The Crucifixion and Resurrection- Transforming the Meaning of Suffering and Hope

Suffering is a reality none of us escape. Whether it’s personal loss, injustice we witness in the world, or moments of despair that feel like dead ends, suffering confronts our deepest hopes. Often we wonder: where is God in it all? How do we reconcile pain with a belief in divine love? These aren’t new questions. They were the same questions haunting Jesus’ followers as they witnessed his crucifixion. In Jesus’ death, and in the experiences that followed it, early Christians did not find simple answers. What they found was something more profound: an invitation to see suffering, justice, hope, and divine presence in a transformed light.

Today we explore how the crucifixion and resurrection did not erase suffering from human experience, but instead reshaped its meaning, and how our understanding of these events continues to evolve even now.*

The Crucifixion: Facing Suffering Honestly

In Luke 23, Jesus is crucified alongside two criminals. One mocks him; the other asks to be remembered when Jesus enters his kingdom. In this moment, we see something that would have been shocking to anyone expecting a conquering Messiah: Jesus, bleeding and dying, hanging not above sinners but among them, with them, suffering alongside and experiencing the exact same emotions. This, my friends, is an ever present literal representation of God suffering with us.

The scandal of the crucifixion is that God does not overpower suffering with force but chooses solidarity with it. Jesus doesn’t escape pain; he endures it. He doesn’t call down angels to destroy his enemies; he forgives them. There’s no more avoidance, no more escape, no more walking through the crowds to avoid death; death is real and gripping Jesus’ body.

The thief who asks to be remembered recognizes something in Jesus even in that hour of darkness. Not a victory in worldly terms, but a faithfulness, an unbreakable communion between God and the brokenness of the world. “Today you will be with me in paradise,” Jesus promises, even as nails pin him to wood.

Open and Relational Theology helps us name what is happening here without glossing over it: God is not the distant cause of suffering, nor the puppet master of tragedy. God suffers with creation, works within creation’s pain, and responds to it with redemptive love. 

This view challenges triumphalistic Christian interpretations that treat Jesus’ death as a mere transaction. It invites us to see Jesus’ crucifixion as God’s radical participation in human suffering, not God’s requirement of it. It is the ultimate act of love, from Jesus, who stayed true to the message he received from God even when the force of the political and religious empire threatened and carried out the execution upon the cross.*

The Resurrection: Transforming Despair into Recognition

The good news is the gospel story does not end with the cross. After the horror of  holy Friday, there is the silence of Saturday, and then the mystery of the resurrection of Sunday morning. Luke 24 gives us one of the most beautiful and human depictions of resurrection: two disciples walking the road to Emmaus, grieving, confused, utterly defeated.

They do not recognize Jesus when he joins them. That detail matters. The resurrection is not portrayed here as flashy or obvious. Instead, it emerges slowly, subtly through conversation, hospitality, and breaking bread. Only in the familiarity of shared life does their despair transform into recognition.

Notice what Luke emphasizes: their hearts were “on fire” as Jesus opened the scriptures to them, reframing their understanding. They had assumed that death meant failure. Jesus revealed that God’s love does not prevent suffering but works through it toward surprising new life.

Process Theology illuminates this journey well. Resurrection is not a magical undoing of pain; it is the creative transformation of pain into deeper life. Resurrection is God’s ongoing work of bringing fresh possibilities out of devastation, not violating the world’s freedom, but faithfully luring it toward renewal.

The Emmaus story invites us to practice resurrection in our own lives—not only to believe that Jesus rose, but to recognize the signs of rising life all around us: in forgiveness offered, in communities rebuilt, in joy restored after mourning.*

Evolving Understandings of Suffering and Hope

The early Christians didn’t understand resurrection in one static way. Their experiences and theological reflections evolved as they wrestled with the meaning of Jesus’ death and renewed life.

At first, resurrection was seen as vindication: God affirming that Jesus’ teachings of love, inclusion, and mercy were not defeated by the cross. Over time, resurrection also became a cosmic hope, the promise that God would ultimately heal all creation.

Later theological traditions added new layers, some helpful, others problematic. Some interpreted suffering as necessary payment for sin, a victory over an enemy, a ransom for debt, etc… ( multiple views that grew into various theologies of atonement). But many thinkers, especially today, are recovering a deeper, more relational view: that God does not need violence to love us; God is always working to redeem suffering without causing it.

Open and Relational scholars like Thomas Jay Oord remind us: God’s power is not coercive. It is persuasive. It works with freedom, not against it. Resurrection, then, is the ultimate persuasion: the love of God refusing to be extinguished, even by death itself.*

Suffering, Justice, and Divine Love Today

So, what does it mean for us today to say that Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection transform suffering and hope?

First, it invites us to be honest about pain. Too often, Christians try to minimize suffering with clichés: “Everything happens for a reason,” or “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” These platitudes, first are not even in scripture, and second they betray the real witness of the cross and resurrection. Jesus never sugarcoated suffering. He entered it fully and so should we. 

Second, it invites us to act. Resurrection hope is not passive. It is active resistance against injustice. If God’s love meets us in suffering and draws us toward life, then we are called to do the same for others. We don’t wait for heaven to bring justice; we embody it now, trusting that God’s power is at work through our faithful actions.

Third, it invites us to see hope not as naive optimism but as stubborn trust in God’s ongoing creativity. Hope does not deny hardship; it refuses to let hardship have the last word. It keeps walking the road to Emmaus, even when the path feels uncertain.*

Living as Resurrection People

Siblings of Christ, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus do not give us easy answers to the problem of suffering. They give us a transformed imagination. They reveal a God who enters into pain, not to glorify it, but to redeem it. They invite us to become people who notice resurrection in the everyday: who look for signs of life amid loss, who embody justice in a broken world, and who trust that God’s relentless love will never abandon us.

As we continue to evolve in our faith, may we never settle for shallow interpretations of the cross or the empty tomb. May we embrace the complexity, the mystery, and the promise. Suffering is real. Death is real. But the love of God is more real still.

We are resurrection people. We are witnesses that love wins. We are companions on the road, our hearts on fire within us, even when we do not yet understand. And that is enough for today. Amen.