Wounds that Heal
Pain and Suffering
I know what it feels like to be left out. I know what it feels like to be a teenager, unable to figure out how to enter into social spaces with “cool” kids. I know what it is like to not be invited. I know what it was like to be laughed at, not with, to be called names. I know what its like to embarrass myself in front of a large group of people. (I don’t know if I have done that here yet… I know what it is like to be broken up with. To wonder if there is anyone out there for me.
I don’t know what it’s like to lose a parent. I don’t know what it is like to lose a spouse, or a sibling or a child. I don’t know what it is like to go through a devastating break up, or a divorce. I don’t know what it is like to experience abuse. I don’t know what it is like to live in a war torn region. I don;t know what it is like to not know where or when my next meal will be.
Many of us have lists of painful experiences, just rearranged. Some of us have gone through some awful stuff. Things none of us can imagine. We humans suffer. Suffering is part of what it means to be a human. As Christians, a major question in our tradition, is what do we do with all of this suffering?
Book of Hebrews
The book of Hebrews is a peculiar New Testament book. It’s towards the back half of the New Testament, and one that we generally don’t spend much time with. At the beginning of the New Testament, we have the gospels, which tell us the story of Jesus. Then we have Acts, and the letters written by Paul, which are the most often consulted non-gospel books. But towards the back of The New Testament, we have Hebrews, and James, and Peter, and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. These books are a bit more confusing as to who is writing, and who they are writing to.
The book of Hebrews features one of the more human presentation of Jesus perhaps in the New Testament. In Hebrews 2:11, they write that Jesus was “one of us.” In our Hebrews passage for today, they write how Jesus was “tempted” as we are. Later on they write how Jesus submitted to God in “tearful and prayerful obedience,” and was even “subject to death.”
Like humans Jesus was tearful. Jesus was tempted. Jesus was mortal.
The humanity of Jesus, by some, is considered one of Christianity’s greatest flaws. That Jesus would stick to his convictions to his death does not fit into most people’s ideas of greatness or gods. But the author of Hebrews actually focuses on the human aspect of Jesus.
In our passage today, the author writes about Jesus, when they say, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are.”
The author of Hebrews is pointing out that Jesus’ human experiences of suffering and struggle, is what allows Jesus to become one who can empathize with the experiences of being human. On our journey of faith and life, we can look to Jesus, as a one who has experienced suffering, hostility, and shame. Like it is written in the most famous of all Hebrew’s passages, Hebrews 12, which goes,
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
Like all humans, Jesus suffered. Jesus knows what it means to suffer.
Wounded Healer
In the 1970s, Henri Nouwen, a dutch Catholic Priest and writer of many books on spirituality, wrote the book, the “Wounded Healer.”
In this book, Nouwen argues that personal suffering can become a source of healing for others.
A wounded healer, is someone who has wounds – has experienced suffering and pain. However instead of hiding these pains and sufferings, has worked towards embracing them and understanding them.
Once the wounded healer has work through their wounds, and begins to embrace them them, they are able to more deeply care for those around them. When you have walked that road of pain, walking with some else who is going through it, can be a gift to them.
Let me share an example from my life.
A few years ago, I thought that I nearly lost my dad. I got a phone call from my sister in law while at a friend’s wedding. She shared that my dad was found unconscious. That was all the information that we had. I burst into tears, sitting in the fear and unknows of what had happened.
Was he found in the July heat working in his garden? Was it a stroke? A heart attack? Was there any chance that he was going to be alive? Was I never going to have another conversation with my dad? What were we going to do about my mom? Life was never going to be the same. It was the phone call that we all know is possible, and could happen any day, and it had finally happened.
Chaska and I left the wedding early and began making our way to PA. Over the next hours, we would learn more information. It was a seizure. He was in the house. And he was now at the hospital and stable.
What a whirlwind.
This was one of the more scary moments in my life.
This past summer, I got a phone call from a childhood friend who told me that his dad was taken to the hospital by squad because of a stroke. When he got this news, he knew nothing else at the time.
As he was sharing this with me, my own memories came rushing back. I knew the feeling of uncertainty. I remembered the feeling of all of those questions that rush to one’s mind about the future. I remember the tears and the fear.
In the conversation, I didn’t bring up my experience, which he was already fully aware of, but I allowed my experience to guide me as I listened to him. I didn’t feel the need to run away or ignore him, which is what is tempting to do when someone is suffering because the pain of others often overwhelms. But I had been there before. It was familiar territory. And so I could simply be with him. Thankfully, his dad recovered as well.
Your wounds become the avenue in which you can be there for someone. It’s not that they give you permission to talk about yourself. Or give quick advice. Your wounds don’t provide solutions for the others suffering. Being a wounded healer doesn’t save anyone. It doesn’t solve the pain. Human suffering is not a machine to fix. It just is.
To be there, is to make this pain that you both have experienced something that held together. Having experienced those wounds before, you are specially able to help tend to the wounds of someone else. Your wounds become your superpower. You are able to remember the pain you felt. You know from your own experience that you can’t just take that pain away. So when you empathize with someone else’s experience, you can just be there with them.
The only thing you can do is walk together with the common search for life amidst the suffering.
Robert Dykstra writes “A Christian community is therefore a healing community not because the wounds are cured and pains are alleviated, but because wounds and pains become openings or occasions for a new vision. Mutual [sharing] then becomes a mutual deepening of hope, and sharing weakness becomes a reminder to one and all the coming strength.”
Our wounds set us up not to solve issues but to walk together towards a new vision of life. When you are simply there with someone, it can be not longer paralyzing. Its not that it takes them to thriving right away – but just a little insty be better, no longer paralyzing.
But, it can even be mobilizing. Our wounds can give us hope when we are in it together. And that togetherness gives us strength.
The hope that God gives us does not happen from top down. Its not trickle down hope. That if we just tell people to have hope, God will give hope to them.
No. The hope of God emerges from the bottom up. It starts with our wounds and as we connect together, hope emerges. It finds its way in through your very wounds.
Infertility
I have shared with our congregation in public before, about our journey with infertility and IVF. Infertility was one of the more painful experiences that I have gone through. Since sharing this experience publicly, there have been many instances in our congregation where folks have shared with us their struggles, or their friends or family’s struggles with having kids.
It’s not usually a conversation that people lead with. “Hi, I am Phil and I have experienced infertility.”- It’s vulnerable, and folks historically have kept these things to themselves out of shame. But when the door is opened, those who have experienced the same wounds find connection, and the hope that emerges out of that shared suffering. It has been a gift to hear your stories and to share these burdens together.
It doesn’t magically make someone able to have kids. It doesn’t solve anything., When we were in the throes of infertility, we did not know if we were ever going to be able to have biological kids, but the people who had gone through it before were comforting as they walked with us in the pain.
Following a Wounded Jesus
The book of Hebrews positions Jesus as a fellow human traveler. Jesus traveled with those who had wounds, and he too had wounds.
Like Jesus each of us can walk with those around us, with all of our wounds, as fellow travelers on the path towards healing. .
This is our vocation as followers of Jesus.
As a denomination we have our vision of healing and hope. It’s written at our exit of the sanctuary, as a reminder of what it means to be the church out in the world. It goes,
“God calls us to be followers of Jesus Christ and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to grow as communities of grace, joy and peace, so that God’s healing and hope flow through us to the world.“
This is what we are all called to – I just wish for one more addition, that it could name that we do this from our weakness. From our wounds.
It’s not that the Christian church has any extra super power. We are not special as Mennonite Christians. We have the same issues any other human or Church has. We don’t have any secret prayer or practice that gets through our suffering.
Our super power is our weakness. Our wounds.
My experience of fear and uncertainty that I had with my dad the other year, was what gave me the ability to walk with my friend through his experience of fear and uncertainty.
We are all called to embrace our weakness and to become wounded healers ourselves.
You don’t need to be special. You aren’t a nurse to provide healing. You don’t need to be a pastor. A therapist. A Teacher.
To become a wounded healer, like Jesus, is to invite others around you to help you work through your wounds, so that you can embrace your wounds, making you more capable of having compassion for those suffering around you.
Back to Hebrews
The author of Hebrew’s finishes this passage writing, “
“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
The author of Hebrews is inviting the reader to trust that God will give us the grace we need to get through our suffering. Grace in this case is not an image of God who solves all our problems, but comes like Jesus, in those who walk with us, wounds and all, as we search for new life.
May our wounds be part of the healing of the world around us.
May our wounds be part of the healing of the world around us. Go in peace!