I begin this reflection with an apology – the plan was to offer a daily reflection this week but unfortunately my computer had first a virus and then a corrupted RAM.
This Year’s Week of Christian Unity takes up the theme of witnessing and today in particular, we think of witnessing through suffering. For so many, it is the inexplicable suffering of the innocent which is the barrier to many when thinking about God and how a God could allow such suffering. The situation is well summed up by the devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti.
Christians believe that a new world order is coming when there will be no suffering – indeed, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Christians are called to work towards that day by embodying in our life what God’s kingdom rule looks like – we are a foretaste. However, that new world order is only possible because God came to us in Jesus Christ and became fully part of the world….and its suffering. He above all, did not deserve to die, but he challenged the ways of the world and the powers of the world which resulted in his earthly suffering and death. He embodied what God’s kingdom rule was like – it showed up, rather like a spirit level, how the world is not as straight as we think it is.
In the same way, many of us know Christians who, in their suffering, have been truly Christ-like. Indeed, it is through the suffering of my Aunt struggling with breast cancer that I came to faith. Even more, it was through my Mother’s suffering that her faith took a real rootedness that forever transformed her and others.
We are called to be faithful……being a Christian in this world guarantees suffering at some level – it is how we respond to it, that Christ can be most evidently displayed.
Luke 24:25-27 (Contemporary English Version)
25Then Jesus asked the two disciples, “Why can’t you understand? How can you be so slow to believe all that the prophets said? 26Didn’t you know that the Messiah would have to suffer before he was given his glory?” 27Jesus then explained everything written about himself in the Scriptures, beginning with the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets”
