…pain is important because it wakens us from the illusion that all is well in the universe. It reminds us that we are a fallen race living in a fallen world and that we need help from outside ourselves to heal the effects of our fallenness. This is why Lewis called pain a megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”1
These sobering words were penned by Terry Glaspey in his biography of C. S. Lewis, Not a Tame Lion. Lewis was no stranger to pain. In fact, he wrote two powerful books on the subject: The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed. The latter was devoted to reflections on the loss of his wife, Joy. It includes such raw expressions of emotion that it is at times uncomfortable to read. Early in the book, Lewis writes,
Where is God? … Go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.2
I can almost feel his pain when I read this. Thankfully, he doesn’t end his reflections on Joy’s death here. He later writes,
I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face? The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear. On the other hand, “Knock and it shall be opened.” But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac?3
A former atheist, Lewis openly confessed that there was a time when the problem of pain was a centerpiece of his unbelief. However, he later wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”4
The first mention of pain in the Bible is found in the story of humanity’s fall. Immediately after Adam and Eve’s sin, the English Standard Version of the Bible records God’s heart-wrenching explanation to each of them that their sin had now introduced pain to the world. God said to Eve, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16).5 He then turned to Adam and said, “…cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you” (Genesis 3:17-18). Sin entered the world through humanity, and with it came pain. Nonetheless, this pain would not be without purpose. While God explained that Eve would experience pain in childbirth, He also promised future redemption that would come through childbirth. He said to the serpent in the story, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). Thus, the first mention of pain in the Bible is inseparably tethered to the first mention of promise.
The church father Justin Martyr referred to Genesis 3:15 as the proto-evangelium, the first gospel promise in the Bible.6 Another church father, Ireneaus, later echoed this understanding,
He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head, as you can perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for your head, and you on the watch for His heel."7
Immediately after God told the first human couple that pain and death were on their way, Adam did something odd. He named his wife, Eve (Genesis 3:20). Eve means “life.” Why would he respond to death by giving his wife the name “life”? Adam understood that pain was not meaningless. Pain is a reminder that things in this life are no longer perfect. It beckons to us to look to the future, to believe for a better day. Pain creates within us a longing for eternity and a hope that the suffering we now experience is only temporary. Adam refused to sink into despair over the curse. Instead, he laid hold on the promise of a Savior who would one day make wrong things right. He chose to embrace life in spite of death.
One of the great mysteries of the Christian faith is summed up in the nature of the “offspring” or the “seed” that God promised to Eve. This offspring is Jesus Christ. Though He boasted the ability to command legions of angels, He chose to redeem humanity through pain. In the beautiful language of the King James Version, the prophet Isaiah wrote, “He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes, we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Christ embraced the pain. He drank the cup of God’s wrath. He endured the cross, and His stripes (or wounds) brought healing.
The pain of Eve’s childbirth found its long-awaited meaning when the virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus. The pain of Adam’s toil found purpose when Christ wore a crown fashioned from the thorns that emerged from Adam’s disobedience. Through pain, we received the promise. Christ’s blood touched the thorns, and the curse of sin was broken.
Over and over, I have been asked, “Why do followers of Christ still suffer?” While I don’t claim to have those answers, perhaps part of it is found in the mystery of worshipping a crucified Savior. We serve a God who works miracles, but His biggest miracle came through pain, rejection, stripes, blood, tears, and death. I don’t understand it. Still, when I think about it, I cannot help but break forth in praise.
When Pontius Pilot questioned whether Jesus was really a king, Christ responded, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting…” (John 18:36). This is a vital reminder. While we sometimes see miracles in this world, we are living for a kingdom that is not of this world. Our Savior’s wounds point to an age to come, to a time when all that is wrong in this world will be made right. Similarly, our pain reminds us that this world is temporary. We are not home yet.
Professor Dan Crabtree once shared how he and his young son set out on a long road-trip to see his son’s grandparents. When the trip began, they were both singing, “We’re going to Grandma’s house! We’re going to Grandma’s house.” As the trip went on and nighttime came, he looked over and noticed that his son was silently crying. He asked, “What’s wrong?” His son replied, “I can’t see Grandma’s house. I don’t know how we will get there.” It was in that moment that he put his arm around his son and said something like, “It’s ok son. I know the way to Grandma’s house. I’m not afraid. You can rest. We are going to make it to Grandma’s.”
I confess that sometimes I am like that little kid. I started out following Christ at age sixteen. I trust Him, and I believe in the hope of Heaven and of eternal life. Sometimes, however, the darkness gets the best of me. Emotions take over, and I wonder how we will ever make it to the place that my Father promised we were going to. It is in those moments that I feel His gentle hand on my shoulder saying, “It’s ok son. I know the way. You can rest. We are going to make it.”
Our emotions can play tricks on us. Tragically, sometimes believers believe their emotions and momentarily fear they have lost faith. Lewis and Glaspey offer some pretty profound insight into how we should relate to our own emotions.
“Don’t bother much about your feelings.” Our feelings are not us, he [Lewis] explains. “When they are humble, loving, brave, give thanks for them: when they are conceited, selfish, cowardly, ask to have them altered. In neither case are they you, but only a thing that happens to you.” We cannot count on our emotions to help us make the right decisions. “Our emotional reactions to our own behavior are of limited ethical significance.” Much of the time, to do the right thing we have to act differently than we feel.8
Wise words. Emotions are not us. Pain is not us. We cannot let them define us. It is enough to let them point us to the source of hope…to Jesus. The Apostle Paul understood this. In Second Corinthians chapter four, he wrote that “we do not lose heart” (2 Cor. 4:1). He goes on to explain,
8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
There is a serious tension in what Paul writes. There is suffering and certainty. There is pain and promise. There is impossibility and yet unlimited possibility. It’s a great paradox. How do we respond to such things? He continues,
13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, 14 knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
There it is. We live by faith that the same God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead after unspeakable pain will also raise us. We trust in the God who reminds us that this is not the end.
16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Light momentary affliction? It seems odd that Paul would describe his sufferings in this way when he just used words like “afflicted”, “perplexed”, and “persecuted.” Perhaps it’s because he didn’t just focus on what was happening, but also on what was not happening. He was “not crushed”, “not driven to despair,” and “not destroyed.” As Brennan Manning once wrote, “Death is not the last word; it’s resurrection.”9
Are you in pain? Are you troubled? Perplexed? It’s ok. Remember, pain has always pointed to the promise. Our God never fully explains suffering. He does something far more intimate; He suffers with us. He entered this world and suffered pain, rejection, loss, and death. When the governing authorities questioned Him, He reminded them that His kingdom was not of this world. Neither is ours.
When John the Revelator wept because no one in the universe was worthy to open the scroll that he saw in his revelation vision, what he saw in that moment was not the King in all His power and splendor. No. He saw a Lamb.
…between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain… (Revelation 5:6)
Christ the Lamb reminds us that pain has power when it is yielded to God. He also reminds us that suffering is only for a season. The scroll will be opened. Christ will reign. Heaven will descend to Earth. A new day will soon dawn.
Pain is real, but it has an expiration date. The sun will rise on a new age, and pain will be no more. Armies will lay down their weapons. The dead will rise. Families will be reunited. God will receive the worship He deserves. Concerning that moment, Revelation rejoices,
Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)
Even so, come Lord Jesus.
Glaspey, Terry. Not a Tame Lion (p. 138). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York: HarperOne, 1994), 5-6.
Glaspey, Terry. Not a Tame Lion (p. 264). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Ibid, 46.
Glaspey, Terry. Not a Tame Lion (p. 137). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
All Scripture references are from the English Standard Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue With Trypho (Roberts-Donaldson translation), chapter 100.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies (Roberts-Donaldson translation), chapter 5.21.1.
Glaspey, Terry. Not a Tame Lion (pp. 191-192). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Brennan Manning. Posers, Fakers, and Wannabees.
Everything is changing at such a fast pace. Loads if fear and anger at every turn. I see that being killed, or watching those you love killed for being a Christian goes up every year. And I wonder deep inside if I could pass that test. It does bother me even though God has carried me through so much.
I found out how to fight pure dread. Deep fear of things not happened through people. I tell myself God is in control no matter what. Pronounce scripture against fear