In View of God's Mercy: Suffering

The Certainty of Suffering

Benjamin Franklin once quipped that there are two certainties we all encounter—death and taxes. But I would add another certainty—suffering. We all face suffering in life, whether it be sooner or later. All you need do to realize that is to watch or read the daily news. We hear of terrorist attacks and threats of retaliation. Innocent people are injured and killed by artillery in war and by gunfire on the streets of our cities. Natural disasters, be they earthquakes in California or hurricanes on the gulf or tornadoes in the heartland devastate property and lives. Children go hungry. The poor struggle. Injustice deprives citizens of their rights and freedom.

Closer to home, there is more personal evidence that suffering surrounds us. The economy goes sour and we lose employment. Families experience the turmoil of domestic conflicts and even breakups. We witness our own bodies deteriorate as we age. Disease, cancer and injury become our uninvited companions. Lost dreams and depression plague us. Sooner or later, we all experience suffering of some kind. Suffering surrounds us all. Eventually it afflicts us all.

The existence of suffering has led many people to reject the Christian faith. Famous voices such as Bertrand Russell and Steve Jobs regarded the reality of pain and sorrow to be the clinching argument against the idea of a loving God. But the Bible does not ignore the messy reality of the world. Nowhere does Christianity deny the existence of pain and suffering. Indeed, the Bible unequivocally declares that this is a fallen world, a broken planet.

Especially during the season of Lent do Christians acknowledge the reality of suffering. But Lent provides us with a new lens through which to view suffering. That is through the lens of God’s mercy. In it we see a God who entered into our suffering to bear our suffering and to bring healing to us.

The Cause of Suffering – Sin

Why is there suffering in the world? That’s a heavy question, but the Bible says that ultimately the answer is because there is sin in the world. God created the world without suffering, but when humanity rebelled against God’s perfect plan, sin along with suffering was introduced. Genesis 3 describes the consequences of the human race’s fall into sin. It says that at that time suffering entered the world and thorns were introduced into our lives.

So ultimately the problem is not pain and suffering. It is not the crime and illness and catastrophes that plague life. These are only symptoms of a deeper problem that has infected all humanity. That problem is sin. And each of us has been infected with sin.

Nevertheless, these results from a sinful and fallen world are painful. Suffering is real. In the book Migrants, Sharecroppers and Mountaineers, a poverty-stricken mother describes an incident in which her husband lost his temper at a preacher who was speaking on the topic of suffering in a church service:

“Then [my husband] did the worst thing he could do: he took the baby, Annie, and he held her right before his face, the minister’s, and he screamed and hollered at him ... He told him that here was our little Annie, and she’s never been to the doctor, and the child is sick ... and we’ve no money, not for Annie or the other ones or ourselves ... Then he told the reverend he was like all the rest, making money off us, and he held our Annie as high as he could, right near the cross, and told God He’d better stop having the ministers speaking for Him, and He should come and see us Himself” (quoted in Where Is God When It Hurts & Disappointment with God by Philip Yancey, © 1999. Zondervan, 222).

This migrant father sums up the dilemma of pain and suffering about as well as it can be expressed. Why are there sick children, and why is there no money and little hope among so many? Perhaps you have held similar feelings as these. But there is one point in the father’s tirade in which he was mistaken. He demanded that God come down and see for himself the suffering in this world. Yet God did exactly that. And not only did God see what suffering is like, he also experienced it to the full. He felt what it’s like. For above all people in history, Jesus Christ suffered most.

II. The Cure of Suffering – the Cross

God’s own Son came down to this fallen world and experienced its imperfection, its ugliness, its cruelty, its suffering. Christ was treated with more injustice than we will ever know. He was betrayed by friends and rejected by his people. He was humiliated, stripped, mocked, ridiculed and beaten. Our text from 1 Peter 2 (verses 22-23) describes Jesus’s suffering: “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”

The cross on which Jesus died was not a pretty sight. It was meant to produce supreme suffering. Christ was nailed to the cross. His back, which was shredded from the scourging that preceded the crucifixion, scraped against the splintered lumber of the beam. Jesus’ body was in continuous contorted movement as he struggled from a slow suffocation. His pain was excruciating. In fact, that is where we get the word. Excruciating literally means “out of a crucifixion.” Crucifixion is the most terrible experience of pain and suffering that our minds can imagine.

More than anyone else, Jesus Christ tasted the curse that was brought about by our first parents and their sin. But he also brought about the reversal of that curse. The cross before which the migrant father held up his baby is the very symbol that God shared in our pain and suffering and death. Not only did he share that, Christ experienced it in our stead. We can, therefore, trust the Lord through all of our suffering because he endured it with us and for us.

Yes, God knows what suffering in this world is like. Jesus is a wounded healer. Because of Christ’s sacrificial and substitutionary suffering, we are made whole and healed from our greatest ailment, the sickness of sin. The apostle Peter wrote in our text: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” (1 Peter 2:24). Because Jesus has definitively dealt with the cause of suffering—sin—we can trust him to deal compassionately with the symptoms of our suffering—the pains and sorrows we experience in life.

III. A New Perspective on Suffering – God’s Mercy

Because Jesus endured suffering on our behalf, we can endure as well. The text from 2 Peter 2:21 reminds us: “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.” Entering the Christian life does not mean that suffering is automatically withdrawn from us. In fact, it may mean just the opposite, that we will experience more hostility from the world, just as Jesus did. Jesus suffered, and we are called to follow in his footsteps.

But the cross provides us with strength to endure our sufferings, because it transforms suffering. Just as God’s power transformed the horrific sufferings of Jesus on the cross into the ultimate victory of God over sin, so also God’s power can transform our sufferings into his means of growth and maturity. We now view suffering with new eyes, from a renewed perspective. We do so in view of God’s mercy. In mercy Christ suffered to atone for our sin. Now in our suffering we focus on the never-failing mercy of God and trust in his plan for us.

Corrie Ten Boom provides us with a powerful example of the transformative power of suffering in view of God’s mercy. Corrie’s family was persecuted by the Nazis for protecting Jews during World War II. Corrie and her sister Betsy suffered incredible hardships in the concentration camp in which they were unjustly incarcerated. In the midst of all that misery, however, Betsy proclaimed a message of transformative faith. When Corrie lamented about the pit of suffering they were in, Betsy replied: “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” Betsy knew that life is painful but God’s mercy is even more powerful.

The apostle Peter wrote about Jesus, saying: “By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). During this Lent and always, may we remember the horrific suffering Christ experienced on the cross for us. But may we also never forget the healing and hope that came from that sacrifice. Let us ever draw upon his healing strength that now comes to us in our suffering. Amen.