Pain and the Creator

I hate pain.  I don’t want to experience it, I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to think about it, and I’m certainly not going to laugh at it (like the things that happen to the bad guys in a lot of kids’ movies). But that doesn’t seem to be quite what God thinks about it.

Leprosy is a terrible disease that destroys the ability to feel pain. This allows people to do things that we would never do because it would hurt too much. Together with the leprosy bacteria, this causes such terrible damage that they can lose their fingers and the use of their hands and feet.

Both Eve and Adam were told they would have pain because of their sin. The ground was cursed to grow thorns and thistles for Adam, and Eve was told that bringing babies into the world was going to hurt (a lot). Genesis 3:16-18

Since the Fall of Adam and Eve, pain has served a very useful purpose in our lives. Our muscles and joints tell us when we are putting too much strain on our bodies. Our stomach lets us know when it is fighting germs and we’d better stop eating. And pain tells us when something is causing damage, like a thorn in our foot or sand in our eye. Without pain, our bodies wouldn’t last through our childhoods!

Jesus and Pain

One of the things that Jesus did was to create us with the ability to feel pain, knowing that He Himself would be “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Revelation 13:8b. Growing up, I really didn’t like hearing about Christ’s sufferings on the cross. They are too horrible to imagine.

Christ designed the whole nervous system with its ability to send urgent pain messages to the brain. He knew all the time that Humanity would figure out how to cause the most pain for the longest time and use it on Him. No wonder Jesus prayed so hard in the Garden to escape having to go through what was coming That Day!

Thank God, He submitted Himself to His Father and went anyway!

Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;  Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; Hebrews 5:7,8

Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, someday those in His kingdom will never again have to feel pain:

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. Revelation 21:4