Glory and Suffering
“His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.’”
John 9:2-3, NIV
When we experience suffering, naturally we want to make sense of the “why.” In these moments, we might ask God, “Why did this happen? Why me? Why them? Why now?”
In this Gospel story from John Chapter 9, the disciples wondered why this man had to endure the trial of being born blind. Their first thought was that it had been a punishment for sin. So, for the disciples, the question became whose sin it was. Yet, Jesus dispels this faulty assumption. He says no. Rather, this man’s suffering was so that God’s glory would be revealed.
I wonder if that man felt very glorious when he had to survive the danger and hardship of a disabled life in the first century. Probably not very glorious! Is God a narcissist that He would seek an ego-boost via miraculous healing? No. And yet, despite the risks and hardships of his disability, the man’s life points us to something unremarkably – and yet remarkably – miraculous about his life. We do not even know his name, but we know he is alive.
Each day, the man had to rely on help from others to survive and, each day, God provided for his needs. And moreover, instead of cursing God, instead of becoming hard-hearted, the blind man was ready to receive God’s blessing. After all, in this story, the man let Jesus put mud made from spit and dirt on his eyes, and when Jesus told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam, he went!
Many times, for us, our trials and suffering may lead us to question why God allows it, what purpose He may have. Surely God is not waiting in the wings for His time for the spotlight, an ego-boosting miracle at the expense of years of hardship for us. No, that is not who God is.
God is near to us and is compassionate to every moment of pain and grief. He is at work in us, in the remarkably unremarkable, inviting us to turn to Him in every moment. Jesus goes with us to the very depths of human suffering – as He showed us on the cross. God invites us to be conformed to Jesus’ image through the work of His Spirit in our day-by-day choice to trust His goodness, despite our circumstances. This is the glory God desires, this is His work, and it is so much very more the good for us. To be like Jesus, growing closer to Him, is the very greatest gift we can receive through suffering.
