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An excerpt from a sermon by Waldemar Laufersweiler

There are times when suffering silences all the familiar answers. A loved one is in the intensive care unit. A serious illness disrupts daily life. News of pain and death reaches us from family, friends, or the church community. What seemed so certain just a moment ago suddenly becomes fragile.

In times like these, we ask: Why is this happening? How can we bear this pain? And where is God?

The Bible does not shy away from these questions. It makes room for lament and, at the same time, leads us to a hope that endures even in the darkness: God walks with us in our suffering. He knows our fear and our exhaustion. In Jesus’ suffering, we recognize how deeply heaven is connected to our pain.

When Suffering Overshadows Hope

The third chapter of Lamentations describes an experience that may be all too familiar to those who are suffering. The one praying feels pushed into darkness. His paths seem blocked, his prayers unheard. Bitterness fills his heart. Finally, he speaks of having lost peace and forgotten what happiness means (Lamentations 3:1–20).

These words do not sugarcoat anything. They show how deeply a person can be crushed by their distress. Even hope in God seems to slip away from him.

It is comforting that such words are found in the Bible. We do not have to hide our pain from God. Even a shaken faith may pray. Even a downcast soul may turn to Him.

Those who stand at a sickbed often understand these words differently than before. Suffering is no longer a distant issue. It has the face of a loved one. And the plea to God becomes personal: Lord, help me to understand. Show me what I can hold on to.

Gethsemane: Jesus Knows the Depth of Our Fear

Amid such questions, our gaze turns to Gethsemane. There, on the Mount of Olives, we encounter Jesus in a moment of extreme emotional distress.

According to Luke 22:39–46, he withdraws from his disciples, kneels down, and prays. He asks the Father to take the cup that is about to be poured out from him, if this is in accordance with the Father’s will. At the same time, he entrusts himself to the Father’s will.

We know this story. Perhaps we have heard it since childhood. Yet our familiarity with its words can prevent us from perceiving its depth. Jesus experiences real fear. His struggle is so intense that Luke describes his sweat as drops of blood falling to the ground.

In her account of Gethsemane in *The Life of Jesus*, Ellen White emphasizes Jesus’ exhaustion and overwhelming anguish. She directs our attention both to the Father, who suffers with His Son, and to the angels as witnesses to this event.

Thus, Gethsemane becomes a place where we recognize God’s compassion. Heaven does not view human suffering from an untouched distance. The Son of God Himself has entered into its deepest darkness.

God accompanies us in suffering and gives us strength

Luke reports that an angel from heaven appears and strengthens Jesus (Luke 22:43). Yet His struggle is not over. Even after receiving this strength, the evangelist describes His fear and His fervent prayer.

Herein lies an important insight for our faith: God’s help does not always mean that our distress ends immediately. Sometimes he grants strength while the difficult time continues.

Understandably, we long for relief, healing, and a swift answer. Yet even when we must continue to wait, we may trust in God’s presence. His support can sustain us, even though we cannot yet see the path ahead.

Gethsemane does not give us a simple explanation for every single suffering. But it shows us the Savior, who Himself went through fear and pain. That is why we can entrust to Him even those things for which we lack the words.

What Jesus’ Suffering Reveals About Sin

The experience of suffering initially led me to a pressing question: Why is this so? When I saw a loved one in the intensive care unit and heard about the severe suffering of others, this question would not leave me. I brought it before God: Lord, what are You trying to show me through this?

That very evening, without having specifically looked for it, I opened Ellen White’s *The Life of Jesus* to the chapter on Gethsemane. As I read, I came across a thought that shed new light on this question.

Her description of the suffering Savior and the Father suffering with His Son makes it clear how abhorrent sin is in God’s eyes. Jesus’ agony brings home to us what sin means and what price our redemption has cost.

In that, I found a personal answer. The suffering I had witnessed allowed me to grasp Jesus’ suffering more deeply. What I had known as a familiar biblical story now touched me with a new intensity. I became more aware of how destructive sin is and how much heaven has endured so that we might live.

This does not explain every single experience of suffering. Yet it is precisely in pain that God can open our eyes to something we easily repress: the sinfulness of sin.

When we realize what it cost Christ, we should come to hate sin more and more. What we have previously excused or downplayed, we will no longer want to hold on to.

In this way, even a difficult experience can help us die more and more to sin and turn more decisively toward Christ. We ask God that He will not let our pain be in vain, but that He will draw us closer to Himself through it and transform our hearts.

Resisting Sin: Prayer and Sanctification in Daily Life

The Letter to the Hebrews speaks with great seriousness about this struggle:

“You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your struggle against sin.”

Hebrews 12:4

This verse challenges us to ask how resolutely we actually resist sin. Have we resigned ourselves to certain habits? Do we give in to temptations because resisting them seems too inconvenient?

Contemplating Jesus’ suffering calls us to take the battle against sin seriously and to trust in His strength as we do so.

In Gethsemane, Jesus urges His disciples to get up and pray so that they will not fall into temptation (Luke 22:45–46). This call links spiritual vigilance with prayer. We need closeness to God in order to recognize temptations and resist them.

That is why we must not put off changing our lives until a later time. Now, in this present time of grace, Christ wants to purify us and renew our character.

Envy, jealousy, distrust, lack of self-control, intemperance, worldliness, unkindness, and selfish motives must lose their power over us.

Sanctification occurs as we open ourselves to God’s work, confess our sins, and take new steps in trust in Him. His grace grants us forgiveness and empowers us to resist sin.

The deeper our understanding of Jesus’ sacrifice, the less we want to cling to what caused Him such agony. From this grows our prayer: Lord, let me see sin through Your eyes. Help me to die to it and to live out of Your love.

God’s mercy is new every morning

After the dark words of lament, the one praying in Lamentations 3 consciously turns to a different reality. He recalls God’s mercy and faithfulness. In this he places his hope (Lamentations 3:21–26).

At this point, his external circumstances have not yet visibly changed. Yet his soul finds a foothold: God’s mercy is not exhausted. Every morning he may count on it anew.

We, too, need this reminder. Especially in suffering, our perspective can become so narrow that we see only the hardship. Then the words of Scripture help us to focus once more on God’s faithfulness.

This quiet waiting for His help does not mean that we are no longer allowed to have questions or shed tears. It is a trust that brings both before God and yet clings to Him.

Lamentations 3:31–33 also reminds us that suffering is not God’s heart’s desire for humanity. His mercy remains greater than the darkness we are currently experiencing.

Suffering Has an End

Christian hope extends beyond our present experience. Paul is convinced that the sufferings of this present time will be nothing compared to the glory that is to come (Romans 8:18–19).

For those in the midst of pain, this thought may be difficult to grasp. At a sickbed, suffering cannot be dispelled with a quick reference to the future. Rather, the biblical promise is meant to sustain us: what afflicts us today will not last forever.

All of creation awaits the revelation of the children of God. Our gaze is therefore fixed on the fulfillment that God has promised. Pain and transience will not have the last word.

God walks with us in our suffering—and He leads us toward a future in which suffering will end. Until then, we may lament, pray, and hope. We may allow Christ to transform us and live each new morning out of God’s mercy.

Gethsemane reminds us how deep His love reaches. The promise of coming glory reminds us where this love is leading us.