Why SufferingExemplo

Goodness Displayed

In the height of irony, the famous atheist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that “the gods justified human life by living it themselves—the only satisfactory [response to the problem of suffering] ever invented.”[1] Remarkably, Nietzsche was writing of the ancient Greeks and, in his atheistic bias, didn’t make the connection to Christianity! But from the Christian perspective, what Nietzsche wrote is quite reasonable, for it points emphatically to the cross of Jesus Christ.

Love requires sacrifice. It requires a willingness to suffer alongside those you love. Christians worship a God who was willing to come and suffer alongside us—a God who would not remain comfortably seated on some far-off heavenly throne as we suffered. He couldn’t bear to. As a caring parent, He came alongside His children in the person of Jesus Christ, and He suffered with us.

“Jesus wept” (John 11:35) at the tomb of His friend Lazarus; even when we can muster no words to express it, Jesus knows the grief of losing a loved one. And His experience of suffering didn’t stop there. The night before Jesus died, as He wrestled with what He knew the next day would bring, He said to His friends, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, to the point of death” (Matt. 26:38). The God of the universe—the Creator of all things—saying He is overwhelmed with sorrow, even to death. There is no depth of agony and helplessness we can experience in this life that Jesus doesn’t understand.  

The loving parent is not the one who never allows suffering in a child’s life. The loving parent is the one who is willing to suffer alongside his or her children. In creating this world, God didn’t merely accept the cost; He suffered the cost. 

At the cross, we see the absolute uniqueness of the Christian response to suffering. In Islam, the idea of God suffering is nonsense; it is thought to make God “weak.” For many Buddhists, to reach divinity is precisely to move beyond the possibility of suffering, to give up your attachments to other people so that you will never have to suffer for anyone. Only in Christ do we have a God who loves us enough to suffer with us and for us.

The Christian claim is that this is precisely what God has done for each of us. When He saw us hurting and in need of healing, He provided His own blood. He chose to join us in our suffering and to take on Himself whatever suffering was necessary for us to be healed. He displayed His love in such an extravagant way that we have strong reason to trust Him, even when we don’t fully understand His ways. 

Reflection Questions

• Why does God’s willingness to suffer for and alongside us demonstrate that He is trustworthy?
• We see in Scripture that Jesus wept and experienced pain, sorrow, and sadness. What does that say about your ability to relate to God in times of hardship, as well as His ability to relate to you?

Bible Verses

• Matthew 26:38
• John 11:1-44 

 Citation

[1] Friedrich W. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Francis Golffing (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956), 30.