Pain sometimes seems central to life and the Christian faith. CS Lewis described pain as 'God's megaphone' - His way of getting though to us that something is wrong. As men and women of God caring for the sick and the suffering, we are surrounded by a world of pain and that megaphone is often all too deafening.
The late Susan Cole-King's article in this edition reflects on the pain of Aids - an illness that is like a misery guided Exocet missile, targeting the poorest and most vulnerable. The obvious question when faced with this tragedy is to ask 'why does God allow this?' However, like all obvious questions it is not the right question. We need to ask instead 'what would God have us do about this?'
When faced with the pain of the world, Jesus did not come out with philosophical arguments, or seek to hide from it in meaningless religious ritual and platitudes. Instead, He took it on to His own shoulders, and suffered not just alongside us, but in our place. Today Christians worldwide are seeking to follow His example by confronting and sharing the pain that they see in the world. That is the pain of people with leprosy or Aids who are rejected by their communities, of refugees living with the grief of losing not just loved ones, but their homes, even their own country, and with the poor in Asia's big cities whose struggle to survive cannot spare them the time to care for their own health until its too late.
Jesus still lives in the midst of the world's suffering, and bids us join Him in bringing about something better than this world has to offer. At my mother's funeral recently we read from Revelation 21. This speaks of the New Jerusalem coming out of heaven at the end of history, when 'every tear will be wiped from our eyes', and when God will dwell amongst us. The coming of the Kingdom of God will see an end to all suffering and pain, and in their place will come the joy of dwelling in God's very presence.
However, bits of the Kingdom are breaking out here and now. Whether it is in the struggle of the churches in Malawi to deal with the Aids crisis on their doorstep, or the work of the dental clinic at Duncan hospital in northern India, whether it is in the re-establishment of a Christian hospital at Rushere in Uganda, or in the setting up of a clinic amongst the refugee communities in Macedonia, these small outposts of the Kingdom of God also remind us of another reality, that the Kingdom is here and now, not just in the future.
We can catch glimpses of that time when 'mourning and crying, and pain will be no more' in the work of ordinary Christian doctors, nurses, dentists and hospital administrators who have dared to take on the world's pain in the love of Christ.
The late Susan Cole-King's article in this edition reflects on the pain of Aids - an illness that is like a misery guided Exocet missile, targeting the poorest and most vulnerable. The obvious question when faced with this tragedy is to ask 'why does God allow this?' However, like all obvious questions it is not the right question. We need to ask instead 'what would God have us do about this?'
When faced with the pain of the world, Jesus did not come out with philosophical arguments, or seek to hide from it in meaningless religious ritual and platitudes. Instead, He took it on to His own shoulders, and suffered not just alongside us, but in our place. Today Christians worldwide are seeking to follow His example by confronting and sharing the pain that they see in the world. That is the pain of people with leprosy or Aids who are rejected by their communities, of refugees living with the grief of losing not just loved ones, but their homes, even their own country, and with the poor in Asia's big cities whose struggle to survive cannot spare them the time to care for their own health until its too late.
Jesus still lives in the midst of the world's suffering, and bids us join Him in bringing about something better than this world has to offer. At my mother's funeral recently we read from Revelation 21. This speaks of the New Jerusalem coming out of heaven at the end of history, when 'every tear will be wiped from our eyes', and when God will dwell amongst us. The coming of the Kingdom of God will see an end to all suffering and pain, and in their place will come the joy of dwelling in God's very presence.
However, bits of the Kingdom are breaking out here and now. Whether it is in the struggle of the churches in Malawi to deal with the Aids crisis on their doorstep, or the work of the dental clinic at Duncan hospital in northern India, whether it is in the re-establishment of a Christian hospital at Rushere in Uganda, or in the setting up of a clinic amongst the refugee communities in Macedonia, these small outposts of the Kingdom of God also remind us of another reality, that the Kingdom is here and now, not just in the future.
We can catch glimpses of that time when 'mourning and crying, and pain will be no more' in the work of ordinary Christian doctors, nurses, dentists and hospital administrators who have dared to take on the world's pain in the love of Christ.
