Forsaken: Christian Suffering in Spite of Prosperity
Short Version
By David Drury
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We may wonder about the economy and ponder the unemployment rate but we all must admit that by any comparison we today in North America live in a state of prosperity. Compared to history this is the age of prosperity. Compared to much of the world this is the home of prosperity. So in comparison we are prosperous almost beyond comparison.
What is more we are not content with our prosperity. A whole theology and message of prosperity is developing in parts of the church in which the automatic and faith-earned result of following Christ must mean a prosperous and trial-free life. Perhaps those developing this belief and speaking this message don’t really mean that. Perhaps they mean that eventually we will be more prosperous, or that we can be more prosperous, or that we shouldn’t feel guilty if we are prosperous. I could accept all that. The problem is that it sounds as if they are saying we can expect to be prosperous if we follow Jesus Christ.
This is where I must disagree because that teaching is outside of the doctrine of Christian history. The scriptures and the early church fathers claim that if you follow Christ, in some real way you should expect to suffer. You should anticipate trials. You may eventually be persecuted. You should at some point join the great long lineage of the Disciples of Christ who have always and almost everywhere experienced opposition and even martyrdom because of following our Lord. This is no prosperity gospel. This is the gospel of suffering. It may not sell well—but it is far more authentic. As we search through a great number of Bible passages I want you to be open to what it means for a Christian to suffer in spite of prosperity.
JESUS KNEW SUFFERING AND ACCEPTED IT WILLINGLY
Good Friday reminds us that Jesus did suffer and die. Our Savior knew suffering and accepted it willingly. He truly and historically experienced torture for following the will of the Father. And after he had been beaten, bruised, pierced, worked, exhausted and nailed he died. And then they stabbed him to make sure. The very moment before his death we read that in about the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mathew 27:46)
This word “sabachthani” makes my skin tingle. Forsaken. It’s perhaps the most hopeless and ugly word in the Bible. It is visceral. It is painful. It is hard to believe. The word brings on the connotations of abandonment, of desertion, of being left helpless, of being alone, of being cast out, of being completely forgotten. What is sabachthani is totally abandoned, utterly forsaken.
But here’s the thing. Jesus was actually quoting a song. At his moment of greatest torture, when he felt this sense of total abandonment and utter forsakenness he recalled the great song he knew well but that we must learn from him. Here it is:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, and am not silent.” (Psalm
22:1b-2)
This is the beginning of the song. The start of a wailing question to God: why me? Why now? Why aren’t you helping? But this song he knew so well does not end there…. It continues…
“Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the praise of Israel.
In you our fathers put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.”
(Psalm 22:3-4)
You see, Jesus felt truly forsaken. He quotes this song and confirms it. But he also knew that despite this human feeling of forsakenness, the Father could be trusted. That “yet” in verse 3 turns around his forsakenness into deliverance. Jesus takes this opportunity on the cross to not simply cry out his forsakenness but to teach us the meaning of it. To show us the way it all beautifully comes together and was planned even a thousand years before when the Psalmist penned those words. Suffering is not a roadblock to the plan—it is essential to the plan.
So because Jesus was forsaken to suffer we have the Christian symbol of the cross. It is so common to our prosperous western home and age that many of us wear gold and silver ones, or place chrome ones on our cars. But have we stopped to consider this symbol enough? This is an instrument of torture and violent death that became an instrument of hope and eternal life.
WHEN WE KNOW SUFFERING WE KNOW CHRIST MORE COMPLETELY
There is more than just the meaning of Christ’s suffering here; we are also taught that when we ourselves suffer we know Christ more completely. We are more in tune with who Jesus was and what he did. We are in better communion with his great task. This is why Paul intriguingly tells us: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me…” (Galatians 2:20). The act of following Jesus is the act of being crucified ourselves. How often have we heard the words, “taking up our cross” and forgotten those words mean the first century equivalent of “strapping myself into the electric chair.” There is a backdrop of suffering to the entire drama of following Jesus. But Paul tells us elsewhere, “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions….” (Colossians 1:24) In some way when we go through the sufferings of life—the forsakenness feeling that is common to all men and women eventually, perhaps the feeling you came into this holy week with—those sufferings enable us to know Christ more fully, to do our part in working out our own salvation. Before you think this was just Paul’s semi-sadistic hang-up I remind you that Peter told us to not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name (1 Peter 4:12-16). We wear our sufferings as conspicuous Christian clothing. They are not or should not be strange things to us Peter says. He says we are called to suffer, that if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps. (1 Peter 2:20b-21)
There is community in this suffering. We have community with one another because we all feel forsaken from time to time. But what is more we have community with Christ. Paul says, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.” (Philippians 3:10) This connecting with Christ through suffering is not to be unwillingly faced, begrudgingly accepted, grumpily allowed. James has the gall to tell us, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4). Surely you jest, James! We may be able to endure suffering and trials, but how can you expect us to consider them pure joy! We believe you James, but Lord help our unbelief.
What’s more, when Paul feels like he’s on to something profound—which he often is—even when he feels a sense of connection to God that is incredibly special, he says that “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Even Paul himself had a private physical malady that pestered his thoughts, interrupted his world, and made him suffer. Perhaps you do to, or you know someone who does.
Like Paul we should plead with God to take those thorns out of our flesh—the thorns which are so often too deep or too near the nerves of our body or soul to take out ourselves. These thorns God often does take out. We have faith that the Great Thorn Remover is able. We plead with him as Paul did in faith that it will happen. But also like Paul we do not fall into the trap of thinking our entire lives will be prosperous. Sometimes God has allowed a thorn from the enemy, Paul reasons, and so we quit pleading with God and begin learning the lesson it must be there to teach us. Paul healed people in the name of God. But Paul also knew when to stop pleading and start learning.
These biblical teachings are why from the beginning of the church we have had a healthy sense of the purpose behind Christian suffering. Early Church Father Origen spoke for the church when he said “We think it is both reasonable in itself and well-pleasing to God to suffer pain for the sake of virtue, to undergo torture for the sake of piety, and even to suffer death for the sake of holiness.” Suffering is not an anomaly in the life of the Christian. It is to be used to learn virtue, work piety and to receive holiness.
WHEN WE KNOW SUFFERING WE MAKE CHRIST KNOWN MORE BROADLY
Beyond Christ’s suffering and the personal benefit of knowing him more through our own we can also celebrate that when we know suffering we make Christ known more broadly.
Paul reminds the church in Philippi: Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly. (Philippians1:12-14)
The word of God is spread because of the suffering seed of Paul’s predicament. What has really happened is not what the world would think. Another thing hidden to the unspiritual soul has really taken place. By the standards of earth he could not have been more unprosperous or unsuccessful. But by the standards of the kingdom of God he had just been promoted to chained imprisonment! Now that’s the kind of attitude I want to have.
Because of this we Christians for two thousand years have not been tempted too long by an easy-bake-oven style prosperity. We’ve not been convinced that God is anything like Santa Claus, the tooth fairy or Mr. Rogers. We’ve resisted it even in the face of death when it would be easy to change our minds. Justin Martyr said:
“Though threatened with death we do not deny His name… It is evident that no on can terrify or subdue us. For, throughout all the world, we have believed in Jesus! It is clear that, although beheaded, and crucified, and thrown to wild beasts… and fire, and all other kinds of torture, we do not give up our confession. But the more such things happen, the more do other persons and in larger numbers become faithful believers and worshippers of God through the name of Jesus.” - Justin Martyr
So let’s apply these many scriptures passages and early church quotes to our day. How can we, in an age and state of prosperity, understand and live out the gospel of suffering? Here is where we can start:
1. We can have great faith that God can and will heal and deliver us when we are in need.
2. We must also submit to his will in all things.
3. We can know Jesus Christ better when we suffer.
4. We can also be comforted by the community we have with others in suffering.
5. We can learn how to be holy and purified when we suffer.
6. And we can spread our witness as his Body when we suffer.
In fact, that word witness and the word martyr are the same word in scripture, martus. Our understanding of suffering in spite of our relative prosperity may be the voice in which to express the proper witness in our prosperous world which still has no intellectual category or effective coping mechanism to deal with the suffering all around us.
7. We may feel forsaken, but we are delivered!
They ask us: why do you suffer, why do I suffer, why does anyone suffer? We answer: we are crucified with Christ. The cross is our symbol. We are not escaping suffering. We are embracing it.
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© 2006 by David Drury
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