Suffering
Summary
Dominic Jackson explores the hard, honest question of suffering through John 16 and Romans 8. Jesus does not hide the reality of trouble, but he does promise his presence and his victory. This sermon invites us to name pain without minimizing it, to rediscover lament as a faithful practice, and to trust that God is at work even when healing or resolution feels far away. We are reminded that creation groans, we groan, and the Spirit even groans with us—and that the cross reveals God’s pattern of turning what is darkest into redemption and hope.
Questions for reflection
When you hear Jesus say, “In this world you will have trouble,” what emotions surface in you—relief, fear, cynicism, gratitude? Why?
The sermon suggests that one of the first responses to a hurting world is presence—learning how to “sit in the dark” with others. Who might need that kind of presence from you right now?
Where are you tempted to either minimize your pain or let it define you? What would honest lament with enduring hope look like for you?
Romans 8 portrays the Spirit as interceding with “wordless groans.” Where do you feel out of words right now—and how might that be an invitation to trust?
The cross is framed as God’s pattern of turning the ugliest thing into something redemptive. Is there a wound in your story you’ve assumed God can’t touch? What might it mean to cautiously reopen that assumption?
The sermon ends with the claim that Jesus has seen every sin we’ve committed and every tear we’ve cried. Which side of that sentence do you most need to hear today—and why?
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We continue our series this morning on beauty, which in many ways has been a study on perspective. We've explored subjects like identity and worship and nature, the natural world, and next week we're going to look at mystery the whole time acknowledging how for some things can appear foreign or confusing, wrong, immoral, unloving, unwell, and yet to God we get a new lens, new eyes, a new heart in order to see. Today we put this ideal to the ultimate test by looking at the concept of suffering and right away, many of you are probably either unconvinced, wondering how in the world can I say anything good, let alone beautiful about trials and pain and suffering and difficulty or on the other end, perhaps you've been around church circles long enough, you're already filling in the blanks of my message and maybe even internally rolling your eyes a little bit at the idea of yet another message on how your pain is actually a good thing. And so suck it up. Pull yourself up and hear are a few Bible verses to guilt you into smiling more or repressing your pain, right? We've heard those sermons before. I've heard those sermons before, but I'd like to suggest that maybe there is another way not to minimize or pretend our pain doesn't exist, but also not to allow it to define us. Let's pray and then we're going to hop into our text one more time.
Lord, as we look a difficult passage and an even more difficult perspective, I can't help but think of that quote from GK Chesterton that the worst moment for the atheist is when he is especially grateful and has no one to think. I'll add. The worst moment for the Christian is when she is in desperate need of help and feels like there's no one reaching back. And so wherever every one of us find ourselves this morning with whatever we're walking through, however we feel and believe, I pray that you reveal yourself to us now. Meet us where we are, but Lord, don't leave us where you find us. Amen.
This morning, the itinerary for the day. This morning I'm going to start, we're going to reread the section that Addie read for us. We're going to look at the end of that. It really, it's a warning from Jesus about trials and difficulties. Then we'll jump ahead to a message from Paul elaborating on this concept a little bit. We're going to look at three different responses to pain and suffering, and then lastly, we'll return to the same warning where we started. And so it's kind of be like a sad suffering sandwich if you will. Happy Thanksgiving. Good to be with you all. Welcome to the Gateway Church on this cheerful day. But honestly, we're going to look at this and somehow this is going to have something to do with beauty. If you're curious how, if promise, you're not more curious than I am to find out how this all goes.
So back to our primary text, John records we're in John 16, John records, Jesus is preparing his disciples and I have to admit it is not a very good sales pitch from Jesus. Jesus says, follow me. Things are bad. They're going to get worse. Pick up your cross, die to yourself. It will be awful. Come follow me. Anyway, then Jesus closes with these strange, encouraging and yet ominous words. He says in verse 33, I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace in this world, you will have trouble. But take heart, I've overcome the world. Notice that Jesus doesn't say in this world you will find trouble, but take heart through me. You can overcome the world. He doesn't say, I have told you these things so that if you have enough faith and believe enough and trust enough and pray enough and tithe enough, you can overcome and live your best life.
Now, Jesus doesn't say that. He says in this world as in by being human disciple or not by existing in this world you will have trouble. To be human is to suffer. Jesus sounds a little bit like Nietzche here or like your favorite emo band singer In this moment, right? To be human is to suffer. In this world you will find trouble, but he doesn't end here. He adds, but take heart for I have overcome the world, which is comforting and great knowing that the strength and power of Jesus is there. But what about you on die? I'm glad Jesus has overcome the world, but what do we do while we're here? In the meantime, what I want to do is pause from this warning from Jesus, we will come back to it, but pause Jesus' warning about troubles and suffering here. But first I want to look at three different responses to pain, the pain of being on this earth.
And I want to look at these three responses from the world, the self and God. Or better yet, we'll look at suffering around you, suffering within you and suffering because of you once again, happy Thanksgiving, good to be with you all on this cheerful day. So let's talk a little bit about groaning. Turn with me if you have a copy of the scriptures to Romans eight. It's a few books over from our passage in John. By the way, if you don't have a copy of the scriptures, a Bible, speak to one of us and we have plenty. We would love to give one to you on your way out. Romans eight, if you haven't read it. In my opinion, it is one of the most beautiful chapters in the scriptures. It begins with no condemnation and it ends with no separation. It's this love letter in a lot of ways from the creator to the created and we're going to hop right into the middle of it.
Romans 8 22. Let's look at the groaning of the world. Verse 22. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time. Pause there for a moment. Here is Paul, the Apostle Paul, approximately 20 to 25 years after Jesus was in the upper room preparing the disciples for pain and suffering and giving 'em that warning. Now here is Paul writing to a group of people who have or will face persecution. Paul himself has been tortured, beaten. He will be murdered and murdered and right in the middle of this beautiful declaration about pushing on and pushing through, we have this section on groaning and we'll actually see three times, we'll read that word again. The groaning of the world, the groaning of ourselves and the groaning of God. And maybe when you hear that word groaning, you think of annoyance.
I think about trying to get my toddlers dressed every single morning and one of them I need to plead with to brush their teeth and the other one, stop eating toothpaste like it's candy. I don't know which one is worse. And they both respond the same way with groaning and or tears, right? Or maybe you think of groaning, you think about if you have teenagers trying to get them to do anything right? Or maybe you have a coworker who's constantly annoyed when they're asked to work right? Whatever it is. When I hear of groaning, I think of annoyance, but here this is closer to as we'll. See, it's like this deep guttural, almost involuntary response. Something inside us has to escape out of us. It's a loud, desperate longing that becomes a noise. This is the groaning that Paul is addressing here, and according to him, all of humanity, all of creation groans.
Jesus says to be human as a sufferer and Paul adds to suffer is to groan. He even says in one Corinthians that death is the last enemy to be defeated death. The height of suffering is both inevitable and defeatable, but in the meantime, the world groans and considering this is a series on beauty, I'd like to offer a few ways you and I find ourselves in the world's suffering and groaning. Here is the opportunity we have. We'll get back to Romans eight in a moment. But first a word on the world's suffering. Of course, I could have opened up my news app and there's a strong possibility of more civil unrest of another natural disaster, another corrupt politician. But the problem with this for many of us is how entirely normal this all is, at least for me. And if you're like me, sometimes you scroll through and I catch myself just almost unfazed looking for a number as I'm reading these stories, oh, only 10 were killed In that event, only 300 were displaced by that natural disaster.
And so it becomes so normal that we forget we are talking about real, living, breathing people on the other side of that story. And so as hard as this is to hear and even harder to read, I wanted to share a story from the perspective of a real person, a real living, breathing human, and not just a soundbite or a news story and selling between the stars. Stephen James shares the words of a missionary in Guatemala in the nineties who documented everything and everyone she met during six months of serving in the small village, in the jungle, a place called Yelp of Mitch. And in one entry she writes, today I met a girl in the village named Ranita. Her name means little queen, and she just turned seven. She lives with her family on the edge of town in a 15 by 15 house with her six siblings and her father pto.
And each day Ranita runs out to meet Polito when he comes home from the fields, despite the poverty and malaria and cholera outbreaks, the people here are so friendly. Most of the day is spent on survival. There's no time to wonder about tomorrow to worry about it or plan for it. No one ever mentions tomorrow. Here today I learned that Renita has a rare blood disease, one that causes sores on a person's face and hands. Ranita mentioned to me that she once asked her father if she will die from the sores on her body in which her dad answered. Honestly, everyone dies. Ranita death is a door to heaven and heaven is on the other side to a child. That was answer enough, the missionary continues. On a later entry today, PTO returned home from the fields, but Nita didn't run out to meet him because she was too weak to stand.
Instead, she lay in bed surrounded by her six siblings. When PTO walked into the room, he knelt down and took her hand. Why aren't the roosters singing Father? She asked, it's not yet. Morning Ranita, he replied, the roosters will sing in the morning. All that night, Polito stayed up with Ranita, his little queen. Together they sing songs to Jesus by candlelight. Later, Ranita whispered again, why don't the rooster sing? Father, her words were much softer. Now ranita, it is not yet morning, but slowly, Knight gave way to dawn and as the sun rose, the rooster sing and Polito carried his little queen out in the morning lights and there in his arms Ranita died smiling at the rising sun, listening to the Song of the roosters.
What do we do with a story like that? If you are like me, you hear this and you feel gutted, heartbroken, imagining this and knowing how in so many places in the world, this is normal and especially now that I'm a dad, I can't even imagine. So maybe you hear that and you feel overwhelmed with grief. Maybe you're angry, angry at the injustices in the world, knowing that there are billionaires out there and if they weren't so greedy, things like this are curable. Maybe you hear this and feel guilty knowing that the only reason, the only difference that our children showed up here today healthy and fed and hydrated and clean is because they won the cosmic lottery and they happen to be born on this side of the planet. Or maybe you hear a story like this and your attention goes to God either with confusion or disappointment or anger.
We're going to come back to these feelings and emotions and responses. We will. But first I'd like us to consider as we're looking out, as the world groans, I'd like us to first consider what is the opportunity that we have to respond to those who are hurting? We'll come back to our own feelings momentarily, but what is the opportunity we have, not just when we hear stories like this, but when we walk into them, and maybe it won't be walking into a jungle for you and I, but regardless, as followers of Jesus, what is the opportunity that we have when the world groans? First, I'd like to suggest when the world is hurting, we have an opportunity to sit in the dark with those who are hurting. In the Hebrew tradition, Jewish believers participate in something called sitting Shiva. It's a response when a person goes through an unspeakable tragedy.
And basically all it means is that the community comes around them and sits with them in it. And the invitation for the loved ones is to mirror that person hurting. If they want to cry, you cry with them. If they want to pray, you pray with them. If they want to eat, you, eat alongside them. If they want to rest, you are resting. And whatever it is they need, whatever they are doing, the role of the community is to sit with them in it to be a physical, literal presence. And what the Jewish community discovered hundreds of years ago is what modern psychologists and therapists are saying today, which is the essence of trauma isn't just events, it is aloneness within them. When the world groans, we join in on its pain. And speaking of, did you know that the etymology of the word compassion, the word passion is actually a reference to suffering.
Think of passion of the Christ. The earliest use of the word is this extreme grueling pain and suffering that somebody goes through. And so showing someone compassion means to cos suffer with them. It's joining in on another person's pain. That's what showing compassion is. Think about it from your own perspective. If I were to say hypothetically I'm not, but if I were to say, Hey, stand up if you've ever been to Hawaii or stand up if you speak Spanish or stand up if you've voted for this candidate. And some of us would look out into the room and say like, oh, you too. That's so cool. And you would connect with somebody in it, right? And people would say, oh, I didn't know that about you. But instead, if I were to say, stand up, if you ever lost somebody to cancer, stand up. If you ever lost a child, stand up.
If you ever watched your parent being thrown into a cop car, knowing that as those headlights shrunk, they weren't going away for a night, they were going away for decades. If I were to say that any of these things, yeah, the Dodgers and Hawaii and our favorite TV shows and records and stuff, that's great, but even stronger would be the connections and conversations happening beside the coffee cart as we left here today, knowing when you see someone else who knows what that pain looks like and feels like, that would connect us in a whole new way. So when the world groans, whether we are just joining in on someone's pain or we have experienced it ourselves, we see humanity, we have opportunity and we find company back to Romans, my least favorite part, our own groaning verse 23. Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship the redemption of our bodies.
He's talking about death here, but more so he's talking about rebirth, eternity, redemption, restoration, reconciliation. Here he's saying, while we wait to be completely reconciled to Christ, whether we die and go to him or he comes back in the flesh to us either way as believers in the meantime, we groan ourselves inwardly, since this is the bulk of where we're going this morning, I'd like to share just a few takeaways from the second groaning yours and mine. The first is sometimes suffering is for our benefit. Hear me out though. I do not believe suffering was part of God's plan for humanity. My opinion, you could disagree, but I believe plan A is on the first and last pages of the scriptures, Eden, a garden, a place with no hurting or suffering or sin. But then we showed up on the scene and things went south real quick.
But even though I do not believe this is what God desires for us, he still often uses this for our benefit. For example, there's a story you might be familiar with, especially if you grew up in VBS or Sunday school or flannel board characters. Maybe you know this one. There's a story of these three guys with really cool names and in the story they do the right thing. They are faithful, they stand up for their faith and they are condemned to death for it sentenced to be burned alive. And so they pray and pray and pray and we see that in the text and what happens next? Does God bring down a rainstorm to extinguish the fire? Does he turn the evil king's heart at the last minute? Does he blind the guard so that they can escape, escape their fate? No, God does nothing, and the men are thrown into the furnace prayers unanswered all because they did what was right in the eyes of God all for pursuing him, all for standing up to evil and now they will burn, but the story doesn't end there.
The account says that as the king watches the men thrown into the fire, he looks into the furnace and he sees the fourth man appearing as a son of God. The text says next to them, not only are the men eventually rescued and pulled out from the fire, we read that their chains and ropes are burned away and not even a hair on their head. ISSed, it's important to note in this story, God wasn't the one who sent them to the fire. God didn't condemn these mens to death. That was King Nebuchadnezzar, that was all him. But even though God wasn't responsible for their punishment, he still allowed it to happen. Sometimes God allows us to go through the fire to burn away. All that is holding us back. All that is binding us for Shadrach, Meshach and ab Bendigo. It wasn't just their ropes and change, but also their skepticism.
See, right before this all took place, right before receiving their punishment, the king gives them in one last chance and he asked them in what God will be able to save you. And though they are brave, you can still hear the doubt in their response. They say, if the God we serve is able to deliver us, then he will. Sounds a lot like the word spoken by a grieving father who brings his possessed child to Jesus. If you can heal him, if there's so much in that word, and even though God did not send these men to the fire, he still used the fire to free them. I believe that sometimes God allows us to go through trials or even puts us through them to refine us and burn away all the junk in our lives. Sometimes when you are in a dark place, you think you've been buried, but you've actually been planted sometimes to quote the great old southern theologian, Garth Brooks, some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. That's a throwback for you. I've seen this in my own life though. Doors close relationships, end jobs passed up. No callbacks, no second chances. And I look back on those moments and now I praise God for them, whether it is God closing the door or meeting us behind the closed door. Often God does his best work when we are at our worst, but this isn't always the case. Sometimes suffering doesn't resolve this side of heaven.
It's not always an afterschool special. Sometimes we don't see the redemption. Sometimes God says not yet. Other times he just says no and there is no happy ending, at least none that we can see. Those three men got rescued from the fire. Many people didn't. And I have a long list of all those times. God said no, and I'm so glad that he did. But I have just as many where I begged him and no miracle, no divine intervention, no lesson or antidote times like when I got the phone call that my middle school youth leader had been arrested for abusing kids. This was like a hero to me, somebody I looked up to or my grandmother suffering a terrible long death or us losing a child this year or so many other things and there's no Sunday school answer. There's no cheesy country song lyrics there.
There's no God saying, I'm going to take this but give you something better. I was in third grade, I didn't get a new grandma. She didn't walk downstairs one day healed dancing better than ever. She just died. What do I do with that? Where's the cute little nicely tied up lesson there in a bit. I'll conclude with something I have learned that has radically changed the way I see my own suffering and my own pain. It won't all be a bummer, but in the meantime, let me just tell you something that I have discovered years ago that radically changed my faith and my pain. I remember coming to faith and discovering the Psalms and feeling like somebody had tossed me a life jacket in a hurricane. I still felt like I was drowning, but at least I didn't feel like I was alone and I could tread water for a little bit.
I remember reading the very word of God in the Psalms at times, doubting God, the word of God, doubting God, doubting his presence, his care, his love. Even Psalm 77 and Psalm 88 became a lifeline in my prayer life. Then I discovered that nearly 40% of the Psalms are laments, where God not only allows us permission to grieve and cry and yell and scream at him, but he also meets us in it. Walter Brueggeman says, the laments are refusals to settle for the way things are. They're acts of relentless hope, that believe no situation falls outside Yahweh's capacity for transformation. God's heart isn't just to see us in the dark or save us from the dark. It is to sit with us in the dark. And while we find ourselves there in the dark, we have an opportunity, our third takeaway to turn to God. Remember that connection we have when someone else is going through something else and we make that connection with them. While our pain is also an opportunity to experience God's care even if the pain didn't come from him but came from evil, from Satan or from ourselves, Saint Augustine confesses in my deepest wound, I saw your glory and it astounded me.
There is this connection, this presence that can only be experienced in our lowest. Everybody wants a miracle, but nobody wants to be in the place where they need a miracle. This reminds me of when Susanna Wesley, mother of John and Charles Wesley, the great preachers and theologian, she was asked which of her 19 yes 19 children, which of her 19 children that she loved the most? And without a second thought she responded, the one who is sick, lost, hurting, or forgotten. God, as our parent sees us, draws near us and when we hurt, we have this unique opportunity to experience the God who pursues us in our pain or we can turn away. And I've done this plenty of times in my own life. We can become bitter or we can become better and our suffering can transform us or deform us. And the difference is who we are leaning on in it.
Next takeaway, our suffering is also a testimony to the hope that we have. I don't say this to heap more guilt and responsibility on you when you are at your lowest. This isn't a fake it until you make it talk. It's not telling you to pretend everything is okay for the sake of others. The Psalms prove that. But it's a moment where as we look for answers, others look at how we are searching. Philip Yancy after being diagnosed with Parkinson's, reflects on his time as a journalist and his findings and observations of people and pain. He writes In my writing career, this is Yancy. I have interviewed US presidents, rock stars, professional athletes, actors and other celebrities. I have also profiled leprosy patients in India, pastors in prison for their faith in China, women rescued from sexual trafficking, parents of children with rare genetic disorders and many who suffered with diseases more debilitating than Parkinson's.
His own diagnosis as I reflected on the two groups, here's what stands out. Those who live with pain and failure tend to be better stewards of their life circumstances than those who live with success and pleasure hear this pain redeemed impresses me more than pain removed. The suffering of Christians is what separates us from every other response and worldview out there. And though we should hold this with both vulnerability and honesty. Again, I'm not saying fake it till you make it, though we hold that we also have a hope that the world does not. You're getting all the good quotes today, Tim Keller, with phenomenal book. I cannot recommend this enough. Walking with God through pain and suffering says, while other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life's joys for seeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world's sorrows tasting, the coming joy, tasting joy.
This is a testimony to the goodness of God, to knowing the story does not end here, to believing that our suffering and our pain will be replaced with joy and laughter one day. If we want the world hungry for God, we have to eat in front of it once in a while. And it's not just in our celebration, it is also in our sorrow that as Paul concludes in this section, if God is with us, who can be against us? One more takeaway from our own groaning, our pain can be redeemed for beauty. Matt mentioned this last week that many Christians will point to the cross as the most beautiful act that ever took place on earth and have faced value. Nothing could be further from the truth. An innocent man beaten, abused, tortured, and eventually murdered. It was bloody. It was violent, gruesome to those watching.
But for believers, we call this beautiful because God took something ugly, the ugliest event to ever happen and turned it into the most redemptive act ever. And God has the power to do the same with our pain. Even the things that were not part of the plan, even the things that are the result of the evil one, even the things that are the result of our own sin. Just like the cross, God turns this into beauty. Remember when Jesus showed back up on the scene after defeating death and Thomas reaches out to touch his scars. The scars no longer represent death here. Now they represent life for something for Thomas to put his faith in, but they also represent victory. And many of us are walking around with limps and I have plenty of my own scars, some of them I even tattooed on myself and many of them represent deeply troubling memories.
But also for me and probably for you, many of my scars are invisible. The body keeps score. But I think of the God who still chose to keep the nail marks on his body as a sign of redemption restoration, the end of death, the beginning of life, true life. The thing meant for evil to become good. And then lastly, and I hope this gives us new perspective, we looked in Romans as the world groans. We looked at how we grown, many of us grown more the older we get, and then our passage is going to end. We're going to bring it out, finish it home with God himself, groaning verse 26. In the same way the spirit helps us in our weakness, we do not know what we ought to pray for, but the spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God.
What's interesting is though we have many passages that refer to God's speaking and Christ praying and the spirit interceding or communicating. As far as I know, there's only one verse in all of the scriptures where we have a recorded prayer of Holy Spirit. And it's in Revelation 22, 17 which says, the spirit and the bride both say, come the spirit is praying the same prayer, the church, the bride, you and I are praying come Lord Jesus, we desire for the return of Christ, for every wrong to be made right, for pain to subside. And the Spirit joins us in that prayer, longing for justice, for hope, for healing, for reconciliation. See, we do not grieve apart from God, but alongside God, he listens. In fact, our verse tells us that God is so in tune to us, desires to hear from us, join us so much that he literally translates our own groans into his own God, here's what you are asking for even when you don't have the words.
And so the spirit of God is right there groaning alongside of us, not just as translation as someone read this, but also experience for transformation. And it isn't just here. We read in Genesis three about God himself seeing our pain, how we hurt one another, seeing our sin, how we hurt ourselves. And the text says God's heart was deeply troubled. See, the world hurts. We hurt, but so too does God hurt. We see Jesus weeping when losing his friend Lazarus. We see him weeping in the garden we see on Palm Sunday sitting outside of the city. Gates weeping not for himself, but for the very humans who would turn on him. And maybe this picture of God, a God who feels and hurts and grieves is so ingrained in our minds as followers of Jesus that we don't really think about how radical this is in today's culture.
The most shocking, offensive, scandalous claim that you could make is that Jesus was not just a good teacher. That Jesus was not just a good moral example or a guru or a prophet, but that he is God and he is the only way and true and light. And this is crazy and offensive to many that Jesus doesn't fit on the coexist bumper sticker if you take his word seriously. But for most of human history, most of Christian history, I should say the most shocking claim about Christianity wasn't this. It was the belief in a God who suffers and almighty all powerful God on the cross. Are you kidding me? Your God weeps? What kind of God is that? The scoffers would say, my God controls lightning and thunder and can snap his finger and wipe out all of humanity in which the Christians would say mine too. Mine holds all power and strength to destroy humanity, but mine also has the heart to save humanity, to die for humanity. And this in a vending machine of gods and powers and whose is the strongest and most mighty is scandalous. The one who can give and take away life is also the one who defeated death by becoming death in the ultimate act of love.
And so our passage ends with more groaning, not just from humanity, not just from us, but from God himself. The God who weeps. So I'm going to close with this. I'm going to close with some good news and some bad news, bad news first, in this world, you will have trouble in this world. You'll have pain, you'll suffer, you will grieve, you will hurt, you will groan. It's called being human. That's the bad news. Here's the good news, take heart. Jesus says, for I have overcome the world, God meets us where we are in our pain, from me to polito, to a grieving mother, to a scared father awaiting a diagnosis to a person who feels like they have hit rock bottom to the prisoner, the soldier, the orphan. Jesus meets us not just to sit with us, but also to lead us. I think of the words a father told his child a long time ago.
The end is the beginning where we find a door to heaven. And in that door, the roosters rise to sing. And I meet my baby in heaven who didn't make it, and Polito finds his and they walk us to our Father who has not only been waiting for us, but we realize has been there all along and the door swings open again. I know how the story ends. I've read the last pages of the Bible. God sees our pain. He experiences our pain. He redeems our pain. Yes, but he also defeats it. If you hear one thing I say this morning, please hear this, Jesus has seen every sin we have ever committed. Every single one of us are guilty. Jesus has seen every sin we have ever committed, but he has also seen every tear we have ever cried. And one day he will wipe away both.
Let's pray together. Lord, I imagine that for many of us, we have experienced pain and hurting where we have either tried to grit through it, minimize it, handle it ourselves before approaching the throne, or we have allowed it to mark our lives. For many of us, myself included, there are parts of my story that we have not invited you into, whether out of anger or mistrust, fear, pain, weakness, shame. And so I see that this is an invitation that we have here to turn to you who tells us to lay down our burdens at your feet. Who takes our sins and the sins that have happened to us and the sins that have happened because of us and the sins that simply exist from living in a fallen world. You take them all, not just on the cross, but also in the empty tomb. And so Lord Jesus, come our prayer is a simple one. Meet us where we are this morning, and our grief, and our pain, and our anger, and our despair, and our victory and our resilience in our struggles, in our grudges, and in our groaning return to you now, the God who weeps, the God who leads the God who holds us, the God who heals us, the God who overcomes this world and all the pain and suffering in it, let us experience that healing both as a taste of it now on earth as it is in heaven and again in eternity. Amen.