Luke 9:18-24
Let us begin by considering a few questions. What is the one thing that is part
of the life of every human being? What
is the one thing common to all human experience? Did you answer “suffering”? We all suffer. Suffering can have many causes, physical,
emotional, or because of relationships, but all people for all time and in all
places have suffered. Next, what do you
think is common with the way that all people deal with suffering? I think that all people share this common
thread in the way they deal with suffering: they want it to go away. This is only natural. All people, regardless of when or where they
lived have had to suffer. All people
have also looked for ways to remove this suffering from their life.
This holds true for the Jewish people at the time of
Jesus because they were suffering as a nation and were looking for a way
out. At this time, the people of Israel
were undergoing a communal suffering for which they desperately sought
relief. For a moment, put yourself in
the shoes of the Jewish people at the time of Christ. Throughout history God has promised you, as a
people, a land. But throughout history you have been occupied time and time
again: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Greeks. Now the most recent occupiers are the
Romans. This is a great cause of
sufferings and you want it to go away.
You are seeking liberation from this suffering. In particular, many are expecting God to send
a political liberator: the Messiah. This
Messiah, or anointed one, is expected to expel the Romans from your land,
through force if necessary, and re-establish the Kingdom of Israel. Jesus
simply did not fit the bill of this kind of political liberator. In the gospel we see this. Jesus asks who people think that He is. A prophet? Sure. The Messiah? Only Peter
recognizes Jesus as this. The people
were expecting the Messiah to liberate them, to free them from the suffering
caused by oppression from the Romans. But
Jesus did not fit this bill. The Jews at
the time of Jesus were suffering and looking for relief.
We are very much the same: we look for a Messiah who can
take away our suffering. Today we think
the same way as the Jews at the time of Jesus: we each have our different
struggles and suffering and we seek for someone who can take it all away. We can see this fact just by the type of
movies that are popular. Recently
another Superman movie has been released.
This movie is in fact just another in a long line of super-hero movies
which all seem to have the same premise.
First we find people who are suffering.
Maybe it is a kind of personal suffering, like an illness or individual
tragedy, or a communal suffering, like an entire city is under siege by a
criminal. These people desperately want
their suffering removed. Enter the
superhero. This hero, whether it be
Superman, Spider-man or Batman, always comes to remove suffering. The superhero is the kind of Messiah that the
Jews at the time of Christ were expecting.
The fact that these movies are so popular proves that we have this
desire: in our suffering we desperately seek someone to remove the cause of
suffering from our life.
Jesus, however, did not come to remove our suffering but
to give it value. Christ came not so
that we wouldn't have to suffer anymore, but rather He transformed suffering so
that it now has great meaning and purpose in our life. In today’s gospel Jesus makes it clear that
both He and His followers should expect to suffer: if we want to follow Him we
must take up our cross and follow Him.
Jesus does not come to take away our suffering. Jesus does forever change suffering by giving
it value and meaning. By His own
suffering and death Jesus saved the world.
With Jesus, suffering now has redemptive value. Our suffering too can have value; it can help
bring ourselves and others closer to God.
Suffering does this in two ways. First, when we or someone we love
suffers it often leads us to call on God for help because we realize that there
is something outside our control. We realize
that we need God. Because of this, times
of suffering can be moments of conversion.
Secondly, suffering has value because when we unite our sufferings with
Jesus we can help bring other people closer to God, even those we do not
know. Like it was for Jesus, our
suffering can be redemptive. When we
accept our suffering and out of love “offer it up” for others, we, like Jesus
can help bring people closer to God through our suffering. Jesus did not come to take away suffering but
to give it value and meaning.
We all need to learn to suffer well. In our life it takes time to accept and deal
with our suffering as Jesus intended.
Suffering is not of itself good.
As we know suffering can have an incredibly crushing effect on people’s
lives. We should not go seeking out
suffering, but when suffering enters our life we need to learn how to suffer as
Christ intended, so that our suffering can be redemptive, so that it can bring
ourselves and others closer to God. I
think that there are two ways we can do this.
First, we need to ask Jesus to be close to us during our times of
suffering. We have to ask for His help
to accept our suffering and to cope with it.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen had a wonderful expression to describe
this. He said, “we need to make our
cross a crucifix”. We cannot suffer
alone. We need ask Jesus to be with
us. Second, I think it can be very
helpful to offer our suffering for someone in particular. When we suffer we can
accept it and ask that God uses this suffering to help or to bless someone in
particular. For example we can pray that
God uses our suffering to help a family member who is far from the Church or
someone we know is passing through a difficult time. We can also offer our suffering for people we
do not know. I have heard of people who
offer their sufferings for poor children or for priests who are passing through
difficult times. By inviting Jesus into
our suffering and by offering our suffering for someone in particular, we can
learn over time how to suffer well.
Suffering is a universal part of the human
experience. We cannot avoid it. Jesus did not come to take away our
suffering. He came to give our suffering
value and meaning. Through our suffering
He wants us to participate in the redemption of mankind. Today, let us try to look at our life and
identify a particular suffering that we are having difficulty accepting. Let us invite Jesus into this suffering and
offer it for someone or some group in particular. In this way we can make our cross a crucifix.
