Sepyice for ~freDaration for Sely Gommunion Spril 6, 1966

THE SUFFERING CRRIST
Tsaiah 53: 1-9

The question of human suffering is one that has weighed heavily on the
wind of man from time immenorial. | Why is there suffering? \ way is it that

some men suffer terribly, while others seem to be by-passed? \ why do good

da

men suffer while not-so-good men seem to eeetrer | * there any meaning at all

\
to human suffering? _on snd on the questions have proceeded Cown throuch the

centuries into our own cey. \ ee best weapon ac¢einst suffering seers to be
to ignore it: to pretend thet it doesn't exist - or if it does - only in
faraway places - to other veople.\ Even deeth has its peculiar disguises in

our culture - disguises crested by an industry which felsely assumes that

MAW Needs ; . i ah
the—best—thing for aman is to avoid the reslity of death and thus escape,

or at least vrolong, and postpone, the inevitable suffering.

Generally speaking, we know very little ebout suffering. \ Comrared to
the rest of humanity, we are quite free of suffering's traditional vehicles -
femine, flood, war, natural disester.\ But even to us, suffering comes -
perhaps in loneliness or frustration, or physical illness.\ To all of us,

suffering comes when we lose someone very dear to us - a close relative or
P \ . ‘ :
friend. | And when it comes, we, too, sasKkthe age-old questions - Why? | What
\ | =
coes it mean? | why did it have to han-en? \ Wey did it have to havoven to me?

pla t
ae The

There are basically two' answers to our questions thet-ere vepuiar.

first is that God is responsible for ea eee when it comes, it is

his intent for us. \ This is baged on a theology that assumes that whatever

\

\
happens is God's will, and while it comes easily to our minds, snd does

\

end know about God.\ It sounds so risht - and yet, what_of the four year old

\
child who dies a slow and extremely painful death of luekemia? | Gould this

be the same fod in whose name Jesus was sveaking, when he said, "whoever harms

such a little one, better for him had he hung a stone about his neck and

crowned in the seat. | It sounds so right until sorieone close to us dies in

an automobile aCGLOsRFs\ In short, to blame God for human suffering may be

convenient; |

\

it may vrovide and_easby exit from the uncomfortable predicament
of thinking about suffering - cut it does not bear up at all in human

experience. \ Furthermore, to take this vosition is to miss entirely - what

the Judeo-Christian tradition does teach about suffering.
The second besic answer is that God has nothing whatever to do with
human suffering: that our lives are guided by fate - and when your number is

up, it's all over. \ The antidote to suffering, within this context then, is

’ \

to discivline oneselfrto meen a stiff up ver Ppa ¥° face life courageously

and stoically take whetever comes. \ This aprroach, too, however, is woefully
\ J ~~ =

inedequate when applied to the reality of human experience. \ i have seen
personal suffering and itve yet to hear a person in a hospital say, ("such

is life".\ I've vet to see someone respond to the deathof a loved one with

"T guess nis niwiber was up".

When suffering comes - it comes SAPS « It opens up a level of experience
unknown to us,and for many people when it comes they find themselves unprepared
and ill-equipped to deal with it. \ And again the questions are asked: Why?

; \ a
why has this thine happened?
The question was asked some 7,500 years ago by the Israelites lenevishing

in Babylonian captivity. \Forcefully torn from their homes, carried off in

+

exile to an alien land, they toc lifted their voices in despair and ested,

Mwhy?".\ They had been teught that they were the chosen people of the one

sovereign God. \ They were his veople; \his nation. \ Why, of all the neople of
\ —

\

the world, should they have to suffer. \ Their guestions were anticipated and

cia

answered by the man who wrote the latter portion of the book of manana, 5

read a vortion of that very moving bit of literature this SreRORE#\ In the
3rd Chanter, the prophet speaks of the Lord's servant as one who suffers
because he is the gervant.\ Written in the masculine gender, the prophet told

thet the servant wes "despised and rejected" of men, wounded for our

= ¥ «=

transgressions, oppressed and efflicted. Pe was referring, of course, to the

\

Hebrew netion. \Isrsel's mission was to suffer - in a sense to suffer for

\ ee

all men: to show forth the glory of the one God by remaining faithful, even

4
in the worst pangs of suffering.

Tt wes this idee of suffering as mission that is carried over in the New

\
Testament in the life of Jesus Christ. \ There can be do doubt that Jesus

understood himself and his task in the light of this Srna aR there can be

no doubt thet He, and the Gossel writers, were deeply influenced by this

particuler ctasseme from the Book of Isaiah.

Israel's suffering was vicarious - that is,suffering on behalf of some

one a. a sense, they were the suffering substitutes for the Babylonians,
Persians, Assyrians and Egyptians.— Wone of woich could match Israel's history

for sheer tragedy. \ Jesus Christ, then, is the finel sct in this historical
\ é

\ \
Grams. \ He wes the suffering servant. \ He did suffer for all men: his was

"on behalf of suffering", \ = a very real sense Jesus Christ - on the cross -

is understood as a substitute for every wan. And through his suffering, all
\

men have been provided a way of selveation.
I believe, however, that we make the wisteke of confining Christ's

suffering to the crucifixion alone. | Actually it was, from start to finish,
- § 2

an entire life time of suffering. \ It begen in the dirt and dust of a cow

berns\ it progressed through tortuous years of misunderstanding.| It matured

\

in lonliness and isolation and it ended in complete failure. \ Certainly no

\

one was so bedly misunderstood as Jesus of Easapetets \ Fe wes almost stoned

to death by nis own neishbors;\ he wes cailed 4 plutton and e drunkard; \ eves
- \ ea

his own disciples, to a man, radically misunderstood almost everything he

said and did. \ There is greet suffering here.

\

\

Certainly no man hes been so terribly alone as Jesus of Manavees | The

inability of his friends to understand hir created a gap between Them. low

op
1e)

ne he must have felt, for instance, when two of them began to argue about

which would be first in the Kingdom of Gast, Now elone he must have felt -

when even Peter refused to accent his mission of saeineaiaaia Tow utterly

alone he rust heve felt - when in his hour of greatest need, they fell asleep.

f

How alone he was - when they all ran eway; when Peter denied even knowing him.
— ~ \ \ a
Fow alone he was - between two thieves on a barren hill. \ It takes a certain
- \ - . —_
amount of creative imagination to understand this kind of A SRREES | When

we suffer, even an acopendicitis, we are surrounded by the concern and love

and vresence of farilyv and friends. \ But he died - alone - completely and

utterly abendoned. | There is real suffering acid: ‘eames: apart from the

\
particuler ageny of crucifixion.

Again, the worst we can imagine is probably not enough. \ Crucifixion was
1 \ :
a peculiarly, Roman device reserved for the worst er imiee.las\ It wes meant to

\
be a public example, as wuch as brute (>) punishment; \and it succeeded

4

effecientily in both respects. \ The victim was either tied or nailed to a

cross; stripped of his clothes and hung up to die slowly - in full view of
enyone who wanted to waten.\ Death by crucifixion cameby several way: the
combination of the loss of blood and exposure in the burning sun;\ suffocation
from lung collapse - due to disiocation of the snoulders. \ Tt is sood, I

believe, to think in these indelicate terms when we consider the crucifixion -
end esvecially ss we think about Jesus! sufforing.\ We are safe in saying,
that thoumh the very worst happens to us, we will never be called on to
suffer the horrible agonies endured by our Lord.
flow, up until this point our thinking has been seneraily acedemic - a
recital of facts end historical doctrine. | Jesus Christ suffered - in the

same way as the Israelite nation suffered - and mankind is thereby redeemed.

But what does this say about God in relation to our suffering.| What
i \

a ©

resources are then here to cove with whatever forms of suffering we are
called upon to endure?
Just this -- and this is the point I think most people miss. | It was

not just a man who suffered. \aesue was not just a good Jew who took on

*,

7
fH

himself the storic burden of his people. \ It wes God who gerrareas | THE

\ \
is the real issue - and the one many peovle eee ae a classical

fe

opronent of orthodox Christianity, was fond of observing that he never met

a person who fully understood the affirmetion "aod on a cross".) This is
| ¥ =

what is at stake here.\"God was,in Christ, reconciling the world to

1

himself. "\ Jesus Christ wes God incarnate. when he suffered - God suffered,
This is the idea that must be injected into our thinking about

suffering; we believe in a suffering God.
\ ;
Now let's be absolutely clear about one thing. | = in no answer to

the questions - Why? Why must we Suffer? == fact, let's have the courage

at this point to gay that there is no answer to that one: that suffering is

simply part of iife - and that it makes nom more sense to blame it on God,

then it does to say that God was responsible for the indigestion we got from

ie
earin
th onions we=—sée last night.\ Let's stop reaching for_cheap comfort when
\

tragedy strikes - by blaming it on God.
And then, Let's go the direction the cross is sointing - to a suffering
god. | I would suggest that there is more here than an easy, trite answer-| I
would suggest that there is here the power to cove with suffering - and the
comfort to be healed and restored.

It's always difficult to draw a simple analogy to a point of theology,

but let me try. \ I cen remerber,as a little bor, having an ear aa | An

err ache severe enouch to make me cry.\ And I can rerember sitting on ™
a ¥ meni st 4‘

\

father's lap, knowing that he wes suffering because I was ae} It

didn't take away the pai; \ eet it did make it bearable. \ It did a great
— \ —
deal to know and to feel the love of someone who was suffering right along

with me. [ee all hed these experiences with our own ee neve

= t=
felt the pain when they fall; wé've , perhaps, wept when they were bitterly
disappointed. \ Be Sve all felt the need to have someone near when we suffer:
Wetve all extended a comforting hard to someone we eiiedh Because, in a
very real sense we are suffering with theme
This is precisely what the cross of Jesus Christ tells us about God.

\

Be suffers with ua Be ig there with us in vain and grief and disapoointment.
Like a father to his children - God feels our pale; \owr tears are his tears
also. \ Even in deeth - God chares each experience with us, for he has been
there, too. \ He has been through the valley of the shadow of death - and
even there, our suffering is his suffering.

And how do we know shiat\ We know it because God was in Christ; \Jescus
- — — \

Christ was God in the flesh, and he exverienced the fullness of human life

to its last, most bitter arcs e \ Jesus Christ was misunderstood,

alone - he cried out in dispair, ("Ky God, My God, why hest thou forsaken
me", \jand he died. t u h

We know this about Cod --that he shares our pain; that he stands resdy
to share and to help us bear whatever we might have to endure.

We know this about God - because he came, because he was incarnate in

the sufferins Christ.

Amene