Suffering as Christ suffered

I Peter 4:12-13 (CEV)

Dear friends, don't be surprised or shocked that you are going through testing that is like walking through fire. Be glad for the chance to suffer as Christ suffered. It will prepare you for even greater happiness when he makes his glorious return.

Someone once said that the question “Where is God when you are hurting” might be the #1 question that has driven people to become atheists. 

Did you ever see the 1982 movie “Sophie’s Choice”?  It is considered Meryl Streep’s finest performance that won her the Best Actress Academy Award.  It is one of the saddest movies I’ve ever seen.  The movie title was based on Sophie’s imprisonment at Auschwitz where she was forced to choose which of her two children would live and which would die.  If she didn’t choose one, they both would die.  At the end of the movie, after Sophie had committed suicide, the narrator (Peter MacNichol)  voiced the followed words above the haunting musical score of Marvin Hamlisch:  “And so ended my voyage of discovery...in a place as strange as Brooklyn. I let go the rage and sorrow for Sophie and Nathan...and for the many others who were but a few...of the butchered and betrayed and martyred children of the Earth.  When I could finally see again.....I saw the first rays of daylight reflected in the murky river.  This was not judgment day.  Only morning.  Morning: excellent and fair.”

I refer to “Sophie’s Choice” because I have never forgotten the images of the Nazi concentration camps in the movie and the haunting voice-over words at the end….”let go the rage and sorrow……many others who were but a few of the butchered and betrayed and martyred children of the Earth.”  Oh, the suffering that people who live on this earth must endure.  Peter writes that you must not be surprised or shocked when you are tested, when you must suffer.  He even writes that you should be glad for the chance to suffer as Christ suffered.  Who receives that kind of statement with gladness and open-arms?

People who see God as a sadistic brute who enjoys seeing His people suffer so much turn away from Him and in their own minds easily can justify their atheistic or agnostic choice.  However, this position ignores the greatest act of love that ever occurred in the history of humankind----that God chose to become a human too, walk upon the earth, and subject Himself to the ridicule, rejection, and ultimate suffering and death through the acts of other humans.  Jesus Christ became God’s response to suffering.  Since Jesus suffered so much, He is able to help any person undergoing trials and suffering who comes to Him (Heb 2:18).

You will never know why you suffer, but you know that God promises to help you go through the suffering and that your suffering, despite your never completely understanding why, will help you for preparation of your eternal life.  I like what Levi Yitzhak and Philip Yancey wrote about suffering and suggest that you meditate on these words carefully:

"I do not ask You to take away my suffering; I do not even want to know why I suffer; but only this, my God --do I suffer for Your sake?"----- Levi Yitzhak

"Some of us will not see pain as a gift; some will always accuse God of being unfair for allowing it. But, the fact is, pain and suffering are here among us, and we need to respond in some way. The response Jesus gave was to bear the burdens of those he touched. To live in the world as his body, his emotional incarnation, we must follow his example."--Philip Yancey, Where Is God When It Hurts?  (Note: Yancey also spoke at Virginia Tech two weeks after the mass murder there in 2007 and you can read his sermon at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/june/14.55.html

What have you learned from your own experiences with suffering?  How might you be living your life today because of your suffering of the past?