Suffering

In our church undercroft—a glorified basement—we keep a massive cross, at least ten feet tall, and heavy, made of solid wood. It makes an appearance only once a year, on Good Friday. The Good Friday service looks the same every year, except for the change in participants. The ornate cedar of the altar and pulpit of the church are bare, the candles unlit, and the whole church dim. We stand in the pews in somber silence. In the quiet, our choir leader begins the familiar chant of Psalm 22, and we all watch as a cross-bearer, in a black robe like the ones that the choir wears, shoulders the massive wooden cross on his bent back. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? come the words of the psalm, filling the whole sanctuary. The cross-bearer processes out from under the choir loft. …Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help… Finally, he reaches the last pew, sets the cross down, and returns to the back of the church.

Watching someone carry a ten-foot cross between the pews of our church is a somber reminder of the reality of Christ’s long walk up the hill at Golgotha. Our cross-bearer is always a strong man, who is not beaten and bleeding, and who has probably not been awake for a full day; and he only carries the cross for a few yards, at a funereal pace. Yet even still, the congregation can see that he bears it with difficulty. It reminds us, even in this watered-down way, that Christ’s suffering was real, painful, crushing. When Christ says to his disciples in Matthew 16:24, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me,” he is calling up an image for them of real—not figurative—suffering.

The phrase “take up your cross” does not have one universally accepted meaning among Christians, yet it is crucial to the season of Lent. Lent is not meant to be a time of making ourselves suffer, but of accepting that suffering is an inevitable part of the Christian life. Often we fear to admit that suffering is a key part of our faith, but Christ, our example, led a life of poverty, pain, long nights awake, long days on the road, and an excruciating death at the end. If we are to come after him, we must take up our crosses, too. All people alive will suffer at some point, and Christ, through his temptation in the desert, his passion, and his crucifixion (all key focuses of the Lenten season) shows us an example of how to bear pain, both physical and psychological, in a holy manner.

There is much debate, too, on the purpose of our suffering with Christ. Some believe that we can take part in Christ’s redemptive act, and that by our own suffering we help to bear the weight of the guilt of all men. Others see suffering as a refining fire which purifies us into something that God can mold into perfect shape, while others believe that even our seemingly needless suffering brings us closer to Christ in His needful suffering, since it enables us to better understand His life and death. Lastly, some others still do not understand suffering, but only walk one painful step at a time under its weight. But however we may understand our suffering, whether we see it as redemptive, purifying, elevating, or obstructing, Lent reminds us that we cannot follow Christ’s example without it. As we pass through our personal valleys of the shadow of death, we can look beside us for solace and see Christ, bleeding and staggering under His own splintering cross.