Why Suffer

 

 

Some years ago, I was talking with my mother on the phone.

I asked, How’s it going with Dad?

She said, I heard him talking in the hallway earlier.

I went out to check, and he was standing there in the dark hall.

I asked him what he was doing.

He was standing there by the crucifix and he said, “I’m talking to Jesus.”

 

That might not seem too odd.

Except that Dad could seldom put two words together.

And he couldn’t tell you anybody’s name, or what any things were called.

He’d been suffering from Alzheimers for over ten years.

The whole family suffered along with him.

Especially my then-86-year-old mother with her bad back and bad knees,

Who insisted that she was the only one who could take care of him.

 

We were no different from other families or other people.

Some suffer more, some suffer less, but we all suffer.

We suffer from physical diseases and disabilities and injuries.

We suffer from mental and emotional and relationship problems.

From financial hardships and a seemingly endless list of other problems.

Today, we’re in the midst of crippling divisiveness, pandemic and war.

 

It makes us ask, Why do we have to suffer?

That’s a hard question to answer.

Of course, we know that man’s sin brought suffering into our world.

And it’s only in heaven that that we’ll finally have an end to suffering.

 

But why do the good suffer as much as, or more than, the bad?

Why did even Jesus have to suffer?

The apostles in today’s Gospel had to be reminded of that again.

When James and John make their brash request to sit with him in glory.

Jesus asks them if they can drink the cup that he must drink.

That cup of suffering so dreadful that even he would later pray to avoid it.

Father, if possible, let this cup pass from me. 

Yet not my will but Thine be done.

 

Why did God choose to have Jesus suffer to redeem us?

God could have redeemed us with any simple act, with a simple thought

Instead, Jesus was sent to set the ultimate example for suffering.

To push on to Jerusalem 

With the terrible knowledge of what awaited him there.

Knowing he would be mocked, scourged and crucified.

As we see from the crucifix hanging in front of us ,

And the stations of the cross hung around these walls,

He went through extreme suffering—both physically and emotionally.

And he bore that suffering with acceptance and surrender of will.

Given the natural human dread of suffering,

Jesus’ acceptance of his suffering certainly shows how much he loves us.

 

But there’s still that nagging question, Why do we have to suffer?

The answer is elusive—deep, complex, mysterious.

We might consider the approach that Professor Irwin Corey devised

For analyzing such difficult questions.

That twentieth century comedian/philosopher would have said:

Why do we have to suffer? ...

We must realize that this is a two-part question.

So let’s delve into the first part: Why?

 

This is a question that man has struggled with since history began—Why?

Thinkers on the level of the great philosophers and theologians,

Have spent lifetimes trying to answer it.

Socrates, Aristotle, Plato and those before them.

Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas and those after them.

Learned treatises could be written on the question of Why.

But a fully satisfactory answer would still elude us.

There’s little chance that we could answer the question of Why

In any finite amount of time.

So, let’s move on and delve into the second part of our question:

Do we have to suffer? …

Well—Yes!

 

That tongue-in-cheek analysis has its flaws—but it does lead to a truth.

We may wonder Why, we may want to know Why—

But the simple, inescapable fact, regardless of Why,

Is that we do all have to suffer.

 

So how can we make the best of that?

We can do whatever we can to avoid or ease suffering—ours and other’s.

Whatever legitimate action or medication or therapy might help.

And then we can dedicate the remaining suffering as redemptive suffering.

We can consciously join our suffering to Jesus’ suffering.

Offer it up-- 

As a supplement to the suffering Jesus went through to redeem us.

That doesn’t mean Jesus’ suffering was insufficient for redemption.

But since we’re part of the mystical body of Christ, 

Our suffering is his suffering.

And we can offer it as part of God’s mysterious plan of redemption.

 

I don’t know what my father said, 

Standing there in the hallway talking to Jesus.

I don’t know if he’d ever heard of redemptive suffering.

But the fact that he mentioned Jesus showed that, 

In the midst of his suffering,

There, seemingly alone in his lost mental world, 

Jesus was still in there with him.

 

If we consciously join ourselves to Jesus in our suffering.

We can recognize it as redemptive suffering.

We’ll better appreciate the value of our own suffering.

We’ll more easily bear it.

Because we’ll know that we’re not suffering alone.

Jesus is right in there with us.