On Endurance

The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

For the Feast of St Bernard of Clairvaux this past Thursday, one of the assigned daily readings in the lectionary was from St Paul’s letter to the Romans, Chapter 5. It is a well-known passage where St Paul tells us:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rm 5. 1-5)

Suffering, whether for our faith like the martyrs of the Church or simply in our daily lives, is a part of the human experience. As Christ was incarnate into the world by God, suffering was brought forth by man through sin. The question of why God allows suffering is one that has been one that generates countless theological tomes, debates, arguments and is intractably linked to deep felt pain and hurts, which many Christians often seek to blame on God.

From Anglican scholars like Bishop NT Wright to Pope St John Paul II, Christ is at the centre of a theology of suffering. As NT Wright notes, Christ’s suffering on the cross subverts expectations of the Jews (in terms of the Messiah coming to instantly liberate Israel from its oppressors) just as we today would want God to act instantly to remedy humanity’s suffering (whether it be illness, hatred, natural disaster, religious persecution, etc). This was the central aspect of God’s salvation history for humanity. The long-term narrative by which God returns humanity to himself.

In his apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris, Pope St John Paul II goes further suggesting that the human experience of suffering is modelled in Christ’s suffering, and like Wright he notes that Christ’s life shows that our expectations and demands on God show a lack of complete understanding and knowledge of God, preventing us from ever having a more complete understanding of suffering than what we see in Christ’s life.

St Paul’s instructions can be seen in the Pope’s letter when he highlights the transformative nature of suffering. St John Paul II suggests in his letter that, “in suffering there is concealed
a particular power that draws a person interiorly close to Christ, a special grace.” To those who have endured, as St Paul says, they are transformed in character and brought to new hope in God.

It is this transformation that similarly highlights the reality of the link between a theology of suffering and a theology of healing. The theology of healing is linked strongly with soteriology, the theology of salvation. Salvation is, as NT Wright noted, the way in which God returns humanity to himself, the way in which the barrier of sin is eliminated. But if suffering relates to sin, then the elimination of suffering through healing is also strongly tied to salvation, and again to Christ.

Without a theology of suffering, therefore, we cannot have a full theology of healing; nor can our theology of salvation be fully realized. The two are linked in St Paul’s words, suffering leads to hope in God, the assurance of his love. In the lectionary, the lesson from Romans is tied to a reading from St John’s gospel:

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. (St Jn 15. 9-11)

The link here is drawn again to the Father’s love, and joy. A theology of healing is ultimately countered to a theology of suffering in that it is God’s love that heals all suffering. Throughout the Bible, suffering is described as groaning. In captivity and oppression, God’s people groaned in their sufferings. God heard them. How much more does God groan for us to return to him? The ultimate expression of his love given. His son, made man, suffered with us, bore our sins and opened in his obedient sacrifice the love of God to be experienced by all.

There are profound theological points to be made from this initial reading. Long debates on the nature of God, creation and so much more. Yet what comfort is all of this objective analysis to someone in the midst of suffering? The wife whose husband is diagnosed with cancer. The father whose sun is severely injured in a motor vehicle collision.

It all comes back to Christ. Whatever the reasons why suffering is permitted to continue in this world, Christ shared in them. Christ suffered as all humans suffer, and for those living today suffered more physical pain and torment than most will likely see. He was obedient unto death so that he could become the Divine Physician. The healer who reconciles us all to God.

In our suffering we are called to turn to Christ; to seek God’s support and strength to endure. It is important to stress that in this endurance, it will not always mean an immediate end to suffering. In the case of illness, for instance, it does not mean divine healing. Christ is the Divine Physician not because his hands brought miraculous healing, but because it is through him that our souls are healed and we are restored to God. The strength to endure suffering, is what we pray for, and not simply an end to the suffering itself.

Through our endurance, through our prayers, we come to know God better, improving in us our character, the goodness and reflection of God seen in all humans who are made in his image.

Through that character we gain hope. Not hope in its modern sense of wishful thinking for something, but rather a wholehearted assurance and expectation of what is to come. If character is St Paul’s description of how we come to know God better and thus to be better qualified to act in a more God-like way, the hope we gain is the assurance of his love borne of the knowledge of him.

Even knowing this, in the midst of suffering it may not be enough. Our desire would be for God to immediately end that suffering. Sometimes we may even feel that because God did not prevent such suffering, his will is that it occurs to us. Why, God? What did I do to deserve this? Sometimes, it wont be enough. God’s perfection is beyond human understanding, and sometimes that means we cannot comprehend what is happening in our lives and why God has not intervened. Why God intercedes in certain cases for miraculous healing on an individual level, while genocides and the mass loss of life through natural disasters are allowed to occur. Even simply why God might intercede in one case and yet not another for two individuals afflicted with the same disease.

There is no real word of comfort, no simple and comforting explanation. These are questions that will only be answered through endurance, but what comfort there is can be known through the assurance that endurance leads to joy. God has promised, “I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow,” (Jer 31. 13b). This promise originally made to God’s people in captivity reminds us that through endurance of suffering, our tears will ultimately be turned to joy when, at the very least, we come into the fullness of God’s plan for reunion with us.