Dear Trekker,
One of my favorite TV newscasters opens his nightly program with the words: “Caution… you are about to enter the no-spin zone.” Well this month, you are entering the no-spin zone on a very tough topic to understand, digest or in which to find victory! That subject is what Scripture calls suffering.
What has triggered my thoughts was a chance pick-up of Guideposts magazine this month. In its pages is a short section entitled: “The Upside.. quotes from today’s positive thinkers.” This quote caught my eye and my mind paused: “I believe in simple Christian values and I try to live by that. I can’t abide suffering and that’s a Christian value, to not abide suffering. “Whoa, I thought… that is unintended heresy! The worst heresy of all is incorrect, uninformed opinions being taught as truth. Positive thinking is good, but if not grounded in the truth of the Scriptures, it is meaningless and can lead one astray ever so quickly.
The quote is from Joseph Fiennes, film actor and star of the newly released (this month) film, Risen. Fiennes plays Clavius, the Roman military tribune, investigating the claim of the resurrection of Jesus on orders of Pilate. The story line looks at the period between the resurrection of Jesus and his ascension. Though I haven’t seen the film yet (I will soon), supposedly the climax is when Clavius encounters the risen Christ in the flesh.
I smile and find it ironic that the actor who plays Clavius would make such a nonsensical statement: “It is a Christian value to not abide (live with or accept) suffering.” The greatest suffering known to man was the passion of Christ. Apparently, Fiennes, the man, did not connect the dots. Many do not.
Suffering deals with life, is a part of life and something we live with, like it or not. And who enjoys suffering? We endure suffering, even as Christ endured the cross. But make no mistake… suffering is life. The only escape is death! (And without the Christ within, then, I am not so sure suffering will ever end.)
Suffering leads to salvation! Without the cross and its suffering, the resurrection and triumph therein would not, could not have occurred. Without our own immersion into suffering, we develop foolish Pollyanna ideas of what life is and is not about. Words from St. Paul’s letter to the believers at Philippi come to mind most readily: “Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.” Trekker, that is suffering for the cause of Christ.
Then Paul continues in Chapter 3:10-11, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, being like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” This statement of Paul’s is not simply sublime. I believe he is saying that in some mysterious way, as we suffer, we actually share in the suffering of Christ on the cross. When a believer in Christ suffers, it portends “a crown” as well and is sharing in the suffering of Christ, helping to bear His cross. Incomprehensible, yes! So much of Scripture and the Life of incarnation and resurrection is most difficult to apprehend by any human mind. In fact, the unenlightened human mind cannot grasp the meaning of the cross. Paul tells the Corinthian Church: “The message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (I Corinthians 1:18).
Suffering is real, it is “there” for us all, or just around the corner. One of my dearest friends passed away a couple of days ago. My, how he and his wife and family suffered in recent months. News is numbing. Tears come quickly. Life is suddenly interrupted… and forever changed, often without warning. Fear is an emotional response in the face of tragedy… certainly a first response. Yet, suffering must be embraced, no matter how reluctantly.
We do learn and grow through suffering. The writer of Hebrews writes in Chapter 5:8, “Although He was a son, he (Jesus) learned obedience from what He suffered.” Learning from suffering also was a major theme to early Greek thinkers. They always seem to connect learning with suffering! No suffering, no learning. Herodotus declared his sufferings were “ungracious ways of learning.”
God speaks to us (to me, trekker) through difficult, suffering times of my life. Not the least are those which try my heart and soul. Yet I only learn as my heart is in a state of worship, awe and reverence. If we accept the vagaries of life in resentment and disappointment, we learn little and are deaf to God’s voice and leading. The Authorized version of Hebrews 5:8 says that “Jesus was made perfect by the things he suffered.” To the ancient mind, anything became perfect when it carried out the purpose for which it was created or designed to do. The writer of Hebrews is no doubt saying that all the sufferings Jesus endured prepared Him to become the Redeemer and Savior of men that He is. And if we are to be like Jesus in 2016 (I hope you read last month’s MEN), suffering will fill and complete us too, to be like Jesus! Amen!
Trekker, suffering is fact. But, there is a special sanctity in it. The choice for us is not whether we will suffer or not, but for whom we suffer. Suffering is the “stuff” of human growth, the real “growth hormone.” We need not grow bitter in suffering; it will make us better. As we live “worthily and heartily unto the Lord,” trekker, we live honorably, allowing suffering to serve its purpose – “to be like Jesus.”
Oh, trekker, may we heed the words of Paul to his son in the faith, Timothy, “Endure hardness (suffering) as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (II Timothy 2:3).
Your friend and fellow sufferer,
Jim Meredith