If God is with us and blessing us, why do we still feel hurt?
In the beginning of all things, back in the Garden of Eden, everything was perfect. Nobody knew pain or suffering or loss of any kind. Then Adam and Eve bit the fruit and brought sin into the world. The Bible tells us that sin didn't just break them, it broke the whole world and their relationship with it. Thorns came upon the ground, we experienced physical pain for the first time, people started blaming and accusing each other and hurting with words, death became a part of our reality. The world wasn't the way it was meant to be anymore. We made it that way through sin.
You don't have to look very far to see the world is still broken. People at school often fight and say mean things about each other instead of getting along. Some people in a community have plenty to eat, others have little or none. Nobody knows who to vote for in the presidential elections because all of the candidates seem self-centered and out of touch. Racism, war, famine, disease, natural disasters...these things afflict the world every day, causing people to suffer.
The hurt we feel is a response to this "brokenness". I don't know if you've ever known anyone whose nerve endings have been deadened. It happens sometimes either because of a birth condition or some kind of accident. Not having any feeling in a part of your body creates an incredibly difficult challenge. The biggest problem is that you can't feel pain. If you have no feeling in your foot you could step on a nail and it'll just drive right through you without you knowing. I've heard of people without feeling in a hand who actually burned it on the stove and only knew it when they started smelling their skin burning, long after the damage was done.
Imagine having that same thing in your spirit. If you never hurt you'd be viewing things like racism, poverty, illness, suffering from natural disasters and you just...wouldn't...care. Hurt is your indicator that something is going wrong, something you should pay attention to. When somebody calls you a name or treats you badly the hurt you feel tells you that this isn't right...the same way stubbing your toe on something tells you that you weren't walking right. Hurt reminds us that the world isn't perfect and that we need to change things for the better. Hurt reminds us not to do wrong things to each other or to put up with wrong things being done to us. Hurt isn't pleasant but it's necessary in this way.
Even the best things in life involve hurting. Giving birth to a child involves a fair amount of physical pain. No matter how much you love that child, they grow really quickly! From a parent's perspective the baby whom you were just cradling in your arms runs off to college in just the blink of an eye. Every time you look at your adorable three-year-old you realize that he won't be three forever--not even for long--and that all of these moments are temporary. Your best moments involve that kind of sadness. Realizing that nothing in this life lasts forever helps you treasure those moments though. That pain reminds you to make the most of every moment you have. Again, hurt fills an important role in our lives even though it's unpleasant.
The hurt that comes from this broken, temporary world also reminds us to look forward to God's ultimate gift: a return to life the way it was meant to be. We hurt now, but we won't hurt forever. God has promised us that we will be with him and every tear will be wiped dry. As it turns out, the good things in this life really are forever! Only the pain really passes away. But we have to hold on through a fair amount of that pain in order to see the promise come true.
Every time we get together in church to celebrate we also pray for people who are suffering. We pray for God to be with them and that he would use us to help them...not to take away their pain but to let them know that they're not alone as they deal with it. That's probably the most important message we can bring. I'd never take away your pain. That would make your life a real tragedy. But you don't have to feel alone as you bear it. Whether it's a passing pain like a fight with a friend or an enduring pain like abuse or having a loved one die, someone's here who cares about you and is willing to walk beside you and hold your hand through it. That walking and hand-holding is a little reflection of the heavenly healing to come. It's a gift we give to each other as people of faith until that day when God bestows his ultimate gift on all of us.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
