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Why Doesn’t God Take Away Our Suffering?
Luke 22:31-34
Mari Ikeda
Today is called Palm Sunday, a week before Easter, and this week is Passion Week. It is a time when we should think again about the death and resurrection of Jesus, but preparing for this message was a bit difficult. That’s because I have been doubting God for some time now. I felt like God was not doing anything about my personal suffering and the many tragic things that are happening in this world, including Ukraine. While I was in the midst of suffering that I wanted to disappear right now, I had no idea what help it would be to be told that Jesus would be with me there. We are powerless, but isn’t God powerless too? Even though God has the power to save us, if He doesn’t use that power, He is powerless to us.
But then I realized again that the fact that God became powerless is actually very important. The person who gave me the idea was Dietrich Bonheffer, whom I have introduced to you several times in the past. He was a German pastor who was executed for resisting Nazi Germany. In a letter from prison, Bonheffer wrote these words. “Before God and with God we live without God.” It is a difficult word, and I don’t think I fully understand it, but I would like to come back to it at the end of this message today.
Let’s start with the Bible. Luke 22:31-34.
31 “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” 33 But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” 34 Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.”
This is the exchange between Jesus and Peter just before Jesus was arrested. After this, Peter denies his relationship with Jesus three times, just as Jesus prophesied. He then wept, devastated by his own weakness.
A. God’s desire
1. The forgiveness of our sins
First of all, what is most striking in this passage is that Jesus knows all about Peter’s betrayal and forgives him from the beginning. Jesus knew Peter better than Peter himself. The same is true for us. Our sins and weaknesses are known to Jesus more than we are aware of ourselves. And even before we realize it, God has already forgiven us.
2. Our understanding of God’s suffering
But God does not immediately remove our sin and weakness. Although Jesus knew that Peter would make mistakes, He did not stop him, but simply said, “I prayed for you that your faith may not fail.”
And what Peter saw afterwards was a weak Jesus who was captured by the people, assaulted, and crucified with no resistance.
No matter how much we suffer, no matter how much we cry out, the one who appears to us is not a wizard-like God who can change everything in an instant, not a terrible God who is angry at our sins and punishes us, but only the God who died on the cross. While that may not seem like a solution, God’s desire is clear. God wants us to know that He suffers for us. When we suffer, that is our suffering as well as God’s suffering.
3. Our suffering is not what God desires
God did not originally create us as weak and sinful. Also, it was human beings who made this world a place of suffering, and the original world that God created was not like this. It is God who mourns our current state more than anyone else.
Yet, God did not use His power to reshape us and this world right in an instant. Rather, the very opposite, He chose to renounce all power, to become powerless, to suffer with us, and to give His life for us. Because God desires love more than obedience from us. Even if it involves great suffering on God’s part.
4. For us to overcome suffering and to encourage others
Jesus said to Peter, “When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. To the weak Peter, who was about to betray him, Jesus still had hope for him and encouraged him. These thoughts of Jesus are God’s thoughts for all of us.
God originally gave us the heart to love Him and love others. It will not go away even if we are in sin or weak. That is what God hopes for. Rather than reshape us in an instant, he wanted us to reclaim our own willingness to seek God and love others. By doing so, God expects us to reclaim who we are, as He originally wanted us to be, and to pass that on to others. We can say that He is waiting for us to do it. And through us, He is going to advance the great work of changing this world.
C. Satan (the devil) tempts us to despair
1. That God is weak and powerless
But we are easily controlled by our circumstances, and if the suffering continues, we question why God does not take away our suffering right now. And when nothing changes no matter how much we pray, we may despair that God is powerless and weak. That is Satan’s trap. Jesus said to Peter, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat.”
Satan’s goal is to turn our hearts away from God. When we grieve over our helplessness and despair over God’s inability to help us, it is Satan who rejoices.He tempts us to despair by whispering to us, “You ask for help, but God doesn’t answer or do anything.”
2. Yet, “with God we live without God”
But as I have told you today, God is not doing nothing, He is not ignoring our cries, and He, more than anyone else, is suffering the most. And He wants us not to keep the suffering we have to ourselves, but to know that it is also God’s suffering. When we suffer, it is the same as sharing in God’s suffering. It means that we are carrying the suffering that God is carrying so that we can love God and love others, in order for God’s love to be realized in this world.
So Bonheffer’s words, “Before God and with God we live without God,” are the words that describe how we are to live without turning away from the suffering of this world and at the same time without letting it control our hearts. We know that God suffers for us and with us, so now we suffer with God and carry the suffering in God’s place where God’s suffering is lacking.
God, who became powerless for us, had the audacity to entrust this world to us, powerless human beings. It is we, not God, who will take away suffering from this world. We cannot just wait for God to turn someone’s despair into hope. God has entrusted us with that work.
(Prayer) Dear God, please pour out your spirit on us abundantly. Without you, we are really helpless, and we are the ones who will soon be on our own selfish way. Please guide our hearts with your spirit so that we do not become so preoccupied with the difficult situation before us that we forget that you are suffering more than anyone else there. Protect us so that neither our own suffering nor the suffering taking place in this world will separate our hearts from You. Give us the strength to suffer with you and on your behalf. Use us to stop the tragedies that are happening in the world. We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Summary
In our personal lives and in world events, we can find ourselves asking why God doesn’t take away our suffering. We despair when nothing changes despite our fervent prayers and desires. This is Satan’s (the devil’s) trap. We cannot lose our faith and trust in the God who became powerless on the cross and entrusted the world to powerless human beings like us. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Before God and with God we live without God.”
For Discussion
1. Why doesn’t God just remove our suffering?
2. Is God powerless in the face of human sin?