Grace Congregational UCC

“The Suffering of Christ”
John 21:1-19
Acts 9:1-20

April 22, 2007 - Kim M. Henning

The church loves the story of how the Apostle Paul came to become a Christian. Next to Jesus Christ himself, no name is better known across all Christendom—than Paul. Paul is the great writer, the great theologian and yet his coming to faith had little, if anything to do with himself.

We love this story. You see, Paul had been Christianity’s arch-enemy. He was a zealot. He had approved of the stoning of Stephen. So passionately did Paul believe what he believed—that even the death of another human being was fair game. Paul’s goal was to eradicate Christianity.

It was on the Road to Damascus, one day, that Paul unexpectedly ‘became one of us.’ Paul did not become one of us by showing up at church one Sunday morning. He did not become one of us by listening to a sermon or even studying our faith.

No, not at all. Paul, on a mission to destroy Christians has a conversion experience. Lightening from heaven flashes around him. He falls to the ground. A voice speaks—‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He replies, “Who are you?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

The church loves this story. We love this story because Paul did not choose this faith for himself----God chose it for him. We love this story because Paul had been such a contrarian, so arrogant, so full of himself-----and God was able to make ‘a Christian.’

Paul was blinded on the Road to Damascus. He heard that voice, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” and Paul’s companions heard it too. And for three days, Paul did not eat. He did not drink. Blind he was led to Damascus where he sat.

And who should visit Paul, but an unknown person Ananias. God says to Ananias, “Go to Paul.” He says back to God, “you’ve got to be kidding. This guy has been destroying us. But God says, “this is my man.”

So Ananias goes to Paul and says, “God has chosen you to bring his name before Gentiles and before kings.....” Notice the language. Paul is not asked. There is no negotiating. Paul is simply given a job description. You will go to the Gentiles and before kings, and take my name to them. Comfortable, or not, Paul is called. This is so God.

But Ananias is not finished. He says one more thing to Paul. And what is curious about the next thing that Ananias says, is that I never noticed—the second part of what he says....until this week.

The next thing God says to Paul through Ananias is, “I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” Did you catch that? I missed that in the past.

God says to Paul, “I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

God says to Paul from the get-go —that Christianity will lead him along the pathway of suffering. This calling is not meant to be easy. This calling is not meant to be without costly sacrifice.

“I myself will show him how much he must suffer.” And I can hardly think of a better week to hear this word from God.

The terrible events that happened this week in Blacksburg, Virginia will stay with us until death. Talk about suffering. I spoke to someone who was traveling through the Roanoke, Virginia airport.......and he said that the quiet, the pall, the sadness, the aura of grief in that place was so thick. For half a day, airline flights in and out of Roanoke were stopped because of the president’s visit to Blacksburg....and no one raised a voice. Suffering.

Thirty-two victims. One gunman. The horror. The fear. The grief. Gunshots. Death. Screaming. Sobs.

On Thursday, I heard a public official of the university speaking to the media. He said, after four long days..... ‘it’s time to put this behind us, it’s time to move on’ and I thought....no, first we must grieve. Let’s let the tears flow. ‘Let’s sit,’ in the words of the prophet of old, ‘in sackcloth and ashes’ as we grieve the insanity of that event.

Why is it that we always want to move on? Why is it that our time for grieving death, tragedy, war is always becoming less and less? Are we afraid that if we start crying we won’t be able to stop?

Or are we preventing ourselves from drawing nearer to God in our vulnerability?

When Paul is told that he’s going to be Christian, he is told he must suffer for the sake of Christ. In another place, Paul says, “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” In another place, “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

On Good Friday, we gathered here for worship—and the song that gathered us together that evening was “Down the Via Dolorosa.” The Via Dolorosa. The Pathway of Suffering. The pathway of suffering for Christ is to become the pathway for us.

Ananias said to Paul, “You’re called to suffer with Christ.....” That is our witness. That is our public calling. That is what it means to be Christian.....

There was a time in Jesus’ ministry when John and James ask for positions of privilege in the kingdom of God. We’ve all done it. They said something like, “We want to be on your right side and on your left side. We want the glory part.” And Jesus replied, “are you able to drink the cup that I drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

Do you remember that? Jesus is saying, are you willing to let go of the airs....and enter the depths of human suffering? Are you willing to go to places where people hurt? Are you willing to be with people whose lives are not neatly put together? Are you willing to sacrifice some status, some of the niceties in order to go where Christ is?

So let’s say this about this week.....

We suffer, because in the words of Leonard Pitts, “there’s a meanness in this world.” There is no wisdom to be gained by an event like that at Virginia Tech. No explanation. Just insanity. Will you grieve the insanity that comes to our world?

So let’s say this about this week....

Diana Butler Bass has written what takes courage to say.... “Other than being the mother (or father) of one of the murdered students, I can imagine nothing worse than being the mother (or father) of the murderer, a murderer who committed suicide. How isolated (they) must be. (They) too, are grieving, mourning the loss of their only son, mourning their dreams for him, mourning their childhood memories. She has little—except confusion, guilt and questions.... Are you able to grieve for the parents?

So let’s say this....

One of the victims was a teacher who had been a survivor of the Holocaust in Romania. He survived Hitler. He survived the camps. On Monday, his life was taken while leaning against the door, urging students to escape through the windows. Monday was (Yom Hashoah) Holocaust Remembrance Day. Jews have long invited us to enter into the depths of suffering and we do with events like that at Virginia Tech.

On Tuesday evening, a convocation was held at Virginia Tech. A professor and poet Nikki Giovanni said,

“We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning. We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being capture by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child look for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

On the eve of his death, Jesus invited his disciples to come pray with him....and suffer with him.... Yes, we are resurrection people....but let us never forget that we are called to suffer with Christ.