How do we make sense of suffering?

March 17, 2024

In the midst of Lent, a theme that often comes up in missions and sermons is the theme of the suffering of Jesus. This is a theme that is taken up in today’s second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews where we are told about Jesus too, that “although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered”.  However, when Jesus told Peter and the other disciples that he would have to suffer, it clearly made no sense to them  (Mathew 16:21-24).  And we too, often enough, find it difficult to understand why good people have to suffer. As I have said in an earlier blog, we sometimes convince ourselves that in the case of ‘good’ people it is a test, but in the case of ‘bad’ people, it is punishment.  At other times the answer given to us is that we just cannot hope to fathom completely why God allows suffering, for God’s ways are beyond us.  

While it is true that we cannot fathom God, is that all we can learn from the Bible about suffering?  I would suggest that if, as I have said before, the Bible is a record of our religious pilgrimage, then as we walk through the many books of the Bible we may get insights into how the Jewish people (and later Christians) grew in their understanding of suffering.

First, in the story of Moses and the Ten Plagues, where the Egyptians suffer a lot, the message we clearly get is that the Egyptians suffered because they did evil. So suffering in this initial stage of the Biblical story, is this: suffering is a punishment for those who do evil. This is, of course, still the understanding for many of us. So often I have heard people thinking about others or about themselves: “Oh your/my suffering must be because God is punishing you, (or me), for something bad or sinful that we have done” - or ideas to that effect.  That, in fact, is the understanding of many people in other religions too.  In  Hinduism, for instance, the suffering one experiences could even be because of evil one has done in one’s previous life.

But the Biblical journey in understanding suffering does not end there.  In a later book of the Bible, we are told in the Book of Job about how a good man suffers intolerably. And many of his so-called friends come to him and try to convince  him to repent,  because they are confident that he is suffering because of some evil that he has done.  But Job disagrees vehemently and refuses to accept this analysis of why he has been made to suffer. This must have a been a real struggle for the Jews, because they too must have experienced that good people do suffer and probably asked themselves the same question that we ourselves ask today.  However,  the sacred writer does not end the story of Job over there.  As the story proceeds, eventually, God restores much that Job has lost and blesses him abundantly. And the Book of Job comes up with the explanation that God is supremely free to punish or test anyone, and no one can take that right away from God.  And, of course, since God is so far beyond us,  we puny mortals cannot challenge or question God.  Again this is similar to many of our own reactions to suffering, when we tell ourselves:  “God’s ways are not our ways!” or “God is testing us/you”.  But because Job passes the ‘test’, God blesses him again - and so we too believe that if we bear with this suffering, trusting in God, then God will reward us too.

But this too is not the end of the pilgrimage in the journey towards understanding the problem of suffering. In a still later book of the Bible, in the Book of Isaiah, we come across the well known suffering servant passages (Isaiah chs 40 to 55) parts of which are read out on Good Friday every year.  And in these passages (e.g. Is. 53:5ff) we come to still another explanation. Here we read:   “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases, yet we accounted him stricken,  struck down by God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities;  upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed”  (Is. 53:4-5).  So it would seem that, according to Isaiah, sometimes God allows the innocent one to suffer for the sake of the redemption of others, to atone for their transgressions, and this ‘satisfies’ the justice of God.  Once again, this idea too is so ingrained in Christian thought, and is the basis of the that understanding of ATONEMENT theory that is commonly accepted by most Christians, - namely that Jesus had to satisfy the justice of God, and atone for otur sins by shedding his blood and suffering to save us.  This influence of Jewish theology on the Christian thinking of the early Church is seen not only in this Isaiahan understanding of the meaning of suffering, but also in a number of other places. This interpretation of Jesus’ death, and even why other good people suffer, carried on long beyond the time of the early Church which itself was struggling with trying to extricate itself from its Jewish origins, right until today when many still see Jesus as having to die to satisfy God and save us from our sins.  

However, even a very cursory reading of Jesus’ life and teachings, as we have them in the Gospels, makes it clear that Jesus clearly did not see his Abba Father in this light. To take one of his most well-known parables, we will notice, if we carefully read it, that the prodigal son  returns to his Father’s house, NOT because he is repentant, but because he is hungry: But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’  (Luke 15:14-19)   And yet despite Jesus, the author of the parable, knowing that the son was being dishonest in his expression of repentance, the story goes on to tell us that he is accepted back and rejoiced over.  And this parable harmonizes well with a Jesus who introduced his disciples to a God who asks us to forgive seventy times seven, and who sends his rain on the just and the unjust alike.  Surely, this is not a kind of God who demands restitution before forgiving and accepting the sinner back.  

Then what is the meaning of suffering, and/or why did Jesus die? Is there a further answer in the Bible, especially in the New Testament. Today’s second reading from Hebrews gives us a further insight, when it tells us that Jesus was “made perfect through his suffering” – thus leading to an understanding of suffering as a means to purify/perfect ourselves.  This, of course, is not a very palatable understanding because many of us believe that Jesus was born perfect.  However, an unbiased reading of the Gospels tell us the story of a man who grew in many ways, so much so that Luke’s Gospel will say quite clearly that Jesus “grew in wisdom and favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52)

So here we have a fourth stage in understanding suffering.  Suffering can have meaning because it can offer us a way to purify ourselves. Of course, this last understanding is a bit tricky, because the same suffering in one person may lead to purification and the person becomes a better person, while in another the suffering may lead to the person becoming totally negative and bitter etc.  For instance, both Peter and Judas failed Jesus; one denied him and one betrayed him.  And, as a result, both suffered terribly.  But what did the suffering do to them?  Peter learnt from his sin and his suffering,  and became a better person, a stronger person, a person who was able to lead the Church. Judas’ suffering, on the other hand, led him to despair and to suicide. So the result of each one's suffering was different to both of them.  

Furthermore, and this is also important, sometimes an individual’s suffering is so powerful it can be a purifier for many around them as well. So, for instance, as I have said before (Has Jesus really saved us) the sufferings of an innocent person (like the suffering of a child born with some serious defect, or the unjust oppression of others as happened in the Holocaust, or the suffering of slaves or blacks) has the ability to jolt our inner selves, and we can become different.  Unjust suffering is like that, - it tugs at our hearts, it urges us to do something if we can, and even if we can’t, we somehow would like to do something. And so, a ‘metanoia’, a transformative change of heart, takes place so that we become less self-centred, we become better persons.  And we become more like the person that Jesus taught us to be.  And it is because of this change of heart that we are saved - as those who had gone out of their selfish selves and cared for others were saved, irrespective of whether they offered that service in the name of Jesus or not, as the Parable of the Last Judgement taught us. 

So, suffering can purify us, can redeem us,  but only through our own choice of how we deal with it. It offers us an opportunity to become better selves. It is in this sense that Christians can believe that Jesus’ suffering and death can become salvific for us.

First Reading: Jeremiah 31: 31-34

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord.  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.

 

Second Reading: Hebrews 5: 7-9

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him,

 

Gospel: John 12: 20-33

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew, then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say: ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”  Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine.  Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people[a] to myself.”  He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.