6 September 2005

A series of devotions based on "Theology of the Pain of God" by Kazoh Kitamori.

God in pain is the God who resolves our human pain by his own. Jesus Christ is Lord who heals our human wounds by his own (1 Peter 2:24).
This them contains two important points: (1) Our God is the One who resolves our pain and the Lord who heals. (2) Yet this God is the wounded Lord, having pain in himself.

It is most important that we do not make this less than what it is. Our God is the wounded Lord not be suffering pain as a "god" would. Our God suffers pain as we would. Nothing is cut short and therefore we are never cut short of the presence of our God in all our pain no matter what might be the extent of our pain. When I was growing up my two brothers and I shared one bedroom (now that would be considered the unbearable pain). To fit the beds into the room, my bed and my older brother's bed would be pushed together. Sometimes, during really loud thunderstorms, my brother would ask "Do you want to hold hands?" And of course...I did! There we were, frightened together and yet this was my "older" brother - frightened like me...with me. Our God takes us into and through the wounds of our lives as one who goes through it all with us. This is no "fix-it" god who is too big to feel my pain - in fact, our God shows that this pain is a real part of life that is never a place and time that anyone is abandoned or forsaken. Just this week I was alarmed by how many politicians said "I know their frustration," as they tried to speak for the victims of Katrina. Well, to be quite frank, no they didn't. We cannot know that without having been in the depths of that kind of pain...and few if any of the politicians have been. This does not mean that you must suffer the same pain as mine...but you must know the presence of such real pain to simply say "I will do what I can to help them through their pain and all that it brings.

Connection: Listen. Before all else, listen so that we can become aware of the pain others are attempting to live in and through. And then, along the way with them, life will begin to unfold and there will be no one left alone in their pain.

At the very center of the story of your love, we hear of death and pain and humiliation and yet we see that it is you, O God, who endures it just as we do each day. We also are encouraged to hear of how life is transformed through such pain and yet how the pain itself is transformed as we see you move through the power of death itself. Keep us steadfast in this journey of life that is not afraid to abide in all things for you are with us without end. Amen.