Three great experiences have focused my mind on suffering.
This spring we met our Nashville family for a long weekend in San Antonio, and decided to make an impromptu trek out to a museum as part of the “missions trail” — a string of 17th and 18th century Spanish missions along the river.
Our conversation quickly moved from Texas history to the “Stations of the Cross” marked in unique ways in each little chapel we visited.
Reading my mail isn’t always what I’d call a “great” experience. Sure, the mailbag always has someone writing to thank us for a story. But it also contains reminders of our errors.
One recent item caught my attention, however. It was sent by Glen Aus of the Metro Church, Gresham, Ore., who tells the story of three West Coast congregations and his family’s times of need.
And third, my book club has been wrestling with Armand Nicholi’s “The Question of God,” a discussion of the lives and beliefs of Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis. If our group is representative, people everywhere are thirsty for a real, substantive discussion of worldviews — complete with difficulties.
A common thread seems to be the theme of Christ’s suffering and how Christians must grow to understand suffering. Freud and Lewis took divergent paths on the question of suffering and its implications for faith. Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” has achieved unprecedented, double-peak success at the box office. Even movie critic Roger Ebert wrote in the New York Times about the “radical” roots of the word “passion” and the nature of the suffering of Christ.
Perhaps suffering is one of the topics we should more aggressively use to engage our culture.
In his Dialogue interview this month (page 20), Chris Altrock argues that we should approach our culture more like missionaries — resident aliens — than as if we were at home here. How would a missionary present “suffering?”
Too often we have tried to begin with the victory of the Gospel. Surely victory will be ours through Christ, but the path does not begin in victory. It begins in suffering — Christ’s and ours. Victory comes at the end as we submit again.
First, we must teach the suffering of Christ because it will force us to recognize these truths about discipleship that once were a touchstone of our faith circle.
Too often we taught suffering as if to teens — always with an eye to generating the greatest possible delta between how we perceived teens to feel (self-centered and invulnerable) and their actual guilt.
I remember a few of those moments from my own youth, but I promise I wasn’t sitting there wondering how long until we could carve the roast. Or how soon the moonlight hike at camp would be over so Canteen could begin. I was a normal boy, but I did grope toward the incomprehensible: Christ’s immense suffering, alone, bought my soul.
So often the ineffable comes first and only later are we taught the doctrine, dogma, and, too often, the catch-phrases that rob Christ’s suffering of its meaning.
Second, we must think more deeply about how we respond to the suffering of our fellows. “The Three Churches” text sent to me by Aus, discusses three West Coast churches who understand the importance of sharing in sufferings as a Christian family. As this story shows, shared suffering is powerful.
Aus writes, “I know that I am not the only person to have family troubles or suffer personal tragedy. But in each case the church was there in my time of need. I would encourage you to recognize the power that you and your church have to impact the lives of those hurting. “
Each of our personal narratives of suffering takes on the shape of our faith, just as Freud’s and Lewis’s narratives took them to different conclusions on suffering. Aus’s story is inspiring. His story of how these three congregations faithfully served the suffering — sometimes with a simple cup of water and other times with more — is at the heart of Christian identity and mission.
(Read Aus’ entire story by clicking here.)
Aus reminds me that it is the acceptance of our suffering that brings the only measure of peace.
Why? The answers are too profound for me, but maybe it partly is because my heart grows quiet at the closed door of suffering and finally, at long last, I focus completely on God as my rock and my redeemer.
As C.S. Lewis reminds us in “The Problem of Pain,” it is when we are knocking, pounding on the door of heaven for relief that our hearts are prepared for the answer — a voice from the other side which says, “Peace, child, for you do not understand.”
Like “Mad Mel” Gibson, we must remember that redemption flows from suffering in a fallen world.
CONTACT SCOTT LaMASCUS at scott.lamascus@oc.edu.
