Matthew 17:10 - 13
The disciples asked him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”
Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.
I wonder sometimes if the positive-thinking Gospel-people are reading the same Bible I read. The Old Testament prophets were marginalized as radicals. Job lost everything he had. John the Baptist was killed for his prophetic life with God. Jesus was ostracized and ultimately crucified. Paul listed difficulties that included shipwreck, wild animals and trouble from the churches he served. That list only begins to describe the difficulties of those in Scripture. Suffering is a consistent theme in the biblical narrative.
That story doesn't change if you look at the lives of persons who have followed God through the ages. Benedict of Nursia, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, Ignatius of Loyola, Alphonsus Rodriguez and Gerard Manley Hopkins are just a few persons who lived significant lives for God through deep personal suffering.
The thread is consistent from the biblical witness then down through the years. It is surprising we miss it so grandly. Among some, modern Christianity has been proposed as a tonic for all that ails you, as a sort of magical elixir that will take all your troubles away. Jesus is imaged as a kind of Medicine Man who will take away all your troubles if you have enough faith.
Large numbers of persons have chosen to be a part of the Church only because they believe religious faith and practice will safeguard them from the difficulties and tragedies of life.
Yet, the truth of our faith is that one path into transformation and meaning comes through suffering, not in the avoidance of suffering. Suffering is not the only path, but it is one path that frequently leads to radical life-change. In suffering, life becomes less theoretical and more real. Sometimes the life-structures that we have believed in and clung to no longer make sense. We begin to experience the instability of the ground on which we've built life.
In suffering we often must begin to leave a life built on sand in order to find a life that is held up by rock.
Suffering doesn't allow us to hide behind pious cliches and holy-sounding God-talk. Suffering is raw and messy. And in that raw messiness we may get our first actual taste of the God who is resilient and relentless in holding us up.
Job, after being swept away by calamity, finally had to confess that for years and years he had heard about God. He had trusted in God's reputation, until finally he experienced God firsthand and found God to be very different from what he had imagined.
In talking about the dark night of the soul -- a phrase that comes from the 16th century Spanish mystic John of the Cross -- James Finley said something like, "In the dark night of the soul God takes from us what we hold as gods, what we would not give up otherwise."
I'm not wishing suffering on anyone! Absolutely not! But no life is immune from suffering. Even an ordinary life will be touched by suffering and difficulty. I've said before that you don't have to look for suffering and tragedy. Simply by virtue of living and breathing, life will find you!
The question is not, "Will I suffer or not?", but, "What will I do when it comes?" Within that latter question are the seeds God will use for transformation . . . your own and the world's.
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