The Redemption of Human Suffering
Good Friday
Each year we are exposed to the terrible sufferings of our Redeemer. We are confronted with the mystery of human suffering. Why is there so much suffering in the world? Why do so many innocent people have to endure pain? Why are lives seemingly wasted and lost in the midst of misery?
At the human level suffering makes no sense, but in Christ a way to find meaning to our suffering can be found.
Christ entered the depths of human suffering. His suffering was not only physical, but engaged his emotions and his spirit. The Prophet Isaiah in describing the Suffering Servant expresses the various dimensions of the suffering that Christ endured.
Isaiah speaks of “a thing despised and rejected by men” (Is 53:3). This man, he said, is “a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering” (ibid). Jesus is this “man despised”, a “man of sorrows”, he is the “Suffering Servant”.
However, the Prophet alerts us to an important element to the sufferings of this Servant. These sufferings are not his due for some personal fault or failing, some crime committed, they are, in fact, borne for the sake of others. The Prophet says, “Yet he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins” (Is 53:5). He adds, “We had all gone astray like sheep, each taking his own way” (Is 53:6). Humanity had abandoned God, had fallen into sin, and, the Prophet declares, “the Lord burdened him with the sins of all of us” (Is 53:5).
Jesus carried our sins when he went to Calvary. So, the Prophet explains, “On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through his wounds we are healed” (ibid).
On the cross Christ not only redeemed sinful humanity, but he transformed the very meaning of human suffering.
Christ embraced the depths of evil and transformed it. He conquered evil with good. As an innocent victim Christ introduced pure salvific love as the foundation to his embrace of suffering. His suffering was not meaningless. It was redemptive.
In the Apostolic Letter of Pope St John Paul II on the Christian meaning of human suffering, we read the following: “Human suffering has reached its culmination in the passion of Christ. And at the same time, it has entered a completely new dimension and a new order: it has been linked to love”. (SD 18)
When human suffering is embraced in love it is given meaning, purpose and fruitfulness. The Pope added, “Christ has raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption. Thus, each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ” (SD 19). Thus, our experience of suffering, united with that of Christ, can be transformed, becoming in a mysterious way, redemptive.
The great Apostle St Paul understood this. He speaks about sharing in the sufferings of Christ. He even expresses joy in sharing in the sufferings of Christ. In his letter to the Colossians he writes, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His Body, that is, the Church” (1:24).
What before seemed meaningless and destructive now can make sense and be borne with hope. There is actually a power for good in suffering. That power for good is the power of love. Suffering borne with love is transformed and becomes redemptive.
St John Paul II explains that the redemption achieved by Christ “remains always open to all love expressed in human suffering.” When suffering is embraced in love the Pope says that redemption “is, in a certain sense, constantly being accomplished” (SD 24).
When we embrace our sufferings in love we can participate with Christ in redeeming the world. Our suffering can become part of Christ’s work, the greatest work ever done, the work of salvation.
This happens when we have faith. With faith, we offer our sufferings up to God and He uses them in a mysterious and powerful way for the redemption of the world through the power of love, the love that is the very inner life of God.
So, in faith, when we are suffering, we can experience an inner joy that comes from love, by offering our pain and suffering to God, with Jesus, for the salvation of the world and we can offer it up specifically for particular people.
Jesus has redeemed human suffering. He has made it redemptive. He has made it a source and means of something good. However, its ultimate fruitfulness is to be found not on Good Friday but on Easter Sunday. We understand the suffering and death of Christ in the light of his Resurrection. St Paul wrote: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor 15:14).
Without the Resurrection suffering would still seem meaningless and we would be left in a state of hopelessness. The mystery of the Redemption, which is rooted in suffering, does not end in suffering. Through His resurrection, Jesus manifests the victorious power of suffering.
When the risen Lord reveals himself after His Resurrection the marks of the wounds of the Passion remain on the hands, feet, and side. His wounds remind us that the Resurrection came forth from His suffering. The risen Lord is and always will be our Suffering Servant who has not only redeemed humanity but has redeemed the meaning of human suffering.
Archbishop Julian Porteous
Friday, 2 April 2021