It’s a difficult topic. Most people prefer avoiding it entirely. But for those of us who are Christian, we’re at the time of year when it’s a topic that’s difficult to avoid. Suffering.
During the traditional forty-day season of Lent, Christians are asked to reflect on the suffering of Jesus and his death sentence of crucifixion. In this context, we’re asked to consider our own suffering in life. Perhaps we can find some spiritual significance to suffering. I suspect that most people find it difficult to make a spiritual connection between suffering and spirituality even though the task seems like a noble one.
It’s safe to assume that we don’t like suffering. Our usual response to pain and suffering is to avoid it. We take “pain killers” for physical pain, with many people becoming addicted to these medications. We also take psychotropic medications to dull emotional pain. As people move toward the end of life, pain medications are increased precisely to prevent suffering.
Christianity has traditionally taught people to endure suffering. There are stories of great saints who inflicted pain on themselves to be more Christ-like, including saints we usually think of as warm and gentle, like St. Francis of Assisi. He stripped naked and jumped into a briar patch to be more like Jesus. Many Protestants were taught to be stoic in the face of suffering while also receiving stern admonitions against “the pleasures of the flesh.” The frequent response to pain and suffering in Christianity has been to see one’s own pain as a way to connect with the suffering of Christ.
I don’t think there’s anything meritorious about experiencing pain. I’m basing that on my own experience of living with arthritis. Every day I experience pain somewhere in my body. On good days, it’s inconvenient. On other days, it feels as though I can’t escape. My experience of emotional pain is very similar to my experience of physical. When something hurts, it just hurts. I do my best to cope with it and move past it.
In terms of spirituality and suffering, what I also know from experience is that pain and suffering make it more difficult to engage in prayer or any kind of spiritual practice. Pain and suffering are distracting. It’s difficult to focus on anything when I’m in pain. When it’s sufficiently intense, I’m cranky. Sometimes, I’m cranky a lot and have to put a great deal of effort into not being cranky.
But here’s also what I’ve learned: pain and suffering have made me more compassionate toward others. It’s the experience of pain and suffering that keeps me aware that other people I meet may be in some sort of pain or may suffer in ways I can’t see it. Further, my own experience of pain has led me to greater compassion when I encounter someone homeless or hearing of people who are hungry.
As for the Christian message, how do we understand Jesus, suffering, and the cross? An honest reading of the gospel stories makes it clear that Jesus was sentenced to death as a form of capital punishment. He was accused of sedition because he was reported by his accusers as saying that he was greater than Caesar. Witnesses testified saying it was true. Jesus didn’t try to deny it. No one came forward in his defense. Labeled an enemy of the state, he was killed.
I look at the suffering of Jesus and see in his experience many levels of suffering: the actual torture, the ridicule, the false claims, the alienation….and the list goes on. In these multiple dimensions of physical and psychological suffering, Jesus moved through what was happening to him. It surely was an overwhelming experience.
What’s important for me isn’t some notion that somehow Jesus will take away my pain or miraculously change my suffering into a dance party. Instead, the Christian belief in the incarnation – that the Divine became fully human – means that Jesus embraced every aspect of life, including pain and suffering. It’s another way of saying that even in my suffering, God is present. To say it yet another way, there is no place in my life where God is absent. Yes, God is present in difficult times, the times marked by suffering. The sacred story of Jesus’ own experience of pain and suffering connect my experience with the Divine.
As for the great saints who sought out suffering and pain to be more like Jesus, well, I think the best thing I can say is that I understand that as deformative theology. Life has pain and suffering built-in already. We don’t need to seek it out. But the mystery of the cross on which we reflect in Lent is that God is with us even in the most difficult times. That belief has seen me through some very dark days. I hope that you find that to be true for you, as well.
Photo by Carinos on Wunderstock
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