Hope in the painful times

I have never quite understood what to do - as a pastor - when people are in pain.  It is times like that when you want to come alongside, say something encouraging, pray, even see the healing occur and the pain go away.  That is what I want to have happen.  Yet that is not my experience.  For the most part I walk away feeling quite useless.  I pray...and I know that this is good to do.  But the pain still remains.

Reading through Jeremiah I find a man of God who "lived" in a place of pain.  His country was falling into ruin.  The captivity was soon coming...Jeremiah saw it on the horizon, and warned of it - only to have his fellow Jews deride him for being a traitor.  He was living in the pain of rejection while knowing that God's judgement was soon to fall...
SO, where does hope appear in times of pain and suffering?
I ran across these words in Jeremiah this morning.

Jeremiah 33:1-3 (NIV)
¹ While Jeremiah was still confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the LORD came to him a second time:
² "This is what the LORD says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it--the LORD is his name:
³ 'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know...'

Notice the paradox of faith...Jeremiah is "confined", imprisoned...and God's word comes to him "again".  Then God speaks of first his majesty...He formed the earth, not just Israel the nation...and then God speaks of the invitation to Jeremiah - "call to me..."  In the midst of his suffering, God reminds him of his majesty, and asks him to call out to him...it's a faith invitation.  Not an invitation to answers, or solutions, or even to collaborate with God as to what to do next.  It's simply an invitation to turn towards the only one who really knows what is going on.

A few verses later God speaks into Jeremiah's situation.

Jeremiah 33:14-16 (NIV)
¹⁴ "'The days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
¹⁵ "'In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David's line; he will do what is just and right in the land.
¹⁶ In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.'

The answer is yet in the future for Jeremiah.  God doesn't even say Jeremiah will still be alive (he won't) when the answer will come.  The answer isn't found in a political, or military solution.  The answer is found in God's person - the righteous branch from David's line - Jesus.
The Kingdom of God is announced in Jesus' messages...the Kingdom of God is the future answer to all the pain and the suffering...and there really is no answer beyond that.

Peace