Wrestling Through the Night

(A reflection on Romans 5:1-5)

A couple of weeks ago at morning PT, I said something that got a few folks laughing.  I used a phrase that will send my daughter, Kathryn, into a fit of anger when her brother speaks it, a phrase we’ve all said or have heard spoken to us.  

We were doing base line runs on the soccer field at Nimitz Park with some form of calisthenics exercise at either base line.  A couple of younger Sailors were groaning about how horrible this workout was, how much it hurt, so Chaps put on his best sweaty smile and said, “Hey, you know what this is good for?  Builds Character!” And at that particular phrase, they started even louder: “You hear what Chaps says, this builds character!  Chaps is CRAZY!”

I don’t necessarily like that particular saying, I didn’t like being on the receiving end of it as a teenager, and I know my teens don’t care to hear it.  None of us do, and yet, here’s Paul talking to us today: “Suffering, Endurance, Character…Builds Character!”  And for many of us, we shut down at that word "character" because we don't want to hear that our physical or emotional pain is for our spiritual gain.

But Paul doesn't stop at character, even if we get hung up on that word.  Endurance builds character, but not just Character…Hope.  And with our hope, eventually, comes peace.  The thing is this can all turn pie in the sky really fast.  Or, if we aren’t careful, it can come across as a bumper sticker theology, or cloyingly cliché, ipecac theology.  You know ipecac right? The stuff that induces vomiting? Ipecac theology is the stuff that people say that makes us vomit in our mouths just a little bit.

So then, what does hope and peace look like for us as we suffer?  One commentary says, “Real peace is not something we automatically wake up with in the morning.  Real peace with God is a verb. It is more often a sweat-blood-and-tears process that requires of us an active cultivation of our relationship with God. It means having constant contact with God.”  For some constant contact looks like prayer, searching the Scriptures, or worship.

When I try to visualize constant contact with God, especially in the midst of suffering, I can only think of Jacob wrestling with God and saying, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”  And we struggle through the long and dark night until eventually light breaks and blessing comes.  And with the blessing comes a new, God-given, Grace-based identity, and afterward our walk is changed forever.

What then do we do with the idea that our justification (salvation) puts us right with God and yet we continue to suffer?  What do we do with those who would say to us that our suffering is a result of our individual or societal sin?  For Paul’s audience, this was certainly the case.  If you were suffering or enduring a trial, it was directly related to your disobedience to God, much like Job’s friends offered by way of counsel, much like the disciples asked Jesus about the man who was born blind (“who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”)

Is our forgiveness—our justification—a ticket to a life free from suffering?  Some would say yes, but life tells us otherwise.  And depending on where we fall in that area of thinking, we may feel disappointment when faced with suffering.  We may feel shame.

Paul says, in verse 5, “and hope does not disappoint us…” other translations say, “hope does not put us to shame.”  So when we find ourselves in places and moments of suffering we are not put to shame as we wrestle with God, as we strive to stay in constant contact with God, to keep our hope alive.  

And why is it that certain types of suffering are considered shameful? Why are displays of grief, expressions of loneliness, things that make us feel embarrassed? Why do we mask the realities of family addiction, or the pain of divorce?  Why do we feel shame in these moments?

Perhaps it is because we live in a culture that sees asking for help as a sign of weakness?  I am not just speaking of the military culture, it happens in the private sector, too.  Children are shamed for asking for additional help or direction in school, shamed by classmates, sometimes shamed by teachers.  

I recently heard about a family readiness program that happened during the month of the military child. The children were asked to write down positive ways their family handles stress.  One child wrote: “Suck it up.”

Why are we a “suck it up” culture? Because suffering and shame go hand in hand.  When we try to get to the source of someone’s suffering, we seek explanations, and usually ask in subtle or not so subtle ways, “what did you do to cause this?”

Sometimes, many times, we don’t do anything; it just happens.  And what we need, as people, are not answers to the question “Why?” but folks who will wrestle down hope with us.  Folks who will say, “I hate that you have to feel this pain. I am so sorry.”

How do we get to from suffering to hope?  With friends who sit with us, who weep with us, who wait with us…leaning on the promises that—even if by sheer will and determination—we will make it to tomorrow, we will make it through, one day at a time, until eventually we see the breaking of the dawn and the end of our dark night.