Some Pain Needs a Story

A year ago, the FBI announced the completion of “Operation Varsity Blues,” a nationwide scam in which wealthy parents paid outrageous bribes to get their children into prestigious colleges like Yale and Stanford. Fifty people were charged in the scandal, including parents, test administrators for the ACT and SAT, and college coaches who all collaborated in getting unqualified students admitted to big-name schools.

In addition to the bribes, the folks involved in this scandal falsified test scores on the ACT and SAT exams, made up fake awards and honors on the students’ college applications, paid professionals to take tests or attend classes for the students, and put the students on college athletic teams for which the students had no actual athletic experience. Some parents even photo shopped their kids’ faces over the bodies of professional athletes to make it look like their kids had real athletic experience.

Trevor Noah from The Daily Show quipped, “Some of these parents allegedly paid up to $6.5 million, which is insane. Honestly, for that amount of money, just buy a smarter kid!”

It’s easy to make fun of people who have many privileges. Did they earn them? Do they deserve them? Are they just slackers with more money than brains? We like to believe that we deserve all the blessings we have in our lives. We’ve worked for them. We really hold tight to this idea of being a self-made man or woman. We get angry if people suggest that we benefit from some unearned privilege. But we do.

Look at today’s Gospel: “As (Jesus) went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’”

There it is again. This issue of deserving our blessings has been around a long time. The underlying belief here is that suffering also must be deserved. But if the blind man didn’t deserve his disability, then we don’t deserve our ability. We don’t deserve our blessings and comfort and safety and health and happiness if he didn’t deserve his blindness. And if none of us deserves our lot in life, then none of us can boast or complain if our lot in life changes, if we test negative or positive for Covid-19, for instance.

In the Gospels, when someone comes to Jesus with a question, Jesus usually answers with another question, or with a parable or a challenge. In fact, author Philip Yancey says he once heard a theologian say that Jesus was asked 183 questions in the Bible, and he only answered three of them directly. Three out of one-hundred-eighty-three.

So sit up and pay attention. This is one of the most important questions of human existence. And it’s one of the few instances when Jesus answers a question directly. Why was this man blind? “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him . . .”

After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “Wash in the Pool of Siloam.”  So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

Notice that there are two acts of healing in these four verses. There is, of course, the physical healing.  But I think the first act of healing occurred when the blind man heard Jesus say, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Jesus’ statement gave the man hope and relieved the man of the thought that his disability was somehow a curse that made him a lesser man. And this hope is evidenced by the fact that the blind man got up and went to the pool of Siloam to wash the mud off his eyes.

Have you ever tried walking across a hotel room in the dark? So can you imagine how far that blind man had to stumble, trusting that this stranger wasn’t lying to him, wasn’t tricking him, but actually had the power to restore his sight? We don’t know for sure where the man was when Jesus healed him. But a trip to Siloam and back from the nearest wall of the temple, for example, would be about 1,300 yards.

Would you crawl even half that distance on the word of a stranger? Jesus’ words gave this man so much hope that he was willing to take that risk.

A well-known professor in the field of management has said something profound about suffering: “There’s some pain that needs a solution, and some pain that needs a story.” In this moment, Jesus gave the blind man both a solution—physical healing—and a story: That he was not disabled by some sin that either his parents or he had committed.

Most of us know what it is to carry around certain pains in life for which there is no solution. An unanswered prayer. An undeserved burden. And so we beg God for a solution. But what if God gives us a story instead?

God can use every part of your life for His glory.  Many of us settle for a wimpy calling. We’re content if we’re just good people who go to church and help our neighbor occasionally. We’re not a shining example of the love, the strength, the power and the grace of Almighty God. Part of the reason for that is because we hide our suffering and questions and pains from each other. We think that our weakness makes us less of a witness for Christ. Instead, it’s walking in faith through our pain that causes others to see God’s glory in our lives.

God can use your bad news. Our blessings don’t draw people to God. No one is in awe of a healthy, smart, wealthy person who has it all together. No, we’re in awe of those who overcome hard times, who choose joy in the face of sorrow, who choose love in the face of betrayal or hatred. People need to see the character and power of God in how you handle your suffering.

Currently, there are plenty of folks suffering from the effects of Covid-19: physically, mentally, spiritually, financially. The stress meter for all of us is off the scale right now.

Well, the formerly blind man’s story is one of hope and love and life and grace. It’s the story of what Jesus did in him. And he refused to be silenced by the fear tactics of the Pharisees. When they interrogated him, they accused Jesus of being a sinner. And the formerly blind man said, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”

And remember, we never know who needs to hear God’s story through us. 

Yes, there’s some pain that needs a solution, and some pain that needs a story. You may never get an answer to your “Why this Coronavirus?” So change the question to “How can God use this situation?”  “How can God use me?”

We ask God for a reason; God gives us a purpose.

It can be the story of how God is glorified in our weakness, not in our strength, of how God is glorified in our perseverance more than our power. God is glorified more by our attitudes than by our achievements. And God is using our pain to grow us into people who reflect His glory and draw others to Him.

Someone needs to hear the story of God in your life, especially in these times of fear and uncertainty. So how can you share it? Not just the shiny, happy parts. For you see, God is glorified in the tough parts. The great news is that God can use your bad news to share the good news. Will you let Him?