During the summer of 2019 I underwent a crash course in crisis ministry.
I was working as a chaplain resident at a busy Chicago hospital. On day one, I was given a pager that could summon me at a moment’s notice into the worst day of a stranger’s life. I knew that serving as a chaplain would teach me a lot, but what I didn’t know was that it would teach me so much about myself–or God.
Out of the many things I learned that summer, one of the most profound was the realization that God is far more comfortable in crisis than I am.
Whether it’s death, depression, divorce, natural disaster, or broken dreams, we all know someone right now who is suffering. Oftentimes the weight of suffering can feel downright debilitating–not only for the sufferers, but for those close to them as well.
What do you say to someone when all words seem inadequate?
What do you do when you don’t know what to do?
What do you do when there’s nothing you can do?
For many, the anxiety that accompanies this uncertainty is so strong that we feel paralysed. For others, it propels us into problem-solving mode, seeking to “fix” the suffering or the sufferer to lessen their sorrow (and our own discomfort).
That summer as I sat in hospital rooms with the sick and suffering, I thought often of Paul’s words in his Second Letter to the Corinthians…
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God (2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NIV).
Jesus’s whole life was a revelation of his Father’s heart for sinners and sufferers. And when Jesus calls us to follow him, it is nothing less than a call for our whole lives to take the same posture as his own: one of divine compassion.
But don’t think for a moment that I’m sentimentalizing Jesus. We must reclaim compassion’s true meaning: com- (“with”) passion (“suffer”). To suffer with. We cannot be truly present to those caught in the storms of life without getting wet ourselves. Jesus knew this firsthand.
It was the compassion of God that drove Jesus to the margins, to the danger-zones, and ultimately, to the cross. This is why the prophets of old called him Immanuel, “God with us.” (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23). He alone did what you and I could never do by our own direct effort: he brought healing and new life out of devastation and death.
The good news of the Gospel frees us to be fully present to those who are suffering rather than to immediately focus on problem-solving. Jesus is the Savior, not us. This empowers us to show up even when we feel out of our depth because we aren’t relying on ourselves any longer, “but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9).
And when we are truly present to others in Jesus’s Name, something miraculous happens. The Kingdom of God comes and heaven touches earth. The “God of all comfort” himself is present, comforting us both with an encouragement that could only come from above.
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