I have spent many hours sitting with people in pain. At the inpatient unit where I did my counseling internship, there were so many people whose minds and bodies were wracked with misery.

As a pastor, I continue to be around people who are suffering. I pray for people to be relieved of their pain, but the truth is it often continues. And I’ve seen loved ones die these past few years, a few of them before their time. Sometimes people recover and other times they do not.

There’s a concept in Christianity called “the abundant life”. Really though, the idea is quite universal. Put another way, the abundant life is “life to the fullest” or “being the change you’d like to see in the world”. It is living a life of deep meaning, purpose, and joy.

We talk about how wonderful this kind of life is, but the day to day reality often flies in the face of what we expect it to look like. Our experiences show that if an abundant life exists, it is rarely a pain-free life.

In the book of John chapter five, Jesus instantaneously heals a man who has been paralyzed for 38 years, then tells him “Stop sinning or something worse may happen.”

His words seem abrasive and insensitive. How dare he say ‘something worse may happen’!

What could be worse than a life of constant pain?

The word he uses for ‘sinning’ is hamartane, a Greek term meaning tragedy. It can also mean ‘missing the mark’ – in other words not living the life you were meant to live. The only other time this term is used is at the end of John 8 when Jesus releases a woman caught in the act of adultery: “Go now and leave this life of tragedy (hamartane).”

These two stories reveal a universal spiritual truth – that Pain and Tragedy are, in fact, separate. Some people have no pain and yet live a tragic life, while others are in near constant pain but live an abundant life. Regardless of how good one’s health and well-being are, it is always possible to live a life of self-absorption, self-pity, self-sabotage, self-hate. We can always succumb to bitterness and despair, to endless distractions or self-medication that slowly chip away at our destiny. We can write a script and play the lead in a tragedy even Shakespeare himself couldn’t conceive. Turns out there is something worse than the pain-filled life and that is the tragic life.

It is no mistake that the author of this gospel provides the detail of ’38 years’ when telling us how long the man had been struggling with his health.

When the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, the majority of that time (38 years) was spent in the desert oasis of Kadesh Barnea located right on the edge of the “Promised Land”. Kadesh Barnea represents something that is not ideal, but familiar and perhaps even oddly comfortable. Kadesh Barnea is the safety of the small life or the tragic life. Missing the mark and never living life to the fullest.

In the midst of mental, spiritual, and physical pain it is a struggle not to live a tragic life. But there’s hope as well. The Promised Land is not just an obscure piece of geography from an old book, it is right in front of us this very day. It is the abundant life: a life where we love others, experience joy, feel purpose and find a stable identity. We are on the edge of something big and unknown, and it is just the other side of this wilderness called pain.

The Tragic Life