Date: October 21, 2023
Festival: LWML Mid-Michigan Zone Fall Rally Day
Text: 2 Corinthians 1:3-7
Preaching Occasion: Zion Lutheran Church, Mt. Pleasant, MI
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” [2 Cor. 1:3-4]. This is the chosen theme for this conference: comfort in affliction. Notice there is a sequential order here: in order to comfort others in their afflictions, we must first be comforted by God in our own afflictions. That means if we wish to be of service to others by comforting them, we must know what it means to suffer so we can first receive that comfort from God.
Luther wrote that everyone is a theologian, and to be a theologian is simply to be one who hears God’s Word. Etymologically, the word theology literally means “God-talk,” meaning theology is how we talk to, for, and about God. But just like the sequential order of comforting, before we do theology, God first has to do theology to us—that is, before we know how to talk to, for, and about God, He must first talk to us, which He does through His written and spoken Word. Once God has spoken to us in His Word, then we begin to do theology, which Luther describes as the threefold cycle of oratio, meditatio, tentatio.
Oratio means prayer. In prayer, in the words of Solomon, we lean not on our own understanding but trust in the Lord with all our heart [Proverbs 3:5]. We put our pride in timeout and kneel in prayer daily. Meditatio is meditation. By this, we not only read God’s Word silently and ponder it, but even read it aloud to ourselves. As the psalmist writes, the delight of the blessed man is in the Word of the Lord on which he meditates day and night [Psalm 1:2]. Now, that Hebrew word for “meditate” actually means “utter, moan, speak,” or “muse,” so meditation is a vocal exercise. After all, it is called the Word of God, and words are meant to be spoken. Lastly is tentatio, which is affliction. We suffer sin, the world, the devil, plague and illness, mental illness, old age, death, and so on.
All these make us into good theologians because they drive us to Christ. Oratio, meditatio, tentatio is an endless cycle until Christ returns, and it is often our suffering or affliction that leads us to prayer and meditation. We hear from God in His Word through prayer and meditation as He comforts us in our affliction, which prepares us to comfort others in their afflictions. If I may speak personally, I know what it’s like to suffer depression, so now I know how to comfort one who is depressed. I come from divorced parents, so now I know how comfort the youth going through the same struggle. I know what it’s like to suffer racism, so now I can comfort victims of racism. I know what it’s like to have the Army break your body, so now I know how to comfort the disabled veteran or civilian.
When we suffer, our inclination is always to ask, “Why?” For some reason, we think that if we knew why, it would somehow take away the pain. We think, “If I can somehow make sense of it and connect all the dots, then the pain will be less.” But it’s not true. Rather, we should ask the question, “Who?” That’s what Jesus does. When Peter writes about suffering in his first epistle, he turns our heads toward Christ, saying, “Christ also suffered.” It’s as if he’s saying, “I know it’s hard, but just glimpse up here and see your Saviour who suffered for you and with you.” It’s as Jesus said, “Come to Me, you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” [Matt. 11:28]. When we go to Jesus in our suffering, we approach the suffering Saviour.
When we read about Stephen’s suffering in Acts 7, He prayed all the prayers of Jesus on the cross except one. Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Stephen prayed, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Jesus prayed, “Into Your hands I commit my spirit.” Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” The only prayer he didn’t pray was, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Because Jesus in His suffering endured this wrathful forsakenness of God that is the sharp edge of His holiness, Jesus endures so that we can know God is not forsaking us, that He’s with us in our afflictions, and that He’s not angry with us—and that actually transforms our suffering. The suffering of Jesus is different than the suffering of Stephen because Stephen was not forsaken. In fact, he sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God waiting for him. For Stephen, the question was never “why,” but “Who?” This is what it means for you and me to suffer as Christians. Instead of abandonment, God gives us comfort in our affliction, which is to say He gives us Christ. So, when we look to Christ in our suffering, His suffering takes away the why—it takes away the “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”
Then after we’ve received God’s comfort in our affliction, we can then ask the next who question, “Who can I comfort with the same comfort I received from God in my own affliction?” This doesn’t mean you’ll have magic words to make someone’s grief or despair go away. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is say nothing, which is what Job’s friends did for a whole week before they opened their big mouths and ruined everything [Job 2:12-13]. Pastorally, we call this the ministry of presence. Sometimes, simply being present is enough—being an ear who listens, or a shoulder to rest on—because just as Christ bore our sins and suffering on the cross, sometimes all that’s needed is that we simply bear the suffering of our neighbour in silence. But wherever there is a time to speak, then we also speak, not through rational persuasion, but through the sweet words of the Gospel, which is to show them Christ.
When someone we care about is suffering, the first thing we want to do is find magic words to make them feel better, but magic isn’t real. The truth is, there is nothing we can say. Only Christ can bring true healing. But even Christ’s Gospel needs to be spoken repeatedly; for the Gospel is the medicine of the soul, and like all medicine, it is hardly ever the first time we swallow it that brings healing. As Christians still suffering with the side effects of sin’s disease, we need to hear the Gospel over and over and over again until the Great Physician opens Death’s morgue and raises us from the dead. Therefore, we never tire of hearing it, and we never tire of speaking it. The Gospel we hear every Sunday morning or in our pastor’s office is the same Gospel with which we comfort our neighbour. We don’t try to use rational persuasion, or like Job’s friends try to convince someone they’ve committed some secret sin to really infuriate God. Both of these tell the person they must do something to become right with God. Rather, we speak the Gospel, which means done, or in Christ’s words, “It is finished.”
As St. Ignatius wrote, “[T]he Gospel possesses something distinctive, namely, the coming of the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, His suffering, and the resurrection. For the beloved Prophets preached in anticipation of Him, but the Gospel is the imperishable finished work” [Ignatius to the Philadelphians 9.2].
To Christ belongs all the glory, now and forever. Amen.
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