Groan

Last week, lacks and less-thans were shown to be gifts to us. But, perhaps suffering can be a gift to the church as well. 

I think I have forgotten what it means to be not tired. To what it means to be strong. To have health. We may forget what it means to have a healthy relationship, to not have to hide, to forget the freedom without shame. We forget what not having fears about finances or the future feels like due to pressing bills. We forget what peace is. 

I long. I groan. I wait. 

But my longing and groaning have prophetic echoes. Have we as a church forgotten what it means to groan? Do we look to heaven? Are we so heavenly minded we are of earthly good, to paraphrase C. S. Lewis and twist the common saying? 

My groanings seem oddly out of place... I am always tempted to hide them. Stuff them. Swallow them back in the aching gut. We sometimes feel that this groaning is a sign of failure, weakness, undermining the "joy of the Lord," the worship atmosphere we are supposed to have at church, of despair instead of confident hope in the Lord. 

But can one groan and hope? Wes Hill's reflective book on his homosexual experience as a Christian provoked ponderings: Can groaning be a sign of fidelity rather than failure? (1) Does a victorious Christian mean no more struggle, or does it mean persevering in the struggle? 

We groan, because we have a heaven-filled vision of what the world should be like. Groaning is not antithetical to hope; groaning is not despair. Groaing is the birth pangs of a vision too bright, that stings cave-darkened eyes, pains world-blurry and tear-weary eyes. I groan, because I will not let myself forget what health is, what hope is, what heaven will be. I will only not content myself with a cheap contentment, a mere gulp of glory, a status quo state of health. I will not let my eyes or heart get adjusted to the gloom.

A groan is a call. Listen! Look! Take this groan and see it afresh. It is not a mere outgoing sigh, an end expression. In the long days, months, and years of suffering, it is tempting to let suffering be the defining, the end, the identity, the way it is. But it is not an end expression, the sigh. It is an invitation to breathe in, to breathe in of the faintest hints of heavenly aroma, an invitaiton to catch the glimpses. My malabsorption is an invitation, a call to hunger--for the banquet that will ultimately satisfy. The breaking down body is an invitation to contemplate his resurrected body that we will share in (Phil. 3:21). Migraines, failures, less-than performances, are all invitations to rest in his sufficiency and delight in the perfection that will come, becuase he has conquered and is risen. Suffering is not something that the church needs to apologize for, not something that needs to be swept under cheery welcome mat at the front door. Suffering is an invitation to focus on heaven. Suffering is an invitation to communion with our Suffering Savior. Suffering can be a gift to the church and to the world.

Groanings are cravings. The deep soul craving of a finite creature created for an infinite God and eternal glory. The craving that cannot be satisfied by the shadows here, or the ashes of idols (Isa. 44). We have an immense, measureless soul. How dare we try to satiate it with a mere mist? It melts before it even touches the tongue. It slips into thin air before we really see it, shadows of what is now only percieved in shimmers of rainbow hope. We know we are created for bodies that work, that endure, are imperishable, glorious, raised in power, spiritual (1 Cor. 15:43-44). We crave. We groan. A gift to the church; do not drink from the cisterns of this world.

We do not glory in sin,nor in the fact of suffering (2). We do not boast of broken relationships, of gluttony, of great human achievements wrought for our own praise, of homosexual longings, of self-pity, of abusing, of manipulation. No. We in the Spirit groan under these, weary of them. Yet, these groanings are turned into gifts and invitations as we recognize our weaknesses, see our own faintly burning torches that are mere ashes, and turn toward the blazing glory of the One who gives hope. Groaning is a call to holy discontentment, to not forget the sun in this cloudy world. Groaning is an invitation to catch glimpses of glory among the grays. Groaning is the longing looking and craving of insatiable eyes. Groaning is a gift.

I may have forgotten what health feels like. But I will not forget hope. I will not forget heaven. I will not forget Him. Christ in me, the Hope of Glory, the God of Life-Over-Death. And every groan cries out for Him and for that fulfillment on earth as it is in Heaven, where He reigns in His glory.

NOTES
(1) Wesley Hill, Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality  (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010).
(2) Sin and suffering are two very different things and invite two different types of groanings. I do not want to conflate them. Yet, they are interrelated. Suffering is a result of Sin (capital S) and death entering the world. Suffering can be the result of individual's sins committed against us. Suffering can be the result of our own sin. Even if it is the latter, it is still suffering, still something God can redeem.