Reflections

The Problem of Pain

There are many problems which baffle human understanding, but there is no greater problem with which the human mind has to wrestle than the problems created by suffering and pain. Death is not the greatest mystery; sin is not the greatest mystery. Pain is the greatest mystery in the universe.

John in the Revelation, when listing the things that will not be present in the New Jerusalem, comes to that problem as the last on his list, and, as he realised that God will forever remove it from the universe, says with deep relief - 'neither shall there be any more pain'. While pain is a mystery it is not an unrelieved mystery, for in many ways it is the monitor of human health. If we felt no pain when fire burned, or when knives cut, then our race would have perished centuries ago.
In making us at the beginning, the God of infinite love and wisdom insisted on creating us as persons and not as puppets, and He will not withdraw this freedom even to save us from our woes. Yet as we watch Him at work in the world, the testimony of history is that He is adept at turning the bitter into the sweet, and producing something worthy for the price that pain had paid. There can be no doubt that the One who suffered most is the Man who, 1900 years ago, hung upon a centre cross. And that Man is none other than the Almighty God.