Yo Soy Nada

The more time I spend out of the country, I am further convinced I have much to learn of suffering. Our experience so far in Guatemala is quite a bit removed from our experiences in Haiti. In Haiti, the poverty and suffering are engulfing. I don't remember seeing an area of Haiti unaffected by disease and hunger. Currently, we are teaching in a private school (please don't imagine American private schools), and the kids who live at the home are very well cared for and know they are loved. So we have not yet had direct interaction with intense suffering in Guatemala. Nonetheless, the kids at the home have all been abused, neglected, abandoned, or, for some, a combination of the three. Many of the older kids here have years of memories of hunger, abuse, or homelessness. It is still pervasive here. My worry is this: I am quite ill-equipped to share the satisfying grace of Christ with a suffering world.



So much of the language in Scripture used to describe the work and person of Christ is rooted in suffering. Very literally, the crux of the Good News is suffering. You cannot remove suffering from the experience of Christianity. So how can I explain what it is like to hunger for righteousness if I've never hungered so badly for food that I've filled my stomach with mud? No, my young friend, you explain it to me. I want to know. Could I dare to discuss with my once unjustly captive friend, Jean-Claude, what it's like to be a slave to sin and to be set free to union with Christ? No, Jean-Claude, for many additional reasons, could you share it with me?


Let me borrow some solid exegesis from (big surprise) John Piper. In Colossians 1:24 Paul writes, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of the body, that is, the church." What could possibly be lacking in Christ's afflictions? Certainly he isn't speaking of the atoning work of his suffering. That would be heresy and utterly incongruent with anything else Paul wrote. In Philippians 2:29-30, Paul is writing to the church about returning Epaphroditus to them: "So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me." What was lacking in their service to him? A person--the physical presentation of their service. What is lacking in Christ's afflictions? The physical presentation, here and now, of his suffering.

However, I am sad to think that much of my experience is representative of the American church. Shouldn't it be a suffering church that presents a suffering Savior to a suffering world? I am starting to see how the "Name it, Claim it", "Ask not, have not", and whatever other cleverly rhyming prosperity movement can catch on. When the church can't credibly say, "God is more satisfying than food, shelter, or health," to people that don't have them, I can see how the church would be tempted to say, "If you follow Christ, you can have what I have." The problem with that is the message is no longer, "Know Christ and be satisfied in Him," but, "Know Christ and be satisfied in what he gives you."

How can we possibly be effective? Yet another reason I savor the sovereignty of God in missions.