Why This? Why Me? Why Now?
Last Thursday night Claudia and I went to the Tower Theater and were in the audience for Garrison Keillor. He was in town for one night and the joint was full…of geezers who remember A Prairie Home Companion on public radio every Saturday afternoon.
83, in a rumpled suit and with hair a bit askew, Keillor simply walked on stage with no introduction and proceeded to talk nonstop for close to an hour and a half.
Jokes, stories, songs we sang as an impromptu choir, poetry all stitched together into a crazy quilt around the theme that life is hard and can often be unjust, so kindness to others and good humor spread wide is key to rising to whatever this day brings. (BTW stuff a cute, short, semi-clean joke in your pocket to always be ready to spread a smile on whomever you meet. Stop taking yourself so seriously! One of his from last night is at the bottom.)
It was a great outing on a frigid night far from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children are above average. Past my normal bedtime, I laid in bed thinking of Garrison and his theme. I have to agree that injustice abounds and I might be well served to live more kindly and smile more often.
When hard times come to me, though, I too often treat it all as something strange, or that my contract with God has been violated. There have been so many times when I have wondered, “Why this? Why me? Why now??”
Anyone with me?
The list of issues we’d rather not face line up fast.
Plenty of us have danced with cancer (and still are),
seen close relationships estranged,
watched loved ones die too soon,
experienced too much month at the end of the money,
struggled with limitations from age and life choices,
and plenty more stuff.
We are told to pray, but often, as Pete Greig’s book title reads, God is on Mute. Praying about it all to seemingly no effect can lead the best of us to wonder, “So…what’s the deal?” At those times, I agree with what a former pastor friend liked to say,
Life is hard and God is mysterious.
I remember a ditty from years ago that sums up this lament.
By and by there will be pie in the sky, but I’d like just a little ham where I am.
Do you recall the scene in John ch. 5 that finds Jesus in Jerusalem at the Pool of Bethesda and talks with the dude who had been there 38 years waiting for healing? 38 years!
Well, the guy is healed and follows Jesus’ instructions to carry his stuff home. The problem was it happened on a Sabbath day and caused a ruckus with the religious crowd because carrying was considered work and work on the Sabbath was not allowed.
There’s a wheelbarrow full of insights in this vignette, but Thornton Wilder, the playwright, tweaked this into a short story of two men, not just one, waiting to be healed by the angel who stirred the healing waters. Take a listen about the two.
One was a desperate man who had been at the pool for a long time, waiting. The other was a newcomer, a doctor who had been a faithful help to people for a long time and wanted to be healed of a long-standing condition himself.
But the angel appeared and offered healing only for the first man. The doctor objected. “Think,” he said, “what I might yet do in Love’s service were I but free of this bondage.”
And that’s when the angel said this: “Without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living.
In Love’s service only the wounded soldiers can serve.”
Take a minute to read those last lines again and let them soak into your pain and heartaches and disappointments. True faith looks through groaning to Hope. God has promised that he will redeem all things. All things. My mind skips on that like a scratched record, but he says it’s true.
The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living.
The guy at the pool had 38 years on the wheel of not being healed and now was whole. Plenty of groaning and just enough hope to stay at the pool for the chance to be made right. My imagination says he was a changed man for the rest of his life.
What’s my pool of healing I’m waiting to stir up? How long have I struggled? How many times has it seemed I just missed out?
How does all this work? The Book fills in a few of the blanks for us who follow Jesus.
Romans 8 gives a clear-eyed view of the hardest edges of life and through them to the life in God along with them. Grab your Bible and pen and circle the words translated “groan” or “groaning” from verses 18-26. Think what’s behind a groan. Groaning is guttural, deep, pain-filled, exhausted and looking for relief and it goes hand in glove with life. Draw a line between your circles.
Creation groans as it anxiously waits to be set free from decay (vv. 18-22)
Every person groans inside for all to be made right (vv.23-25)
God the Holy Spirit groans for us in our pain and fear (vv.26-30)
Now, loop back to those same verses and look for “hope,” Draw a box around each of them and see how groaning and hope appear to dance together in life.
Paul reminds here that this hope is not wishful thinking but biblical hope is confident trust in the dark in the character of God that he will redeem it all. Look, it’s there in creation and in us: While we groan, we hope, not after the groaning is done but in the midst of it.
The passage continues with a staccato recitation of all the works of God, bringing us from the darkest of dark places into the very throne room of the universe. Paul skips a stone across some plenty deep waters in vss. 28-30.
So then like a rebel facing seemingly overwhelming odds, verses 31-35 thunders challenges to all that life can deliver. Paul calms the most anxious hearts with four questions and powerful answers.
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?”
Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?
Who is the one who condemns?
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
And to each question he lays down true truth that uplifts any believer regardless of circumstances. In short, because of Jesus’ life and work and death and resurrection and current reign, we can face all of life with calm assurance.
Then, not unlike a conductor bringing a score to crescendo, Paul concludes,
For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
To drive home the impact of these final two verses, experiment with saying the words out loud in the first person. Let truth sink in. Breathe in the security while still in the mess.
For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate me from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither my fears for today nor my worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate me from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate me from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There are chapters in our lives of which we can rightly say, “I never, ever, ever want to relive these days”, and yet still, after some time, we can grow thankful for them for what they brought in the closeness of God, the sweetness of friends, and the sense of hope for what is coming. This is a foretaste of shalom, the sense that in its time all will be well. The storms rage and yet the heart can be at peace.
That kind of resolute standing comes over time. Moments and seasons of shalom cannot be rushed and the good doesn’t have to outweigh the bad, emotionally or relationally. It just holds to the hope that God is at work, redeeming and untwisting and unscrambling life as we know it.
And in the process he will put our wounds to work. Our shared sufferings open the door to speak with others in the same place we have been. Our scars testify of God’s faithfulness in adversity. Our stories remind others they are not the only ones.
Why this? Why me? Why now?
I don’t know, and I will not trivialize your situation, but what I do know is that we follow a God, Jesus, who groaned with us, wept over loss, suffered our pain, and through it all paved a way to new life, here and forever.
For generations this has been God’s posture towards his people. All the way back to Isaiah’s time, the prophet declares truth that echoes God’s heart. Here is a familiar slice from the end of Is. 40:
He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.
Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion.
But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.
That’s my hope and my message. It is yours, too.
Here’s a prayer from Lectio 365 to end today’s message. Possibly consider folding it into your morning conversations with God.
Father, deliverer of your people, free me today from all that has bound me.
Lord Jesus, lead me and guide me on your life-giving way.
Holy Spirit, empower and strengthen me for all that lies ahead. I put my trust in you.
Music is always good for heart and soul
Funnies? Sure, you betcha.
Here’s one of Keillor’s jokes from the Tower
Women were originally created with three breasts. God saw that the middle one was overkill, so it was removed.
The woman, holding the extra boob, said to God, “What will do with this boob?”
So God created man.
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Returning from a trip to visit my grandmother in California, I was stopped by a state trooper in Kansas for exceeding the speed limit. Grateful to have received a warning instead of a ticket, I gave him a small bag of my grandmother's delicious chocolate-chip cookies and proceeded on my way.
Later, I was stopped by another trooper. "What have I done?" I asked.
"Nothing," the trooper said, smiling. "I heard you were passing out great chocolate-chip cookies."