast’ning on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,
All safe and blesséd we shall meet at last.
The Lutheran Column 