Suffering: Bringing Life from Death
by Christopher Hendrix
Our Western culture today greatly fears pain and suffering. We have a risk-averse society that coddles children and neuters men. Rare are the explorers and pioneers of old who would willingly take risks for the benefit of their people. We have more technology, knowledge, and people than centuries ago, but we are more cowardly, passive, and lazy. We read stories of old and laud the men for their courage because we lack it.
The world around us does everything it can to avoid suffering. We know no limits to avoid pain and death. COVID-19 showed us that people are willing to give up many of their constitutional rights in the name of health. Silly laws and processes are put in place in the name of safety and protection. Helicopter parents stifle the adventurous and exploratory spirit in children, especially boys, to protect them from pain. I worked in the oil and gas industry, and even there, young college graduates pushed a coddling culture where we would sticker and label the most obvious things, like pinch points between sliding doors.
Suffering As Seen on TV (and the world around)
Why is this? One reason is that we’ve lost the Christian worldview of suffering. From a secular humanistic perspective, humans must evolve beyond suffering to survive. If survival through biological processes is the ultimate goal, then life isn’t focused on enjoyment, but on fearing and avoiding suffering. When it comes, you do what my chickens do: you take flight and squawk the entire time.
Suffering and Laughing
In the Christian worldview, we embrace suffering. We don’t search for it or crave it, but we recognize that the Sovereign Lord brings suffering into our path. We don’t like the pain and would prefer to not have it, but we don’t fear it. We trust the Lord has ushered the trial into our lives to grow us, shape us, mold us, refine us, and bring life from death. Suffering exposes sin, areas of unbelief, and the need for total dependency upon the Lord. Suffering provides the furnace to draw out the impurities in our bodies and souls. We don’t fear suffering, but we laugh at it, knowing it shapes us.
Perhaps suffering plays such an essential role in the Christian worldview because our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ endured the greatest of all sufferings. Hebrews 2:10–13 tells us that the Father brought the suffering upon Christ. In conjunction with Isaiah 53, the Bible teaches us that the Father was pleased to bring this suffering upon Christ. Christ obeyed completely through the sufferings, which completed the work the Father gave Him to do. All of human history culminated in the suffering of Jesus. And this, the writer of Hebrews wrote, was fitting. It was fitting for Christ to be mocked. It was right for Christ to be rejected. It was fitting for Christ to experience beatings. It was right for the Jews to demand His death. It was fitting for the Romans to nail Christ to the cross. It was right for Christ to die.
The Greatest of All Suffering
How? Did Christ deserve this for a crime or sin He committed? Not at all! It was fitting because it brought about salvation. But the physical suffering Christ experienced was not the total picture of the work for salvation. I mentioned above that Christ endured the greatest of all sufferings. You could argue that many of His followers endured harsher tortures and torments. Many were skinned, chopped up, fed to wild animals, and gruesomely murdered for their faith. These are much worse ways to die. But the significant difference between Christ and His followers is that Christ faced the wrath of God.
Christ bearing the wrath of God explains why God was pleased to crush Him. Christ, facing the wrath of God, makes His suffering the worst of all. This is why He was in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. The wrath of God far outweighs any physical pain. Christ bore this wrath. Nature demonstrated this through the darkness that descended upon the land and the earthquake that shook Jerusalem severely. Christ suffered mightily as the wrath of God poured out upon Him like a crushing wave. He paid the price on the cross to bring life from death.
Strength in Suffering
We don’t fear suffering because our Lord has suffered for us. He endured the most tremendous suffering, so we could experience the greatest salvation. Jesus died for His people, so we don’t have to face God's wrath. All other suffering pales in comparison to God’s wrath, and we’ve been spared it. This is why martyrs can go to their deaths singing hymns. This is why Christians can have joy in times of hardship and trials. We know this temporary physical pain does not compare to what we’ve been gifted by Jesus.
As the world runs from suffering, we face it boldly. Not because we enjoy pain, but because we have a joy that stems from a true, steady, and strong center point. Our happiness in this life isn’t contingent on circumstances, situations, or even people. So, when death and its minions, called pain, suffering, and hardship, come knocking, we are ready to face them in the strength of Christ because we know life comes from death.