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I cannot help but think about human suffering after reading the news from the past few weeks about the earthquake in Taiwan and the traffic disaster in Hong Kong.
Suffering is part of our human history and is caught up with the meaning of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Jesus dying on the cross for us reminds us to look to redemption as the answer to human suffering, a redemption that is given out of love for each one of us.
But as God’s creation and living in a day-to-day world, does the above really help us come to terms with human suffering especially if it is personal? Having an answer to the meaning of suffering is a question and challenge for humanity throughout the ages, but human reason cannot fully understand suffering. There are limitations to our understanding. Human suffering seems random. It seems that suffering and evil are part of a world where there is no God, where only physical and statistical laws govern life. Many people throughout the ages attempt to explain suffering and it’s all meaningless.
So how are we to understand suffering? Or as many Christians often ask: “Why does God allow suffering?” If we put this into perspective, we as Christians will understand that things, whether good or bad, happen for a reason. We have all been told that through suffering we grow spiritually. Is this true? When suffering touches our personal life, do we really accept that this is God’s plan?
Suffering directs us to reflect on our faith. Faith cannot rest. Faith definitions grow old as we move through our lives. Periodically we have to ask, “Lord, what does faith mean now?”
It is only in situations like that of personal suffering that we create and maintain and purify faith. Otherwise, faith becomes largely a matter of religion.
We picture God as “the one who does not suffer.” The suffering of Jesus is saying that God is not apart from the trials of humanity. God is not aloof. God is not a mere spectator. God is participating with us. God is not merely tolerating human suffering. Or healing suffering. God is participating with us in it.
Through suffering we build our relationship with God. Suffering is a mystery that will never be understood. We cannot solve the problem, we can only live the mystery. The only response to God’s faithfulness is to be faithful ourselves.
Jesus the dying-man-who-should-not-be-dying – this is the essence of what religious faith must mean. We offer our suffering to God and bear our crosses together with Jesus. This divine union can sustain us and our life will not be just about us.
“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16)
It reminds us that eternal life is the ultimate liberation from all that afflicts human nature. It is a free gift from God, to the world, of his Son, who himself gives his life in freeing us from mortality. This is divine love, the gift of God’s only Son, for you and me.
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