Suffering

As I opened my eyes this morning, thinking about the past few days, my mind turned toward the cross and to Christ’s suffering. I found myself feeling grateful that I believe in and serve a God who understood pain.

My wife and I have been blessed these past two days by the outpouring of support. The notes of encouragement and emails have been wonderful. Many of them have recounted times of similar pain…a miscarriage or loss of a child. Others have just said, “We will walk with you”.

As I turned to God this morning, I felt as if he said, “I get your pain and I will walk with you”.

“But we do see Him who has been made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.” —Hebrews 2:9-10, NASB

“The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak; They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne; But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.” —Edward Shillito in the poem “Jesus of the Scars”

“Frequently it is when we are crushed and devastated that the cross speaks most powerfully to us. The wounds of Christ then become Christ’s credentials. The world mocks, but we are assured of God’s love by Christ’s Wounds.”

—D. A. Carson in “How Long, O Lord?”

“By itself suffering does no good. But when we see it as the thing between God and us, it has meaning. Wedged in the crux—the cross—suffering becomes a transaction. The cross is a place of transaction. It is the place where power happens between God and us.”

—Joni Eareckson Tada in “When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty”

No one has suffered more than our Father in heaven. No one has paid more dearly for the allowance of sin into the world. No one has so continuously grieved over the pain of a race gone bad. No one has suffered like the One who paid for our sin in the crucified body of His own Son. No one has suffered more than the One who, when He stretched out His arms and died, showed us how much He loved us. It is this God who, in drawing us to Himself, asks us to trust Him when we are suffering and when our own loved ones cry out in our presence (I Peter 2:21; 3:18; 4:1).

—RBC’s “Our Daily Bread”

“In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time, after a while I have had to look away. And in imagination I have turned instead to the lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside His immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of His. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we stamp another mark, the cross which symbolizes divine suffering.”

—John R.W. Stott in “The Cross of Christ”