Affliction and Healing

By Barnabas Piper

At the turn of every decade—from our twenties to our thirties, thirties to forties, and so on—people comment on their pending physical decline. Well, at forty three, I definitively feel my own physical limitations in ways I never have before. I am not ill or especially injured (although I find that something always hurts); I am simply weakening. I am unable to do all I used to do and unable to recover quickly when I try.

Some of you are young and healthy and fit. Others are likely battling debilitating health conditions. But one thing is undeniably certain for all of us: Our bodies are failing and broken. Everyone ages. Everyone breaks down. Everyone experiences physical limitation and deterioration. This world is marked by the effects of sin, the curse that touches every aspect of life, including our physical wellness. The whole world is marked by entropy, that insidious trajectory toward decline and disorder.

While this is hardly a jolly context, it is a realistic one. And it is one that prepares us to receive the words of Scripture that offer genuine hope rather than falsified, pie-in-the-sky promises. In 2 Corinthians, Paul calls this life a “momentary affliction” (2Corinthians 4:17). At first blush, that reads as rubbish. After all, many of us resonate with the words of Westley from The Princess Bride, “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.” How can Paul call the troubles of this life “momentary” or light? Because on the scale of eternity, they are.

And eternity—the reign of the risen Christ—is where we find the fulfillment of God’s promises scattered across the pages of Scripture. When we see God promising to deliver the righteous from afflictions (Psalm 34:15–22) or to heal the brokenhearted (Psalm 147:3), we know He does that in this life in so many ways. Yet we will still experience afflictions and broken hearts until the day when Jesus makes all things right.

Sometimes thinking of “eternity” seems too nebulous and immense to give real hope in times of real pain. So remember: The eternal Son of God took on flesh and walked among us. He suffered as we suffer and knows the sorrow and pain of human life. And as He lived this marred life, He reflected the compassionate heart of His Father (Mark 1, Matthew 14). Jesus wielded power to heal and comfort as a foreshadowing of the complete and perfect comfort He will one day bring. By living a sinless life and serving as the sacrifice for our sins on the cross, He made a way for the promises of God—comfort, presence, healing, relief, reviving, rest—to be fully fulfilled.

It is this—the work of Christ in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension—that allows us to echo Paul’s words with full confidence, no matter our suffering: “Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day (2Corinthians 4:16).