As we continue tonight to meditate on the mystery of
suffering, someone comes to meet us on our journey who, because he is both God and man, knows more about
suffering than anyone. This person is, of course, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Back in July of 2016, I wrote a post entitled “Suffering and dying Jesus for a suffering and dying
world”. Below is a link to it. I am going to re-post a little bit of it
here, but I do encourage you to read it in its entirety as a supplement to this
post.
The suffering of Our Lord can be explained on both a natural
and a supernatural level. On a natural level, he suffered because of
his enemies. His enemies led him to be
arrested, convicted, and ultimately sentenced to die. Why did they think that way? I wrote in that post back in 2016: Jesus' words and actions gained him
enemies among the Jews and partisans of Herod. Because of his healings, some thought his
was the devil's work. They thought he downplayed the
importance of the Temple, and were outraged when he predicted it would be
destroyed. They thought he downplayed some aspects of the Law, and
were outraged he acted as an authority on the Law. Finally,
they were upset because he seemed to be equating himself with God, who along
could forgive sins (“I and the
Father are One."
[John 8:58]). Their incredulity though, on all of
these, was not justified. He had respect for the Law and the
Temple. He himself said the Law will never pass away. He had
amazing reverence for the temple, even from childhood. He was correct to
act as God because He was and is. So even before Jesus was crucified, he
suffered misunderstanding. (I would say
all of have suffered this to one degree or another at numerous points in our
lives, and sometimes, it really hurts, does it not?)
There is also a supernatural explanation for his suffering. We have written that sin came into the world through our first parents, and its continued effect in our lives is the reason for the existence of suffering in the world. To remedy this, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of our sins.
There is also a supernatural explanation for his suffering. We have written that sin came into the world through our first parents, and its continued effect in our lives is the reason for the existence of suffering in the world. To remedy this, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of our sins.
Now, one could make an objection here, and say: Wait a
minute, Christ was not impacted by Original Sin because he is God, and was born
of someone who also was not impacted by Original Sin. (Mary’s Immaculate
Conception, topic for another post!), and
he still suffered! How can you say then
that suffering is caused by sin?
Paul gives us the answer in 2 Corinthians 5:21 For
our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become
the righteousness of God. Jesus freely took on our sin, and as a result,
suffered.
We read in the
Catechism (#619-620, 622-623) some more beautiful words regarding our sin and what
Christ did with and for it. Most of the
quotes here are drawn directly out of the Bible (underlines are mine for
emphasis).
"Christ died for our sins in accordance with the
scriptures" (I Cor 15:3).
Our salvation flows from God's initiative of
love for us, because "he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation
for our sins" (I Jn 4:10). "God was in Christ reconciling the
world to himself" (2 Cor 5:19).
The redemption won by Christ consists in
this, that he came "to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mt 20:28), that is, he "loved [his
own] to the end" (Jn 13:1),
so that they might be "ransomed from the futile ways inherited from
[their] fathers" (I Pt 1:18).
By his loving obedience to the Father,
"unto death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8), Jesus fulfills the atoning mission (cf. Is 53:10) of the suffering Servant,
who will "make many righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities"
(Is 53:11; cf. Rom 5:19).
Christ, by coming into the world, united humanity with divinity. We became sharers in his glory, and he became a sharer in our suffering. By
uniting with him, we can overcome the power of sin; Original Sin, our personal
sin, and the devil.
Christ did all this out
of love for us, as these quotes above attest. Is it not true that a lot of our suffering is
a result of love? When someone we love
is hurting, we suffer. When a loved one
dies, we suffer. The Latin word for suffering is patior, from which the word “passion”
comes from. Suffering is a passion
because we love so much it hurts. This
is why we call the Sunday before Easter Sunday “Passion Sunday".
Every Friday, and on all the days of Lent, we reflect on the
Passion of Christ, his suffering out of love for us.
One of the traditional Lenten devotions is the Stations of the Cross. Pope Benedict XVI approved a new version of
the Stations that has a lot of similarity to the traditional model, but is more
Scripturally based. I think a deeper reflection on each of these stations/ events is called for, and perhaps we will do that during Lent. For now, I am going to list each one, and put something next to
each one that I hope maybe offers insight into the specific nature of each of
the sufferings, and hopefully you can all relate to a lot of them. Each of these events points to some aspect
of suffering which we encounter in our lives.
1.
Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Struggling
with God’s will
2.
Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested. Losing
friends
3.
Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin. Being
falsely accused
4.
Jesus is denied by Peter, Friends
denying you in time of need
5.
Jesus is judged by Pilate. Convicted
unjustly
6.
Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns. Struggles
in the mind; intellectually, mental state
7.
Jesus takes up his cross. Carrying
huge burdens
8.
Jesus is helped by Simon of Cyrene to carry his
cross. Suffering with a friend
9.
Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem. Seeing
friends weep for you, and you weep for them
10.
Jesus is crucified. Physical
and emotional pain
11.
Jesus promises his kingdom to the repentant
thief. Still trying to do good while suffering
12.
Jesus entrusts Mary and John to each other. Passing
on burden to others when cannot carry on
13.
Jesus dies on the cross. The
pain of death
14.
Jesus is laid in the tomb. The
sadness of burial, and unknown future
I will have a few more thoughts on Jesus and suffering in
the next post.
After that, there will be two more posts in this
series: one, on the sufferings in the afterlife,
namely purgatory and hell, and two, a final reflection on suffering.
Joseph, diligent protector of Christ, pray for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment