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Shared Suffering

 

From the Collect prayer set for today in the BAS (pg. 303)

 

Lord God, your Son our Saviour gave his body to be whipped and turned his face for men to spit upon.  Give your servants grace to accept suffering  for his sake, confident of the glory that will be revealed…

We are living through a historic moment, no doubt.  And our world is suffering in ways we cannot all understand or relate to. 

I received an email this morning telling me how Covid-19 is affecting the Mara Naboisho Nature Conservancy.  This is a unique experiment that has allowed the Maasai in Kenya to remain on their own land, created wildlife refuge, and developed sustainable eco-tourism.  Covid-19 has brought this tourism to a halt, and these people depend almost exclusively on such tourism to survive.  They are now facing starvation, threat of poachers and loss of land.

You probably didn’t need more bad news today.  Between the challenging images and numbers of those suffering and dying from this virus, the stories of those less fortunate who suffer exponentially through such economic upheaval, and your own reality - be it health concerns, social isolation or the stress of not being able to physically help others - you’ve likely had enough.

Bear with me!

The epistle reading for today is Hebrews 12: 1-3

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.

 

One of the gifts of the gospel is that it teaches us how to live life in very practical terms.  And so in the midst of this suffering the world now shares, however that might experienced by anyone, we are reminded of some very important truths that we sometimes lose sight of.

  • Jesus shares our suffering.  God, through Jesus, intentionally chose to share in, to experience and to know our suffering.  When Jesus says, I understand…he really does.  We are not alone.
  • Jesus was able to endure his particular and horrible suffering because he could see beyond it.  As the writer of Hebrews states, “who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross”.  This is to be our example, what we set our eyes upon.   So as we bear with the particular suffering of physical distancing, we look ahead to ‘flattening the curve’ and supporting our front line health care workers.  As we bear broken hearts over the suffering we hear about around the world, we look ahead and see the opportunity of a world drawing together to share love, resources, spirit in ways that are unprecedented in our time.  As we bear the pain of our own frail humanity, as we face our mortality, our hearts are pushed towards the hope and reality of our new life in Christ - a mystery, yes, but no less real for that.
  • We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses!  I often wonder how thin the boundary is between this world and the next.  Too many people have shared with me experiences of ‘hearing’ from loved one’s who have passed into the new life.  So along with the ways in which we are reaching out to each other, if not in body, then more profoundly in spirit and in prayer, imagine that great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us.  Those who also lived through times of great earthly suffering - world wars, famines, the great depression, pandemics.  Who now look through the lens of new life and resurrection and see in ways we can only begin to imagine.  They say to us, “this is not the end of the story!”  And as we bear with one another, they bear with us.  We are not alone.

As we draw closer to Good Friday, and particularly in these challenging and unusual times, it feels a little heavy.  Maybe a little too heavy.  Suffering is never an easy path.  Yet we are able to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us” because we are not alone, we’ve been given a glimpse of what lies beyond and we are held in a great, powerful, mysterious love.

Even as our hearts break, we can say, ‘thanks be to God’.