Dealing with Loss (2 of 5)

Dealing with Loss:  Suffering and Spirituality                   
 
Five-part Series (2 of 5)
By Rev. John Adams
 
    The experience of suffering brings disruption to life. Suffering can transform the routines of our daily plans into unexpected struggles. Our everyday can become crisis to both the individual and the community as attempts to construct meaning occur (Boase, 449).  As we often turn to religion, some believe it is helpful to wrestle with   problems of suffering as an intellectual  exercise. Some of these individuals believe that responding from an emotional or a spiritual level only gives false hope to individuals looking for relief to their pain. Experiences of sin, difficult social situations, evil, and tragic reality could then challenge our human lives, leaving some not sure where to turn and despondent in the face of bearing tremendous burden. Still other people respond to similar experiences of affliction, evil, and sin, with testimonies of a God who suffers with them, for them, and because of them (Pool, ix). Specifically, scholars like Ehrman suggest that suffering calls for a response from the soul since a great deal of  suffering is not caused by natural disasters but by the hands of other humans (Ehrman, 122) as we see so vividly in the War brought upon the suffering of Ukraine. As highlighted in the first part of this series, obtaining some meaning out of suffering is important in the process of coping and dealing with its presence.

     The meaningfulness and meaninglessness of suffering according to many theologians depend on whether suffering can or cannot be  alleviated or even eliminated (Richard, 124). As Catholics, we need to examine our understanding of suffering  within the context of a biblical explanation founded in both the Old and the New Testaments.

Two Sets of Tablets
Both sets of tablets, the whole tablets and the fragments of the tablets were placed together in the Ark. Just as our ancestors, we all live with two sets of tablets in our lives. The shattered and the whole. The arks of our lives are filled with whole tablets of joys, victories, achievements, successes and broken tablets of frustrations, sadness,  suffering, disappointments and failures. Both are always with us as we strive from our brokenness to be whole in the image of our God.  -- Hebrew Author unknown

     As seen in the above writing, human beings experience brokenness that includes sorrow, pain and suffering, but also includes a striving for wholeness in the image of Our God. Human experience is a subjective experience.  Even so, the majority of people would say that suffering is part of the human condition and it has been acknowledged and examined by religious and non-religious people since the beginning of the ages. Suffering is deeply rooted in the human experience and human nature and is seen throughout the Sacred Scriptures of the Bible (Speck, 9). Throughout the Old and New Testaments, God listens to His people in their pain and reacts through divine power to relieve the suffering of the faithful. In the Old Testament, nothing exemplified God’s covenantal promise to a nation more than His response to the chosen people of Israel   suffering at the hands of the Egyptians as recently remembered in the holy days of Passover. In the New         Testament, Jesus fulfilled the covenantal promise when He saw     suffering in individuals and used healing through the personal use of miracles to relieve the suffering of those who had faith. Another      example is when we as Christians recently walked with Jesus, the Passover Sacrifice of the New Covenant, that conquers all suffering and death.                                                                                                                                                  

 In general, there appears to be two ways the Bible explains suffering -- sometimes from God as a punishment for sin and sometimes from human beings as a consequence of sin. The latter is a classical view of suffering involving sinners at the hands of an angry God (Ehrman, 131, 27). Others have highlighted the redemptive power of suffering. Redemption transforms vulnerability into a communion with a loving, caring God who seeks to unify creator to created. One sees a pattern within the Old Testament where sin, punishment, mercy,     redemption, forgiveness, reconciliation, and new life occur and then is repeated (Wright, 115).  Does punishment really follow sin? Is suffering a consequence of sin from an instructive God?

 Within the Old Testament, the prophets had an important  contribution to the understanding of the Word of God and proclaiming YHWH’s communication to HIs people. Prophetic voices were used not only to warn the masses about what could happen to them if they did not live according to their covenant with God, but to highlight present day behaviors that were morally    corrupt leading to pain and suffering. The prophets did not claim that there was a universal reason for suffering, however, the most serious form of actions against the poor and the most vulnerable and directly against God needed consequences (Ehrman, 33). Many of those in ancient Israel believed that scriptural writings in the Old Testament demonstrated how the human-divine relationship is played out and how we as humans are incomplete when we lose our connections with God. At times, punishment is seen as a reason for a person’s or group of person’s suffering; however, in the New Testament, Jesus clearly rejects that suffering is God’s judgment [John 9: 1-3 and Luke 13: 1-5] (Richard, 49).  Jesus  always taught in line with what we learned in the beginning of the Bible as stated in Genesis -- humanity is created in God’s image and this humanity, His creation, was very good. Not only is humanity created by God, but God sought to reveal Himself to His creation throughout history drawing near to His chosen people to abide close to them. He validated and empowered them and their vulnerabilities to demonstrate His love (Ehrman, 203).  Specifically, God declared his love for His people throughout the Old Testament such as in           Deuteronomy 23:5 when it is stated, “. . . the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord, your God loved you.” And His compassion to all in times of distress is praised in Sirach 2:11 – “For the Lord is compassionate and merciful; He forgives sins and saves in times of distress” (Holy Bible: Catholic Edition, 380).

In the Old Testament, Moses, Abraham, Jacob, and David for example, were able to talk to God directly, begging for his compassion and   mercy on His people. The English word, compassion comes from the Latin word stem compatior which means “to suffer along with.” In the New Testament as well as in the Old, God is a personal God who is active in “making new” His creation. The making new for all creation is seen by Christians in the Incarnation, as the Word was made flesh that we celebrated at Christmas time and where God shows His ultimate compassion by demonstrating solidarity with human weakness and suffering. In the New Testament, Jesus, the Son of God, the Second Person in the Trinity, embraced the physical by experiencing with His creation the traumas of life, even up until death, even death on a Cross. Humanity is affirmed not only from above but also from the earth here below as God comes united to us through His Son. Human suffering evokes compassion, it also evokes respect (John Paul II,  I:4). The New Testament provides us with further understanding of the marriage between suffering and spirituality and helps us learn ways to heal, ways to cope and ways to deal with our loss.

References
Boase, Elizabeth.  “Constructing Meaning in the Face of Suffering: Theodicy in  Lamentations.” Vestus Testamentum, 58 (2008) 449-468.

Ehrman, Bart, D.  God’s Problem:  How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question -- Why We Suffer? New York:  HarperOne, 2008.

Holy Bible: Catholic edition: New Revised Standard Version. 2^nd ed. San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 2005.

John Paul II, Pope. Salvifici Doloris (On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering.  Apostolic Letter, www.vatican.va/.../john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-  ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris_en.html, Vatican Website, 11 February, 1984.

Pool, Jeff, B. God's Wounds: Hermeneutic of the Christian Symbol of Divine Suffering.   Series in Princeton theological monograph series: 100.  Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2009.

Speck, Peter. Being There: Pastoral Care in Time of Illness.  London: SPCK, 1988.
Wright, Christopher J. H.  The God I Don't Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions  of Faith. Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan, 2008.