Act 1: The Kiss

On June 26, 2017, I walked into a minefield. I was asked by my authorities to take on an assignment. A sister center with the same mission of reaching addicts was imploding. Would I and my team come to the rescue? I agreed to give it a go, but things went from bad to worse. I resigned six months later with my recommendation that the “ship” be decommissioned. The organization tried valiantly for a few more months before finally pulling the plug.

Little did I know that on that fateful June day I would be entering the greatest ministry challenge up to that point in my nearly thirty-year career. It was a Wilderness (capital “W”) experience that lasted nine excruciating months. By the end of it, I collapsed in my living room beside my chair, sobbing uncontrollably like a baby.

That season caught me completely off guard. I remember feeling so helpless, confused, and afraid. Notwithstanding, in that dreadful place God would meet me in such a manner that I later acknowledged that if I had to go through that whole ordeal again in light of what was on the other side, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

I will fill in some of the details of that story and how it concluded later, but I must digress.

Intermission

Mother Teresa made a statement that I am coming to believe and cherish more and more as I age: “Pain, sorrow, and suffering are but the kisses of Jesus—a sign that you have come close to Him that He can kiss you.”

If anyone had a right to speak about suffering aside from Jesus, Paul, and Job, Mother Teresa did. In her early forties she started a Hospice called “The House of Dying.” In her first twenty-five years of ministry, she, along with her order of sisters, cared for more than 36,000 people—lepers, the terminally ill, those suffering with HIV, etc. In that time span, she watched over 18,000 people die what she described as “beautiful deaths.” She herself went to be with the Lord in 1997 at age eighty-seven, and her work in Calcutta and around the world still continues.

I do not romanticize suffering. There is nothing virtuous or meritorious about pain. Suffering is not some higher form of spirituality. Adversity and sorrow are not something to wish for or celebrate. Dancing around coffins is sheer nonsense. Singing praise songs after your house burns to the ground is delusional.

But we all intuitively know that suffering is inevitable. We live in a broken world. Trouble has already greeted you in many of its diverse shapes and sizes. And if you hang around, more of it is coming your way.

Tragically, suffering is not something we as the church and—particularly those of us who identify as Pentecostals—do very well. One of the late-modern critiques of Christianity is that we are far too concerned with heaven and, consequently, lack empathy for this-worldly struggles. More, as Pentecostals, we tend to be far too enamored with a theology of glory over a theology of the cross as we emphasize overcoming, defeating, and triumphing over the Enemy. Our primary concern is to beat, master, and conquer whatever problems and trials come our way.  

Try as we might to resist the devil and make him flee from us, suffering is not going away. It is part of our human condition. Did not God warn Adam upon the Fall that his work would now be fraught with thorns and thistles and that Eve would give birth in immense pain? (Genesis 3:16-19) Did not Jesus say, “In the world you will have trouble?” (John 16:33) And was it not Paul and Barnabas who sought to encourage the disciples in Antioch to remain true to the faith with these words, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God?” (Acts 14:22; some way to “encourage!”)

If you are a follower of the crucified One, you can be assured of a double dose of suffering. There is no escaping it. As believers, we will face even more loss and rejection, sickness and anguish, false accusations, and maybe even premature deaths. We will be overlooked, misunderstood, and misjudged. Our families will divide against each other. Jesus guaranteed this with these words, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). Yes, some of us will be dealt a harder hand than others, but who is counting?

Most of us know this in our head. But in our heart, we often react in great shock. Life takes us by surprise and things can seem so unfair. Unreal. Outrageous.

And messy.

Our natural temptation is to look for a way out. We are pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding creatures. What power moves do we need to take when tornadoes pass through? What is the secret to keeping our balance when storms hit? How do we push through the muck and land on the top? We want to know the formula—the “what-to-do-when”—for the problems of life.

But maybe we need to approach things differently. Could our sufferings be God’s kisses? Could our afflictions be expressions of God’s kindness? Could the cross of Christ be God’s healing for our soul, his medicine for our sicknesses? Could these sorrows be the carriers of God’s love, invitations to be held in the arms of God and therefore, something to not run from but something to lean into? Could the sadness actually be redemptive?

In the book of 2 Corinthians, Paul invites us into his private life and identifies some of the tremendous difficulties that he had to endure. In chapter after chapter, he tells of his beatings, imprisonments, attacks, abandonment, and the magnitude of sorrows in which he was drowning. He confesses that at one point, he wanted to die, so heavy was the despair hanging over him (see ch. 1:8-10). Against this background, Paul strangely opens his letter with these words, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles. . . For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows” (1:3-7).

In fact, in this short paragraph, Paul uses the word comfort in its various forms no less than nine times—five of those in reference to God’s personal comfort extended to himself, and four of those times in reference to the comfort God gave Paul to extend to others.

The kiss of suffering leads to the consolation of Christ. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18). He has a special affinity towards those who mourn (Matthew 5:4). He was, after all, a man of sorrows (Isaiah 53:3).

Act 2: The Consolation

On Wednesday evening of March 28, 2018, I experienced one of the greatest manifestations of God’s presence in my life. Just two days before, on Monday, I had been “summoned” to appear before the executive leadership of my denomination. These men were simply doing their duty to investigate reports and accusations made against me. Matters were rightly sorted out and understandings were achieved. Nevertheless, I left that office meeting completely defeated. I felt not only like a failure but a villain of sorts.

I tried to do something good, but it completely backfired. Of course, in hindsight, “could’ve, would’ve, should’ve.” But my team and I were playing in real time, on a real field, with the only players and playbook we had. We lost big. And it hurt.

Two days later, on that holy Wednesday night, I was driving home after a long day at the office. It was about 9:00 pm. One of my sons who was working as a staff pastor at a local church called me. He said that their congregation had a prayer meeting that evening, and a woman of reputable standing had come up to him with what she believed was a word of God for me. In that phone call, Luke passed the message on to me.

I had to contain myself for the final ten-minute drive to my home. I was about to fall apart. The Scripture passage cited was too specific, too timely, and too pointed at my heart to be anything less than a miracle. This woman could not have known anything about my circumstances or my present condition of soul. Further, these kinds of charismatic things do not happen to me. People do not come to Jeff Bonzelaar with “words of God.” (I probably scare them off because I resemble Doubting Thomas in appearance.)

I made it home and tears gushed forth. God was with me. I knew it. And that was all I needed.

Epilogue

In a few weeks, we will gather together as God’s people on a day we call Good Friday. It marks a day that we look back as a church to contemplate the crucifixion of Christ. The only reason we call it good is because of what follows that first Sunday after Christ’s burial. In this Holy Week we are reminded of the terrible and absurd yet unimaginably beautiful mystery that in sorrow and suffering God works to bring life out of death.

We all want resurrection, but the only way we can experience resurrection is by way of the cross. There is no other way. Paul acknowledged this and prayed accordingly, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10-11).

The consolation of Christ is found through the kiss of suffering. Weakness is the place of God’s tabernacling. I wish it were otherwise, but it is not. There is something about being leveled out, thrown down, and broken open that enables us to receive Christ. It is in the dark places that the Light shines most brilliantly. It is in the valley of the shadow of death where we discover his “with-ness.” In the pain we find his presence.

Friends, there is something better than relief or overcoming. It is knowing and encountering God. And suffering is the strange pathway. Many of God’s terrible kisses are what C.S. Lewis calls “severe mercies.” Awful (awe-filled) kisses that turn into tender consolations of Christ. Consolations we, in turn, are meant to be conduits of.

Our role is not to fix people, solve problems, or explain suffering. We are called to walk with others in their suffering and pain. This IS the consolation—being with, bearing with, sympathizing with, . . . presence. The problem with Job’s comforters is that they were preachers. They all had a lesson to give, a message in which to wax eloquent. They did not know how to keep their mouths shut. They knew nothing of the profound power of the simple ministry of presence. (I am guilty as charged!)

The consolation of Christ is found in the kiss of suffering. And as his consolations are received, they are to be shared with other fellow sufferers. It is in this sacred interchange that something profound happens. We participate in the “passing of the peace” of Christ.

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“We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake,
so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.
So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”
(2 Corinthians 4:10-12)