Years ago I heard a story, a parable really, about a young boy whose mother would pick him up every day from school. One afternoon she arrived at the appointed hour but he was nowhere to be seen. After about 15 minutes or so, he finally came running to the car.
“Why are you so late?” his mother inquired.
“A girl in class dropped her pottery jar,” he answered.
“So you stayed to help her pick up the pieces”?
“No,” the boy explained, “I stayed to help her cry.”
This story reveals something intrinsic to suffering. That what we really need when we’re suffering is to know someone else understands what we’re going through. People can sympathize with our lot but only those who’ve gone through something similar can truly empathize.
We often hear the phrase “it takes one to know one” or ‘misery loves company,” both of which contain a certain truth. In times of disorientation, pain, loss, and confusion we need to know that someone out there has lived our experience and can relate to us from the inside.
That’s why Jesus’ cry of dereliction on the cross is so powerful. He yells out as he nears death, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (a phrase he borrows from Psalm 22). These horrifying words betray the depth of his anguish at feeling abandoned by his Father in his greatest time of need.
There’s nothing more painful in this life than feeling abandoned and alone. And the absolute worst is feeling spiritually alone. This is the basis of Jesus’ cry. In truth we can tolerate virtually anything as long as we know we’re not alone. That God is with us, therefore, is paramount. And central to the meaning of Holy Week.
During Holy Week we learn there’s no human emotion, no moment of anguish, physical or spiritual, that God Himself has not suffered. That Jesus experiences this anguish ought to get our attention. Though each of us will inevitably experience such moments, we are assured that God understands our pain, from the inside, as a co-sufferer. In Holy Week we are again reminded that there is no part of our life where the intimate consolations of our loving God are absent.
Then again, I’ve noticed over the years the common tendency for Christians to move directly from the celebrations of Palm Sunday to the celebrations of Easter morn, skipping the events of Jesus’ Passion altogether. One can even see this, unfortunately, among many pastors as well. This is perhaps especially evident during this time of pandemic.
A big part of the problem is that many Christians turn naturally to our culture’s default response to suffering: ride it out or “white knuckle” it. This cultural imperative, however, is more reminiscent of ancient Stoicism than Christianity.
Stoicism was a Greek philosophy that claimed the gods were solely responsible for everything that happened on earth. Everything. Both good and bad.
This left us earthlings with but two choices: either fight against adversity and be miserable (since there’s nothing we can do about it anyway) or simply accept our lot and make the most of it (again since there’s nothing we can do to change it).
Regarding the latter option, the modern phrase “don’t worry, be happy” comes to mind. This option, the recommended one, advises us to just tough it out until life-circumstances become more favorable.
It’s important to note that the Stoic deities were distant and remote. There was no sense in which they cared about the human suffering they caused, much less any willingness to suffer with us.
In fact, one of the prerequisites for being a Greek god was a total and complete lack of concern for human beings. Their actions had consequences on earth, but they couldn’t have cared less how these affected our well-being. Had they cared, by definition, they would not be gods!
Needless to say, the Judeo-Christian view is radically different. For one, God is never responsible for the evils that confront us in this world. But more than that, the Judeo-Christian God, we are assured, actually suffers with us. Jesus’ Passion reveals this radical (and otherwise hidden) view of a personal and compassionate God.
One curious effect of this is the intrinsic if not paradoxical benefit of Christian suffering. Rather than the kind of suffering that leads to death, faith-filled suffering deepens faith and helps facilitate spiritual healing.
Biblical healing, in fact, most often occurs as we allow suffering to be felt, even to the point where no obvious solution recommends itself. In reading the psalms one witnesses this time and again. Amid their anguish and pain, and even despair, healing arises suddenly and unexpectedly.
In the very depths of the psalmist’s faith-filled grief, a catharsis suddenly takes place, as if enough is finally enough. At that moment when all seems lost, healing occurs.
If one short-circuits this process by means of, say, Stoicism, healing is muted, if not lost altogether. The next time adversity strikes, we have effectively robbed ourselves of the experience of knowing, existentially, that God is with us, and will again come to save us, as He has in the past.
In the watered down, Christian-ish sort of stoicism, we are effectively taken out of the moment, the assurance of God’s steadfast presence abstracted, as we focus our minds on some distant future when God presumably will act.
Applied to Holy Week, the hope is that we can dispense with suffering altogether confident, at least intellectually, that the Resurrection is just around the corner. After all, we know how the story ends. The only trouble is that, in the process, the deeper meaning of the Resurrection is lost.
Perhaps especially during this time of pandemic, it’s natural to want to absent ourselves from Holy Week’s sufferings. We are especially reluctant because we can’t see the point of adding pain on top of an already painful moment. Yet, in so doing, we risk embracing a shallow, sentimentalized sort of hope, and not the kind born of the Cross.
Notably, one of the many ways the Judeo-Christian tradition differs significantly from the Greek is where it locates the seat of the intellect within the human person. For the Greeks, it resides in the mind.
This is especially significant given that, in Greek thought, there exists a strict mind/body duality, the body and mind being forever two distinct and separate spheres.
For the ancient Greeks, then, the emphasis is on “mind over matter,” as one sees clearly in Stoicism’s response to human suffering.
The Judeo-Christian view, in contradistinction, holds that the seat of the intellect is not in the head but in the heart, therefore integrated into our whole being. Truth does not reside solely in abstract logic or reason. It exists deep within the recesses of the human heart, which includes emotion, passion, and feeling. Truth, and indeed godliness itself, is attained not merely by ‘mind over matter.’
Thus, in Christianity, all of life’s experiences matter, including those of suffering. In and through these very experiences (and not just the “good” ones) we discover grace and healing.
But if we view suffering as meaningless and thus to be avoided, we will conclude that God is remote if not absent when adversity strikes, and that any real hope in Him is pointless. Faith-filled suffering, on the other hand, hopes against hope. It allows reality to be felt, at times reminiscent of Jesus’ heartfelt cry from the cross, yet trusts that God is faithful and will act, somehow, some way.
Time and again, as evidenced in innumerable biblical accounts, God’s response to human suffering comes about in wholly unexpected ways. Which is to say that His actions don’t fit into any human category. Nor are they the outcome of human attempts at control. Grace always startles. As does joy.
To use an utterly pedestrian example, if my laptop crashes and I order a new one, I might have to wait a few days or possibly a week without a computer (something I use quite a bit). But at least I know the new one eventually will arrive.
I can deal with the momentary loss of this useful tool because I know its replacement is on the way. And when it does eventually show up at my doorstep, I’m not surprised. I may indeed be happy to receive it, but its arrival certainly doesn’t fill me with the kind of joy biblical faith commends.
The Resurrection, in other words, comes out of nowhere, when all seems lost. Like a gift, it’s a surprise. But more than that it’s a miracle, the sudden reversal of life emerging from the hopelessness of death. No one expected it. Not one.
It is this entirely sudden, unexpected quality that makes Resurrection joy so powerful and all-consuming. The worst has happened. Then, suddenly, amid the wretched despair of Good Friday and Holy Saturday, the dawn of Easter morning breaks. This sudden, unexpected reversal explains the otherwise inexplicable joy of Mary and John and Peter, even as it reveals the supernatural beginnings of a movement that was to change the world forever.
The problem with our stoic view of suffering is that, in its denial-filled, meekly anticipated, ho-hum “celebration” of Resurrection Sunday, it robs us of Easter’s efficacious, life-giving power. It risks turning Easter into just another day on the calendar, incorporated mindlessly into the little, well-worn, pedestrian events that mark our everyday existence.
In the end, Stoicism denies the fullness of who God created us to be, that we are lovingly made and that our Creator seeks faithfully to bless every aspect of who we are (and again, not just the “good” parts). And it is this same whole human person whom God actively endeavors to redeem, both now and in the world to come.