Embodied Hope
In an age of doctored social media photos and intrusive advertising campaigns, our lives have become far more marketable than honest. There may be a broken heart in every pew, a bottle of Tylenol in every purse, but there seems to be no place to be honest about debilitating sickness, mental illness, or the daily chronic pain that serves as our constant companions. The proof of this change is all around us. When is the last time that you’ve sang a song of lament? How many times have we asked “How are you?”, only to sigh that deep, regrettable sigh when they actually answer the question. When others ignore our problem, chronic pain becomes a far dearer companion to us because it never leaves nor forsakes us. As C.S. Lewis once wrote,
Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not “So there’s no God after all,” but “So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”
This is the problem that Kelly Kapic addresses. Kelly Kapic is a professor of theological study at Covenant College whose wife has suffered for years from a connective tissue disease. The pain caused by this disease remains a constant presence in her limbs and her family, so Kelly Kapic writes with a heavy dose of personal experience. Therefore, Kapic does not seek to justify God and His ways; instead, Kapic seeks to understand how we should relate to God in such condition. As he says, “God’s presence and power does not eliminate their struggle but rather provides the ultimate context for it.” Practically, this means that we lament with hope. What does this mean?
Many of us have hoped without lament, saying, “Oh, it’ll all work out in the end.” Others lament without hope, leading to despair. The final group has no hope nor lament, facing the world with a detached Stoicism. Lamenting with hope is the key to faithful suffering because it allows us to be honest with God about the fallenness of this world, for only such a compassionate God can alleviate our suffering. As one woman penned after a painful miscarriage, “God fills up my emptiness with the promise of His presence. I was not and am never left alone in my lament.” As Job, we have the freedom to be honest about the “taking away”, but this does not remove us from the blessed God who gives.
How does Kapic instruct us in faithful suffering? He frames our current plight around Christ as One with us in the Incarnation, One for us in the cross, and One risen and reigning on our behalf in heaven. God does not tell us to bypass our sorrow; instead, He powerfully entered into our sorrow through the suffering of His Son. In his kindness, Christ reigns as Head of the church, a community of the faithful who enter into and walk with us into our suffering. As Luther said, “When we feel pain, when we suffer, when we die, let us turn to this, firmly believing and certain that it is not we alone, but Christ and the church who are in pain and suffering and dying with us.”
Herein lies the “nuts and bolts” of Kapic’s theological meditation. Suffering isolates us from one another; therefore, Kapic provides practical means for the church serving and caring for those in pain, turning this affliction into action. If the power of Christ is made known in our weakness, we must not suffer alone. These moments are when we can develop Christian character, when we can enter into times of confession, and when we can display the power of the gospel to a lost and dying world. In a word, Kapic equips us with how to suffer well.
If you slow down and listen long enough, you will see the many ills and ailments gnawing away at those around you. As I said, there is a broken heart on every pew and a bottle of Tylenol in every pursue. Together, we must take these precious truths of the gospel and minister to the lowly and afflicted among us. I could not recommend a better resource for doing so than Embodied Hope.
You can purchase Embodied Hope here.
