پیغامی مهم از کشیش جلیل سپهر با عنوان: تسلی خدای درد آشنا

A message from Rev Jalil Sepehr about the comfort of God who is familiar with our pains:

Rev Jalil Sepehr is reflecting on all the challenging situations we can go through in our lives such as the pain of dealing with Covid19, the horrors of war such as the current conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the uncertainty and plight of refugees who have to flee persecutions.

He considers the way we look at these events and how that can change the way we think about the future of our lives. He uses an illustration of a disastrous car accident where different people are involved. The ambulance arrives and the medic’s job is to attend to the needs of the injured in the accident. The police respond and they try to identify the guilty person and prevent further injury. The firemen are there to quench the fire or free people who are trapped. None of them interferes in other people’s jobs all of them collaborate.

He continues by saying that when we face trials and witness injustices in our lives, we have the option to criticize, complain, or protest to God as Habakkuk did. The thing is that even if as the result of complaining we find the guilty person or the cause of our problems, we can’t necessarily do much about it.

Sometimes others like psychologists or police or judges should identify the cause of different problems or find the guilty ones based on their expertise. Or they should make a judgment about certain situations. What we can do is to find answers and find cures for the pains.

Having a negative point of view towards negative situations in our lives will intensify our pains. When we look at Job in the Bible, we read that he had 3 friends who mourned over Job’s situation but after chapter 3 they condemned Job as being the cause of all his suffering because of the sins in his life. Imagine how that intensified Job’s pain.

The contrary example is when we read the story of Daniel, we realize that when Daniel was in trouble, his friends did not judge him but they were on his side, trying to support him. They prayed and fasted with him and tried to comfort him (Daniel chapters 1 and 2). This is how we should view pains in our lives and the lives of others. In his talk Pastor Sepehr refers to the following passages in order to emphasize the fact that the main cure for our pain is Jesus himself who came amongst those who were in pain so that through the comfort we receive from him we can comfort others.

We read in Luke 4:16-18 which says:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,”

Based on the comfort we have received in Jesus we can comfort others as it says in the following verses In 2 Corinthians 1:3- 4 it says:

“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 so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

Having a negative and critical view of unjust situations in our lives will damage us further. It is important to have a view to comfort others the same way that God has comforted us. This is how we should view pain and suffering in life.

There is good news in Romans 8:18 which says

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

Following that he refers to 2 Corinthians 1:5 which says:

“For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.”

Sometimes the pains we go through because of our Christian faith and the pains of dealing with unjust situations increase in our lives, the more we go through these types of pains, the more we will receive the comfort of God in our lives. We are like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who were put in the fire. We are somehow put in the fire of all the injustices we witness around us. If we want to condemn each other and try to find the guilty ones, it won’t necessarily help. Instead, it is better to seek God’s face and ask for his comfort. God is not indifferent to our pains as he was not indifferent to the pain of the Israelites. God tells Moses in Genesis 3: 7

“The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.”

In conclusion, he says: We pray that God brings an end to the wars that are happening in the world. However, let’s focus on the cure we can find in Jesus. We live in an evil world but God is the answer to all these evils. Jesus is knocking at the hearts of each one of us in order to save and comfort us. We are then responsible to comfort others.