"Finding Purpose in Your Pain"

John 2: 1-11

     Dear Friends in Christ,     

   I came across a true story recently about a missionary couple named Martin and Gracia Burnham.  They married with mission work on their hearts, with a desire to carry the Gospel of Christ overseas.  So overseas they went to the Philippine Islands.  For the next 18 years they lived there, raising their 3 children in that foreign culture, learning the language and the ways of those they served.  Martin and Gracia were a model Christian couple, willing to make great sacrifices for the One who had sacrificed so much for them some 2000 years ago.  Which makes what happened to them all the more puzzling. 

   On May 27, 2001 they were celebrating their wedding anniversary at a beachside resort in the Philippines when terrorists attacked and took them and the other guests hostage.  For over a year the Burnham’s were chained to guards, marched through jungles, and given little food.  They were promised that if they would renounce Christianity and convert to Islam they would be set free.  Of course, that was never an option for them. 

   Finally, on June 7, 2002 Philippine rangers located and stormed the hideout where the terrorists were keeping them.  In the shootout that followed, a bullet entered Gracia’s leg and a bullet took Martin’s life.  She was left a widow. And we’re left to wonder, how do we explain something like that?  I mean, it’s one thing to suffer for doing something bad, to catch a bullet if you’re in a gang or the Mafia or if you’re doing a drug deal that goes bad.  But how do we explain such suffering when somebody is doing something so good, like the Burnham’s were?  And while you’re trying to explain that calamity, how do you explain yours?  Oh, maybe you haven’t been taken hostage by terrorists, but I’m sure there are times when you feel like you have been taken hostage by some of the struggles that have come your way, struggles that we’ve talked about a lot in the sermon series on Jesus that I’ve been preaching for some time now entitled “The One and Only” and that we bring to a conclusion today.  And the reason we’ve focused a lot on these struggles is because any serious study of the life of Christ is going to reveal a wide variety of difficulties that people experienced and that Jesus helped them with.  So if you’ve been asking the question “Why?” lately, as I’m sure many people did in connection with that missionary couple we just heard about, if you’ve been looking for some purpose in your pain, some reason for your suffering, perhaps we can find an answer in the story that we have before us today in John 2.

   We begin then with the presence of a problem.  In vv. 1-3 we read: “On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.  When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine.’"  In order to appreciate this problem, we need to understand a few things about weddings in ancient Israel.  First of all, they would last up to 7 days, during which time the host was expected to provide for all the needs of the guests.  That’s a long time, isn’t it, especially to provide food and drink?  Having done that for some 400 people back in April at my daughter Kim’s wedding, I know how expensive that can be.  But that was for just one night.  Imagine doing that for an entire week!  And apparently sometime during that week the supply of wine was depleted.  Now compared to being taken hostage in the jungles of the Philippines this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.  But if this is your wedding and you have no more wine, it is a big deal.  For wine was to a Jewish wedding  what a wedding cake is to ours.  Can you imagine walking into your reception as bride and groom and somebody coming up to you and saying, “The baker forgot to bring the cake”?  That would put a bit of a damper on the day for you, wouldn’t it?

   So the absence of wine leads to the presence of a problem.  And please note, the problem is present even though Jesus is also present.  To put it another way, the presence of Jesus does not always guarantee the absence of problems. 

   Which takes us to our 2^nd point and that is the prayer for the problem.  In vv. 3-5 we read: “When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine.’  ‘Dear woman, why do you involve me?’ Jesus replied. ‘My time has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’”  Now I realize that none of that really sounds like a typical prayer we might offer, but in essence, what is Mary doing here?  She is bringing a need to the attention of Jesus, and that’s at least partly what prayer is, isn’t it?

   Now please note not only what Mary does, but what she does not do.  She doesn’t point any fingers.  She doesn’t criticize the host for running out of wine.  Nor does she try to fix the problem herself.  Even when Jesus tells her, “My time has not yet come,” she doesn’t say, “Well, if you’re not going to do anything, I guess I’ll have to!”  Instead, what does she do?  She leaves the problem with Jesus.  She takes it to him and leaves it with him.  And when she tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you,” she demonstrates that she trusts him to do what is best. 

   May I ask you a pointed question?  How good are you at doing that?  Not very good?  Join the crowd because neither am I.  I’m very good at taking a problem to Jesus, but I’m not very good at leaving it with him.  I tend to pick it up again and carry it with me wherever I go. 

   I got to thinking about this several weeks ago when I went out to mow my grass one day and one of the tires on my mower was flat.  So I aired it up with my little compressor and off I went to do my mowing.  But after mowing a while, I noticed that the grass I was cutting was beginning to look a bit uneven.  So I looked down and saw that my tire was almost flat again.  This went on the rest of the time I mowed.  I had to air that tire up probably 5 times before I finished, after which I removed it and took it to Duis’ mower repair.

   Now just for the fun of it, I want you to take an imaginary trip with me to the repair shop.  Let’s imagine that I place that tire in front of Mr. Tire Fixer and I tell him what the problem is and he says, “Sure, I can fix that.”  Then what do I do at that point?  Most likely I’d say thank you and tell him to call me when it’s fixed.  Then I’d walk out the door and head for home.  Where then is the problem?  It’s back with Mr. Tire Fixer, right?  I don’t walk out the door and think, “Hmmmm, I’ll bet he needs my help” and go back in and offer my assistance, do I?  Of course not.  If I could fix it I wouldn’t have brought it to him.  Nor do I walk out the door and poke my head back in and say, “Are you finished yet?” 

   Yet how often don’t we do that with God when we bring our problems to him?  Oh that we would learn from Mary that once we take our problems to Christ, we need to leave them with him and trust him to do what is best for us.  Ps. 121:4 says, “He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”  You know what that tells us?  It tells us that God neither slumbers nor sleeps so that we might do both rather than lying awake at night, tossing and turning, worrying about the things that weigh heavily on our hearts. 

    So when you take your problems to him, leave them with him.  And once you’ve done that, understand that those problems are now his.  And once they are his, he will use them for his glory.  Which leads us to final point of our text and that is the purpose of the problem.  Our problems are designed by God to reveal the glory of God, to give God an opportunity to flex his muscles, if your will, to demonstrate his greatness and his goodness.  Now some of you may be thinking, “But can’t God be glorified through my blessings?”  He most certainly can and often is.  But a look at biblical history reveals to us that it is during times of great blessing that we sinful and self-centered human beings are most prone to forget about God and think we can make it on our own. 

   Just look at the nation of Israel.  After spending 430 years as slaves in the land of Egypt, God finally delivers them with great signs and mighty wonders that included the 10 plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea.  Boy, you would think that after such a remarkable deliverance and demonstration of God’s power, they would never have any problem being faithful to him again.  But about a month later what do we find them doing at the foot of Mt. Sinai?  They’re engaging in a drunken orgy, falling down in worship before a golden calf, proclaiming that this is the god who brought them out of Egypt.  Thus began a pattern that we see being repeated over and over again by God’s chosen people throughout the Old Testament.  When they prospered, they forgot God.  When life got tough, they remembered him and came back to him.

   It’s a pattern that we’ve seen in our own nation as well.  Recall how we Americans collectively fell to our knees in prayer and repentance 9 years ago following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.  For perhaps the first time ever the churches all across our land were overflowing.  Congress was singing “God Bless America” on the Capitol steps.  Prayers were being offered in public schools again.  The name of God was being invoked everywhere.  But a few weeks later, when things began to get back to some sense of normalcy, all that spiritual fervor began to die off.  In fact, those who monitor such things tell us that church attendance in particular went back to even lower levels than what it was before the attacks.

   Oh how quickly we forget.  So God uses the problems of life to first of all get our attention.  But he also uses them to reveal his glory.  Now whenever we talk about God wanting to reveal his glory and receive glory, some people may think, “But isn’t that a little haughty of God to be so concerned about his glory?  Isn’t that a little self-centered and self-indulgent?”  Well, perhaps the answer to those questions can be found in a doctor’s office.  When you’re sitting in that room all by yourself, waiting for the doctor to come in, wearing that flimsy robe that barely stays tied in the back and you’re feeling a bit nervous and tense, you look up on the wall and what do you see?  The diploma of the doctor.  And if you’re like me, that makes you feel better.  He graduated!  He’s done this before.  He knows what he’s doing.  In other words, you’re relieved because he has shown you his credentials. 

   Well, God’s glory is God’s credentials.  Only he doesn’t use diplomas on the wall to reveal those credentials.  He uses the stars in the sky.  Like Ps. 19:1 says: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”  He uses history.  He uses nations.  He uses rulers.  And yes, he even uses our problems.  He uses the thorn in the flesh of the Apostle Paul.  He uses a fiery furnace into which 3 of his faithful children are thrown.  He uses a lion’s den into which Daniel is placed.  And most importantly, he uses a cross upon which his Son is hung to reveal his glory and his love to a lost and dying world.

   So like I said in one of my sermons some time ago, when you find yourself struggling with the problems of life, don’t ask the question “Why?” as so many people are inclined to do.  Rather ask the question “How?  How can God receive glory through this?”  And in order to encourage you as you look for that answer, I want to leave you with these words from Rom. 8:18, words that were penned by one who suffered more than any of us could begin to comprehend, namely, the Apostle Paul.  And yet he said, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”  Isn’t that great?  That’s God’s personal promise to us that the day is coming when the problems that we once thought were so big will seem so small, like a drop in the bucket compared to the glory of the One and Only Jesus Christ that we will one day behold and enjoy in heaven.

     Amen.