Jesus' Example of Suffering

The question of human suffering will always provide ammunition for unbelievers and questions for the faithful. In the movie, Shadowlands, and in his book, A Greif Observed, C. S. Lewis comes to deal firsthand with suffering after having lectured about it rather objectively for years. He had fallen in love with and married Joy Gresham only to lose her to cancer. Watching her courageously endure an agonizing death did not detract from his understanding of pain and suffering, but his objective knowledge had not fully prepared him for the intense feelings, questions, doubts, and fears that came upon him in his own personal suffering.

1 Peter 4 says that the result of suffering is that we do not live the rest of our earthly lives for human desires, but rather for the will of God. Now, I have suffered very little in this life, so I cannot pretend to fully understand this passage. Most of us have grown up privileged in that we have found access to everything we have needed almost every moment of our lives. For the most part we have also received more material blessings than we have been able to keep track of. Additionally, we have rarely, if ever, lived with fear for our own safety or our family’s. Our jobs have some security. Our economy is stable. Our place in this world has been an advantage for more than half a century. I can hardly understand the turmoil of those in Myanmar or Sichuan, China.

Even though I have suffered little, I can see the result of sin in my life and in our culture. Peter seems to indicate that is at least part of the suffering that leads us to turn toward God and away from the flesh. Perhaps we should make the time to reflect on the results of our pursuit of privilege and comfort – certainly Jesus did not follow that path: 1 Peter 4 starts by exhorting us to prepare ourselves to follow Jesus’ example of suffering so that we might be finished with sin. That is not often the way I have fought temptation when left to my own strategies.