Preaching text: Isaiah 53:4-12
Well, I had a sermon. I thought it was a good one. Talked about how Jesus came to heal the world rather than conquer it as James and John seem to want him to. But it all felt a bit abstract. A bit distant. After recent events, I didn’t feel it was going to work.
And what events am I referring to? Well, where do I start? There is, of course, Ken’s suicide which has left Regina and her family, especially his son Gunnar, lost and adrift in a sea of pain and emotions. They’re asking all the usual questions. Why did this happen? What could have been done? I don’t know if any of those questions have any real answers. I do know that mental illness is a terrible thing. I know it destroys lives, as it obviously did here.
I wish I could say that was the only horrible thing that’s happened lately. It’s not even the only thing related to mental illness that I’ve encountered. I have a good friend at my D&D group on Wednesdays. Iraq War veteran. Helped volunteer at the charity fundraiser event last weekend for Bodhana Group. Good man. He admitted to me this week that his PTSD is getting the better of him and he’s been thinking of suicide himself. I told him when he gets that low to call me. I don’t know what I’ll say if he does, but I’ll do my damnedest to keep him alive.
Another friend that I see at my gaming group each Wednesday, she’s a young woman, mid-30s in age. Widowed. The anniversary of her husband’s passing from terminal cancer was just a couple weeks ago. I called her the day of and, not unexpectedly, I got a blubbering mess on the other end of the phone. A lot of pain. A lot of questions. Why did he die? Why was such a good man taken from this world? I didn’t have the answers; I mostly listened and offered what sympathy I could. It seems I’ve had that conversation a lot in my time. How many have we buried due to cancer? How many people do we know have lost their lives to that dread disease and left us who love them to wrestle with the aftermath?
A third person at my gaming group. Teenage girl, I think she’s 17, maybe 18. Came over to me a few weeks ago to thank me for raising the issue of sexual abuse of women in a sermon. She didn’t hear the sermon, but I’d shared some of what I’d preached about on Facebook. She said “Thank you for raising that issue, because when it happened to me, no one believed me either.” I didn’t know what to say to that. Just as I didn’t know what to say when one friend told me decades ago about her rape or my one ex-girlfriend told me about hers or another friend told me of her experiences of abuse. Or the three sisters who were at my youth group in WV who were sexually abused by family. All that pain. All that trauma. And they’re not the only ones. There are even more who’ve admitted much the same to me.
Why share all this? I want to open people’s eyes to the pain and anguish that real people go through every day in our world. In some cases, it’s pain that kills. In other cases, it’s pain that makes people long for death. It’s very real and it’s everywhere. Maybe in some of you.
Take all that and multiply it across years and decades and centuries. Multiply it for every generation of humankind who’s ever lived. Do that and then realize that’s why Jesus came. That’s what all this is really about. It’s about a God who does love this world and the people in it. A God who weeps when we weep, who hurts when we hurt, but who also has a plan to do something about it all. He sent Jesus. He sent his son to take all the pain of the world upon himself. For “he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”
This is what it’s all about. Why we come here every week. It’s about the healing of the world. It’s about the healing of you and me with all of our pain. It’s about the healing of all those out there whom God loves and all of their pain. It’s about putting right what is going wrong in so many lives. It’s about fixing this broken world and all the pain and anguish it inflicts upon us. It’s about curing every disease and binding up every broken heart. It’s about companionship for those who are alone, rescue for those in danger, life for those who are dying.
This is what the cross means. It’s why Jesus chose it. Why God chose to endure pain and agony himself. He did it to put the world right, to make it as it was meant to be.
I long for those promises to come to into their fullness. I’m downright impatient for it at times, because I see people I love hurting and I want them made well. I suspect there’s some of that in everyone of us. We’d have to be pretty heartless not to care about those closest to us when they’re in pain or struggling with illness or heartache. How often is our prayer like those in John’s vision in Revelation, “How long, O Lord?” I wish I knew the answer. But I do know that day is coming. A day when the last trumpet will sound and all will finally be put right. A day when Jesus’ sacrifice will benefit all the people of the world as it was promised to Abraham. When my friends and all those who hurt will have their tears wiped away, their bodies and minds restored, and their hearts put back together.
Come quickly, Lord. Amen.
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