Why do I suffer as a Christian? It’s a short but profound question. One that begs big answers. One that is often spoken from a place of deep pain. There are many facets believers can explore, but one of the clearest and most repeated responses in the New Testament is that I suffer as a Christian because Christ suffered.
Suffering is a fundamental sign of our new relationship with Christ, one that Paul points to frequently and in different ways. For example, he tells us it’s a sign that you’re a child of God (Romans 8:17). He tells us it’s a sign of knowing Christ (Philippians 3:7-11). We suffer because Jesus suffered. It signals that our life is in union with his.
Sinclair Ferguson enlightens us further on these passages in his book on Union with Christ. He writes, “(Calvin) spoke about the fact that there is a double mortification and a double vivification in our lives because of our union with Christ. Inwardly we die to sin and self and are raised into new life. But we also experience communion with Christ in His sufferings. We also share in the joys and triumphs of Christ that will eventually lead to the final triumph in the resurrection of our bodies.’1 He continues, “we find a pattern running through the stories of the saints of God in both Testaments — we might call it the Christ-Pattern. Union with Christ in his death and resurrection serves as the ground plan of the Christian life and shapes the pattern of our lives. It creates a rhythm of sorrow and joy, of loss and gain, of death and resurrection.” Our lives in Christ follow a Christ pattern. But what was Jesus’s ‘pattern’ of suffering?
Suffering from others
Let’s consider how exactly suffering characterised Jesus’s life. Born in deprivation, he was driven under a death threat from his home as a young child, assuming refugee status with his family in Egypt (Matthew 2:13ff). This rejection of men – “his own received him not” – would intensify. He was hounded out of his hometown and almost lynched off a cliff-side. Leaders of the religion he came to fulfil misunderstood him, misrepresented him, hated him. They plotted his murder. Pause, and consider even one of these experiences. He suffered.
Jesus’s ministry began with a period of wilderness testing, and oppression from the liar, accuser and enemy, Satan. He was weakened through fasting for nearly six weeks. He was with wild animals (Mark 1:13), living with the peril of the untamed world. Pause, and consider these experiences. He suffered.
Suffering from the curse
During his ministry, the weight of a crowd’s expectations for healing and blessing pressed in. Time and energy are demanded in proportion to a needy peoples’ craving for relief, healing and hope. He needed retreat. Power goes out from him (Mark 5:30; Luke 6:19). But what else did healing others need from Jesus? According to Matthew, “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Isaiah 53:4, in Matthew 8:16-17), indicating that he received to himself our sicknesses and pain in order to carry them away. This removal of physical suffering happens ultimately at the cross, where Jesus took for us the curse of sin that brought about all suffering. But as he touched, and spoke and declared healing to fevers, infections, leprosy; the paralysed and withered; the blind, deaf and mute; the treatment-resistant diagnoses; the lame and injured, he took the burden of our diseases, disabilities and death upon himself. Pause and consider these experiences. He suffered.
Suffering from death
Jesus knew the sorrow of losing those he loved. He wept and was moved with deep emotion at the death of his friend Lazarus. And as that same shadow loomed heavily over his own life, we find him in a garden at night, heaving with deep sadness in prayer (Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22). His soul was exceedingly sorrowful and deeply distressed. A depth of mood, an intensity of heaviness threatened to overwhelm him. He was in emotional anguish. He earnestly sought this cup of suffering to be removed from him. Pause, and consider these experiences. He suffered.
Then we come to the cross. Falsely accused, slapped, beaten, stripped and whipped, mocked, crowned with thorns. In many ways, his suffering here was the culmination of his other sufferings: the persecution; the oppressive authority with its power to violently kill; the bearing of mankind’s sicknesses reaching a climax in his own injuries, impaling, suffocation and curse-bearing death. Pause and consider that experience. He suffered.
He knows your suffering
He suffered and so we will suffer. But this is not only an explanation for our trials. There is comfort in this too. Hebrews 4:15-16 summarises it: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to feel sympathy for our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.“
Tested in every way. Does God really know my struggle? My sickness? My chronic illness? My physical health problems? My disability? My mental health problems? My loneliness? My fears – of death, of failure, of uncertainty, of disconnection? My shame – of rejection, of being misunderstood, of abuse from others? My trauma? My overwhelm and burnout? My persecution? Jesus suffered and was tested in every way. Pause and consider how he is able to have compassion and feel what you are feeling.
Hebrews encourages you not to allow your suffering to pull you away from the Lord. Rather, it must draw you near (4:16). Near to receive grace. Near to receive comfort that is more real and lasting than your suffering. Near to receive help and hope that will hold you fast, until all the suffering is gone and there is only one good King, under whom you will live with no more pain and tears. Pause, and consider how he helps you and will deliver you. All because he suffered for us.
