Mount Sterling First United Methodist Church
The Crucifixion and Resurrection- Transforming the Meaning of Suffering and Hope

  • Hearing God: Listening in a Noisy World

    Last week I asked if you ever had a problem praying to God, knowing what to say, what to think, what or who to pray for. Prayer is our ultimate deep relationship with God, so it is the best way that we can individually and collectively mature and deepen our connection with God. This week we will discuss how to hear God in a very noisy world.
    Hearing God means we are actively listening and in-tune with God’s voice, God’s prompting, God’s encouragement, God’s motivation, and God’s Spirit. Listening is an intentional act of inviting an outside force into your mind that will offer new information, new data, that could possibly change who you are, confirm who you are, and encourage your present day walk.
    Think through your life and how so much has changed, yet one force that has change, and yet remained, is the noise of life. When you are younger, you have the noise of your ever developing body, your parents/guardians, grandparents, siblings, extended family, friends from the neighborhood, friends from school, rules of school, rules of home, rules of the community you live, and the list goes on and on.
    When you get older your noise changes into adult responsibilities. You have the noise of paying bills, the noise of fixing things that are broken, the noise of family, employment, government, neighborhood, other people’s opinions, and the list goes on and on.
    In your retirement the noise changes again but is still present. You now have noises much like when you were younger and your body is doing things that you’ve never experienced before and you may not like it. You also have the noise of hoping you will have enough money to live on, wanting to be available to have fun, desiring to be with family, more medical appointments than you desire, traveling to new places, and the noise of silence as you see more friends start to leave you one by one.

    God speaks in many ways

    In all of noise of life, in every stage of your life, God still speaks. When you’re younger God speaks in a way that is relevant to a youthful age, in your busy adult years God is speaking above, in between, and beneath the cracks of life, in your maturing years of retirement God is speaking in the silence, the mundane, the unwanted, the joy, and the freedom that this life stage provides. God is always speaking but does so in many different ways so that every age and every culture will be able to hear, and hopefully listen.
    So, in the noise of your life, in whatever stage you are in, how does God speak to you? As a United Methodist Christian how does God speak to you? Looking upon our United Methodist heritage, God is said to speak to us through Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience.
    God’s voice is heard through scripture as it is a collection of 66+ books/letters/poems/songs that were constructed to evidence God engaging in relationship with humanity throughout many millennia. Scripture is one of our ultimate guides for reflection of religious interaction with a holy God and humanity on the onward and upward holiness progression of love. Mark Twain said,
    Most people are bothered by those passages in Scripture which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always noticed that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand.
    Mark Twain
    For non-Christians scripture can still speak to their existence but other religious or humanistic writings may play a larger role, this is to be expected but for us United Methodist Christians, scripture is still essential in our overall understanding of how God can speak through the generations.
    Tradition is another way God can speak to us. Tradition in the USA in 2024 is going to be different than Tradition in Rome in 1200 or Babylon in 300BC. God will speak through the present day culture in a way that is significant, symbolic, while emphasizing God’s holiness and illuminating human understanding through the ever-present and moving Spirit. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said,
    We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    Traditions can come and go depending on the nature of what is needed and necessary for the people, at the time. Some Traditions can also last too long where no one understands why we do this specific act anymore. Traditions can also be good and deepen a prayerful relationship with God. God definitely speaks through the ritualistic acts that we, as a people, choose to do.
    Reason proclaims the active and ongoing knowledge that humans gain over time. You may have heard the phrase before, “we don’t check our brains at the door of the church”, this should be true of every church that you enter. If something simply does not make sense and new knowledge or data on a certain topic proves otherwise, especially if it speaks against a traditional interpretation of scripture, then reason should be highly considered as more relevant. Francis Bacon said,
    A little philosophy inclines men’s minds to atheism, but depth in philosophy brings men’s minds about to religion.
    —Francis Bacon
    Francis Bacon (Philosopher)
    God speaks through education as we learn more about this world, we do learn more about God and can learn to hear God’s voice in new and exciting ways. Reason is good so don’t easily cast it away when you may not fully understand something new.
    Experience is not new but was an addition from Wesley to the people called Methodists. Wesley added experience to the 3-fold Scripture, Tradition, and Reason from the Church of England. Experience is the active voice of the Holy Spirit in the daily life events, activities, and ever evolving culture of humanity. Humanity must listen to God through experiencing life for the maintenance of old relationships and the establishment of new relationships all consists of new and maturing experiences of life. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said,
    We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
    Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
    God definitely speaks through experiences that are new, frightening, uncomfortable, and confirming.
    Tradition, Reason, and Experience all speak to Scripture, as Scripture also speaks to Tradition, Reason, and Experience. God throughout time has spoken when there was no Scripture, no Tradition, and very limited Reason and Experience.

    The Role of Discernment

    This bring us to discernment. We all have the ability to perceive or recognize differences to judge what is right and wrong, good and evil, the voice of God and the will of humanity. Unfortunately, we’ve all come across people who who have very little discernment. There is a quote from an unknown author that says:
    ​
    Little [people] with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds.
    Unknown
    In other words, there are some people who simply do not have any common sense to see life with another person’s vision or walk through this world in another person’s shoes. In our 1Kings scripture reading , we have the story of Elijah running for his life after the prophets of Baal were killed. Elijah proclaimed God’s word, held to his cultural traditions, reasoned with his real life circumstances, and experienced God anew in a relational conversation. The bookend of this experience was God questioning Elijah, “Why are you here?” God spoke with Elijah to confirm who he was, confirm his prophetic action, confirm that throughout all the noise around him that God is not in the noise of the world. God is ultimately received and heard in the thin, quiet moments of reflection, discernment, and interpretation while journeying in all the noise of this crazy world. Catherine of Siena said,
    The core of pride is impatience and its offshoot is the lack of any discernment.
    Saint Catherine of Siena
    Discerning God’s voice, while in the noisy moments of life, help us to do what the Psalmist invites the readers on multiple occasions-SELAH, to pause, to sit, to reflect, and then act. When one has a prayer life whose foundation is built upon divine discernment then you will have a pray-er who intentionally seeks God’s will as God’s ambassador not the world’s warrior. When we take time to discern we then will be able to hear the voice of God. John 10.27 says
    John 10:27 CEB
    My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me.
    In the stillness of life we are able to be attentive to the voice of our Savior, to hear, to listen, and then to follow.

    God desires genuine relationships

    The busyness of life can be so noisy that we, at times, choose to deny God the relationship of his desire. That relationship is to give and receive love with you. The God/human relationship is one of intimacy in prayer, intimacy in action, intimacy in private, and intimacy in public. God never stops pursuing you for there is not an end point to a relationship. In prayer we continue to communicate with God and time with God is needed especially when the world’s noise can be too distracting. Thomas Schreiner says,
    Love for God cannot be sustained without a relationship with him, and such a relationship is nurtured by prayer.
    Thomas Schreiner
    A deeply held prayer life does not have to be one that is outlandish where you are always the person asked to pray in public settings; don’ worry that is always reserved for the pastor, even if the pastor don’t want to do it. A deeply held prayer life can also be very subtle. A deeply held prayer life can be very private. A deeply held prayer life is true prayer. R.T. France says,
    True prayer is not a technique nor a performance, but a relationship.
    R. T. France
    A true relationship with God must have true prayer from the believer or the seeker of the divine. Prayer enters one into the presence of God. Prayer strengthens the relationship with God. Prayer emboldens the faith of the believer in a noisy world. When you are soaked in prayer then you are transformed into your prayers. Warren Wiersbe says,
    Prayer is not something that I do; prayer is something that I am.
    Warren W. Wiersbe
    As we continue to develop our prayerful skills, we develop our listening skills, which develop our divine loving skills. A prayerful heart that listens to and connects with God is an act of love. Saint Augustine said,
    What you love you worship; true prayer, real prayer, is nothing but loving: what you love, that you pray to.
    Saint Augustine of Hippo
    As we pray to that which we love, our words and our actions will unite together as one. Our relationship with God will grow, the deafening noise of the world will extinguish, the words from our tongue will be praise, and people will see a prayerful life of love in action. So whether we are asleep or awake a life of prayer will guide us and help us to hear God more. John Wesley said,
    The moment I awaked, ‘Jesus, Master,’ was in my heart and in my mouth; and I found all my strength lay in keeping my eye fixed upon Him, and my soul waiting on Him continually.
    John Wesley (Founder of the Methodist Movement)

    Silent Reflection and Mindfulness

    As we enter into a new week, I encourage you to take time in silent reflection and mindfully focus upon God in prayer. Last week I invited you to pray the open-hearted disciples prayer. This week I invite you to say a prayer that has been said for many generations, The Jesus Prayer.
    Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner
    Amen.
  • The Day Of Resurrection
  • Hymn Of Promise

      • Luke 23:32–43CEB

      • Luke 24:13–35CEB

  • Suffering is a reality none of us escape. Whether it’s personal loss, injustice we witness in the world, or moments of despair that feel like dead ends, suffering confronts our deepest hopes. Often we wonder: where is God in it all? How do we reconcile pain with a belief in divine love? These aren’t new questions. They were the same questions haunting Jesus’ followers as they witnessed his crucifixion. In Jesus’ death, and in the experiences that followed it, early Christians did not find simple answers. What they found was something more profound: an invitation to see suffering, justice, hope, and divine presence in a transformed light.
    Today we explore how the crucifixion and resurrection did not erase suffering from human experience, but instead reshaped its meaning, and how our understanding of these events continues to evolve even now.*
    The Crucifixion: Facing Suffering Honestly
    In Luke 23, Jesus is crucified alongside two criminals. One mocks him; the other asks to be remembered when Jesus enters his kingdom. In this moment, we see something that would have been shocking to anyone expecting a conquering Messiah: Jesus, bleeding and dying, hanging not above sinners but among them, with them, suffering alongside and experiencing the exact same emotions. This, my friends, is an ever present literal representation of God suffering with us.
    The scandal of the crucifixion is that God does not overpower suffering with force but chooses solidarity with it. Jesus doesn’t escape pain; he endures it. He doesn’t call down angels to destroy his enemies; he forgives them. There’s no more avoidance, no more escape, no more walking through the crowds to avoid death; death is real and gripping Jesus’ body.
    The thief who asks to be remembered recognizes something in Jesus even in that hour of darkness. Not a victory in worldly terms, but a faithfulness, an unbreakable communion between God and the brokenness of the world. “Today you will be with me in paradise,” Jesus promises, even as nails pin him to wood.
    Open and Relational Theology helps us name what is happening here without glossing over it: God is not the distant cause of suffering, nor the puppet master of tragedy. God suffers with creation, works within creation’s pain, and responds to it with redemptive love. 
    This view challenges triumphalistic Christian interpretations that treat Jesus’ death as a mere transaction. It invites us to see Jesus’ crucifixion as God’s radical participation in human suffering, not God’s requirement of it. It is the ultimate act of love, from Jesus, who stayed true to the message he received from God even when the force of the political and religious empire threatened and carried out the execution upon the cross.*
    The Resurrection: Transforming Despair into Recognition
    The good news is the gospel story does not end with the cross. After the horror of  holy Friday, there is the silence of Saturday, and then the mystery of the resurrection of Sunday morning. Luke 24 gives us one of the most beautiful and human depictions of resurrection: two disciples walking the road to Emmaus, grieving, confused, utterly defeated.
    They do not recognize Jesus when he joins them. That detail matters. The resurrection is not portrayed here as flashy or obvious. Instead, it emerges slowly, subtly through conversation, hospitality, and breaking bread. Only in the familiarity of shared life does their despair transform into recognition.
    Notice what Luke emphasizes: their hearts were “on fire” as Jesus opened the scriptures to them, reframing their understanding. They had assumed that death meant failure. Jesus revealed that God’s love does not prevent suffering but works through it toward surprising new life.
    Process Theology illuminates this journey well. Resurrection is not a magical undoing of pain; it is the creative transformation of pain into deeper life. Resurrection is God’s ongoing work of bringing fresh possibilities out of devastation, not violating the world’s freedom, but faithfully luring it toward renewal.
    The Emmaus story invites us to practice resurrection in our own lives—not only to believe that Jesus rose, but to recognize the signs of rising life all around us: in forgiveness offered, in communities rebuilt, in joy restored after mourning.*
    Evolving Understandings of Suffering and Hope
    The early Christians didn’t understand resurrection in one static way. Their experiences and theological reflections evolved as they wrestled with the meaning of Jesus’ death and renewed life.
    At first, resurrection was seen as vindication: God affirming that Jesus’ teachings of love, inclusion, and mercy were not defeated by the cross. Over time, resurrection also became a cosmic hope, the promise that God would ultimately heal all creation.
    Later theological traditions added new layers, some helpful, others problematic. Some interpreted suffering as necessary payment for sin, a victory over an enemy, a ransom for debt, etc… ( multiple views that grew into various theologies of atonement). But many thinkers, especially today, are recovering a deeper, more relational view: that God does not need violence to love us; God is always working to redeem suffering without causing it.
    Open and Relational scholars like Thomas Jay Oord remind us: God’s power is not coercive. It is persuasive. It works with freedom, not against it. Resurrection, then, is the ultimate persuasion: the love of God refusing to be extinguished, even by death itself.*
    Suffering, Justice, and Divine Love Today
    So, what does it mean for us today to say that Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection transform suffering and hope?
    First, it invites us to be honest about pain. Too often, Christians try to minimize suffering with clichés: “Everything happens for a reason,” or “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” These platitudes, first are not even in scripture, and second they betray the real witness of the cross and resurrection. Jesus never sugarcoated suffering. He entered it fully and so should we. 
    Second, it invites us to act. Resurrection hope is not passive. It is active resistance against injustice. If God’s love meets us in suffering and draws us toward life, then we are called to do the same for others. We don’t wait for heaven to bring justice; we embody it now, trusting that God’s power is at work through our faithful actions.
    Third, it invites us to see hope not as naive optimism but as stubborn trust in God’s ongoing creativity. Hope does not deny hardship; it refuses to let hardship have the last word. It keeps walking the road to Emmaus, even when the path feels uncertain.*
    Living as Resurrection People
    Siblings of Christ, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus do not give us easy answers to the problem of suffering. They give us a transformed imagination. They reveal a God who enters into pain, not to glorify it, but to redeem it. They invite us to become people who notice resurrection in the everyday: who look for signs of life amid loss, who embody justice in a broken world, and who trust that God’s relentless love will never abandon us.
    As we continue to evolve in our faith, may we never settle for shallow interpretations of the cross or the empty tomb. May we embrace the complexity, the mystery, and the promise. Suffering is real. Death is real. But the love of God is more real still.
    We are resurrection people. We are witnesses that love wins. We are companions on the road, our hearts on fire within us, even when we do not yet understand. And that is enough for today. Amen.
Mount Sterling First United Methodist Church
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