Life, Death, Pain and Suffering

“If you have not suffered, you simply have not lived long enough,” my friend, Bill, once remarked.  He merely echoed Jesus’ admonition in John 16:33, “In the world you will have tribulation…” Suffering and pain are inevitable and so ugly that we instinctively wince and are repulsed even by the very thought.  People have responded to the problem of pain in a limited number of ways.

Eastern philosophy’s solution to suffering is to claim all of life is illusion, what is termed Maya.  Thus, suffering, too, is mere illusion and to be ignored.  Those strict followers of Hinduism and Buddhism who encounter others in the midst of suffering simply seek to ignore them rather than to relieve their suffering.  Yet, anything is only acceptable far away from me. So, when the Hindu’s parents suffer, the Hindu grieves. When the Buddhist’s pet dies, the Buddhist father comforts the child’s loss.  Yet, he does so without hope of resolution or purpose in the suffering and pain.

In Western civilizations secularists often react to suffering by distracting themselves with pleasure to divert their attention from the pain or with drugs to dull the ache or with mindless activities to occupy their existence.  Pain and suffering are to be avoided at all costs. Yet, again, the secularist responds to life’s exigencies without hope or purpose in the suffering he encounters.

Both the Eastern mystic and the Western secularist are reduced to resorting to “keeping a stiff upper lip,” to being stoic in the face of life’s most troubling circumstances—the debilitating illness of a child, the evaporation of income, the loss of faculties of a parent succumbing to dementia or the death of a spouse.  

Joni Mitchell’s song, “Both Sides Now,” reflects the utter despair that either worldview evokes, 

“I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life
At all”

It has been three months since my wife of 47 years died.  Three months filled with anguish, pain, suffering and the reality of death.  At times it is unbearable and so horrifying that I understand why some people crawl into a bottle or up a needle just to numb the rawness of loss.  Each morning begins with the sudden realization that Tabby is no longer next to me, and I sob; I wail. My loss is palpable—I feel it in every breath, in the touch of household objects, in the glance at a treasured photograph, in the aroma of my morning coffee or in the first notes of old, familiar tunes.  The pain is real; the pain is unavoidable. My heart has been amputated.

The Eastern mystic who tries to dismiss suffering as illusion and the secularist who claims death is merely the conclusion of a meaningless existence offer empty solutions to the problem of pain and death.  Even as a Christian I am tempted daily to cry out with the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, “All is vanity!” and then I am driven back to the only logical response to a life of pain ending in death. He who created my beautiful Tabby and loved her enough to experience death Himself to redeem her has a plan—not mine and certainly not the way I would write the story for my life.  

Death is not just the penalty for rebellion, but it is the most grievous, repulsive reminder of sin’s effects on believers and nonbelievers, as well.  Suffering and death serve to remind us of the ugliness of sin. So, I cry out to Him and trust that He Who created her holds her tenderly even in death and has conquered the grave.  He has promised to dry my tears, to heal my heart and to restore Tabby to life eternal for “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies…’” (John 11:25)

This good news is foolishness to the secularist and even to the Eastern mystic it remains an unknowable mystery.  Yet, the Apostle Paul boldly proclaims the hope that only followers of Jesus have,

“Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.  For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.  But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law;  but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  (I Corinthians 15:51-57)

For that hope, that promise, that Truth that Christianity provides, I continue to endure in the face of this gnawing, monstrous agony that only increases daily. I am admonished and commanded,

 “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” (I Corinthians 15:58)

Thus, I remain in Him for He assures me, “…but take courage, I have overcome the world.”  (John 16:33)

- Bill Jack

Dedicated of Bill’s wife, Tabby, whose long battle with cancer came to an end on July 23, 2019.
”Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful servants.” - Psalm 116:15