The Verdict
On Sunday, April 8, 1945, in a schoolhouse where he was held prisoner, the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer led his fellow captives in worship. He had barely finished when the guards arrived and said, "Prisoner Bonhoeffer, get ready to come with us." He knew their summons meant execution. Before they took him away, he turned to another prisoner and said, "This is the end. For me the beginning of life."
Read 2 Corinthians 1:3-11
When things go bad for me, my first instinct is to ask, "Why me?" My second is to ask, "Does anyone care?" Richard Dawkins famously said, "Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous—indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose." It sounds novel, but the same cosmic bleakness pervaded the pagan world of Paul's day. Dr. Instone-Brewer explains that "Comfort was not regarded as a divine function, and no pagan deity was associated with it. Indeed, the biblical concept of a God who comforts was otherwise virtually unknown in the ancient world." But what lasting comfort is there in an indifferent universe? The confidence that God will comfort us is unique to the biblical witness. Before Paul talks about his own near-death experience, he tells the Corinthians who God is. Worship is how we make sense of our difficulties. God's comfort is not sentimental. Rather, Paul understands that not only did Christ suffer for us on the cross, but he suffers with us because he has united himself to us and us to himself. When a Christian is persecuted, Christ is attacked (see Acts 9:4). So his comfort overflows to us, and as we receive his comfort, we share it with others. God doesn't promise to take away suffering, but neither does he leave us to suffer alone. To a church that resisted him, Paul admits that he was crushed by the weight of nearly dying. He lost all confidence in himself. But only by confessing this can he make the more important point: God raises the dead. Even if he had died, God would still be his rescuer and hope. His hope is not in circumstances but in God's character. Because his hope is in God, his desire is to see God thanked. So, he credits the Corinthians as participating in God's work. I would have thanked them for keeping me alive! But Paul celebrates their prayers because it means that more people will thank God for what he alone can do. Paul was (temporarily) rescued from death. Bonhoeffer wasn't. Both of them placed their confidence in the God who raises the dead.
What difference does it make if there is a God who comforts us?
When have you been comforted by someone who has seen God deliver them? What did they do?
How do difficult circumstances make it hard for you to trust that God cares for you?
Today, reach out to someone who is going through a hard time. Ask them, "How can I pray for you?" Before you get off the phone, pray out loud for them.
Sources:
"This is the end. For me the beginning of life.” — Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, rev. ed. (Fortress Press, 2000).
"Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous—indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose." — Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (New York: Basic Books, 1995),
"Comfort was not regarded as a divine function, and no pagan deity was associated with it. Indeed, the biblical concept of a God who comforts was otherwise virtually unknown in the ancient world." — David Instone-Brewer, "Comfort." In New Dictionary of Biblical Theology: Exploring the Unity and Diversity of Scripture, edited by T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner. (InterVarsity Press, 2000).