Pain

We often don't like talking about pain, as it makes us uncomfortable, but pain gets worse the more we ignore it and the more we try to mask it. Think of a past physical injury. Did pretending nothing happened make it feel better? Did continuing to move the effected area as normal help recovery? Perhaps the old adage, "walk-it-off" helped? Too often we ignore pain as an inconvenience; we don't think of pain as our friend. Yet the truth about pain, that it is a guide to healthy recovery, goes un-promoted. Why? Because we'd rather not feel discomfort or be confronted with the truth: pain is a sign something is wrong.

How does pain signify wrongness? Let's consider the absence of pain. There is a degenerative disease of the nervous system that shuts down nerve receptivity. No reception from nerve endings means no pain, which means no feeling. No feeling means that people who have suffered from this disease have literally worked the fingers off their hands and the toes off their feet. Which is why leprosy was once believed to be a magical wasting disease that struck suddenly and without warning. And the only way to cure it was to cut off the affected appendages or limbs. Amputation is not the answer. Amputation was only the answer when an infected wound, which the affected person's body couldn't feel, became gangrenous. Which is a fancy way of saying part of the body was rotting while the rest of it was still alive. Anyone still want to go out for lunch?

Injuries are not rot, but unhealed injuries can be devastating. Crippling, even. Not just physically, but also emotionally. The physicians who overturned the magical diagnosis on leprosy did something unheard of, they didn't run away from their leprous patients, that is they didn't run out of fear of catching the disease. They sat down and studied the lives of their patients, and discovered that many of their wounds were overuse injuries that were never given the opportunity to heal. They discovered that fingers disappeared because open sores smell and rats like to eat smelly things. No pain means no feeling, even while being nibbled.

These grotesque images would surely be enough to convince a majority of people that its better to listen to our pain, then to ignore it completely. Or perhaps there aren't enough hungry rats in our lives to remind us to take better care of our bodies. But the rats we often see aren't the dirty and ferocious rodents we imagine slinking away in the dark. The rats many of us face are clean, well groomed and friendly. In other words the rats at our fingers are wearing us down with the promise of health, if we would work just a little harder for it. Or they tell us not to worry about it, take a couple of pills a day for the rest of our life and everything will be fine. We will be normal. Or they can take us away in a straight jacket and keep us away from society because they can't fix us.

Pain. It's a gift no one wants.

A gift that tells us when we're trying too hard. It tells us when we need to ease up on the reigns and relax a little bit. But too often we don't listen to this message. Instead we look for more stimulants, more masking additives that will keep us from focusing on the pain, but in the end make us cranky, irritable and completely oblivious to a beautiful morning sunrise. Many of us live with chronic pain, because we don't know what life would be like without it. Pain becomes apart of us, even as we try to get it away from us.

Jesus healed a man who lived in a cycle of constant pain:

"When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, 'What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don't torment me.' For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) Jesus then asked him, 'What is your name?' And he said, 'Legion,' for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. When the herdsman saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed."

The man in this story has deep problems. Problems no one in his community can solve. Problems so big that chains and guards can't sedate them. This man is crazy, by an ages description. He's so crazy he can come before Jesus and fall down at his feet, because no one is willing to try and stop him; they are all too afraid. Jesus doesn't pull back in horror of who this man is. Jesus could have easily jumped back in the boat and set sail without having to confront him. But instead Jesus steps out of the boat and into the man's world of darkness. A world of loneliness and failure. And where others have tried to set him free through chains, Jesus simply says a few words, and the demons depart from the man's mind. Clarity and health are restored, but the people of the city are afraid.

They would rather have a crazy man and a herd of pigs, than a restored man with no pigs. The pigs are the price of this man's sanity is not just a few words from Jesus. Its not that the pigs were a sacrifice. Pigs are not a sacrificial animal. But the pigs represent something wrong with the community of Jews. Jews don't eat pork. So why is there a herd of pigs near a Jewish city? Pigs are good for one thing, and one thing only. Eating. Somebody is eating something they're not supposed to, or taking advantage of an industry they are not supposed to be in.

Jesus didn't come across the lake to lecture the Jewish community about pork and pigs. He came to set a man free, and in the process he pointed out that something was wrong with their community. But the people don't want to be confronted with what's wrong, they were afraid of being judged. Which is a stark contrast to the man who has not moved away from Jesus feet. Despite all his flaws, lack of clothing, lack of friends and lack of just about everything, Jesus did not judge him. Jesus healed him. Jesus did not blame the man for his problems, Jesus set him free from them. When we fall down at Jesus feet, he does not condemn. He sets right. He heals. Not temporarily. Purely and fully.

It is the purity of Jesus that scares so many people. We'd rather cling to the pigs in our lives then let go and be free from the demons in our heads. Pain is a gift that tells us something is wrong. The man at Jesus feet was freed from his pain and restored to a healthy mind. Pain is not meant to be a state of being, its an indication something is wrong. It exists so we can be made whole. It exists so we can be healed.