Points of Identification

During the last several months I have been struggling with the focus on suffering that makes up a large part of Christian faith, whether Catholic or Protestant. It came to a head when I read about the life of St. John of the Cross, and how the last ten years of his life were nothing but suffering, and he saw it as a small way of participating in the sufferings of Christ.

That made me mad. Christ suffered about 18-20 hours total. From Garden to death on the cross wasn't even 24 hours, yet we have focused such an intense beam of attention and faith on that suffering, that we wish to relieve that suffering and participate in that suffering. Even Paul says, "making up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ."

Jesus walked the earth for about 35 years, and only three of those years do we have any information about his life. We cannot identify with the majority of his life as it is reported in the gospels, because none of us have ever raised someone from the dead, healed someone of their disease, cast out demons just by showing up and their recognizing us; walked on water, or calmed a storm at sea with a single word. What is there in all that for us to identify with? We are shown a human who is also God, I can't share his experience of healing with a word, or making a hurricane dissolve.

I can, and do, just as you can, and do, indentify with betrayel, fear of death, and pain.

In the Garden of Gethsemane we are shown Jesus at his absolute moment of humanity--in terror of what is to come. Now that is something all of us can identify with. He also must deal with the deep pain of betrayal from a friend! We can identify with that too.

Being humiliated. We can identify. Being beaten, some can identify more than others. A crown of thorns? Those who have blinding migraines can identify with that, I believe. And last, a painful death. People writhing in the throes of death from prolonged cancer, where no medicine can dull the pain. They are on the cross.

No wonder we identify with Christ's sufferings and death, it is the only part of his life that we can identify with, at all! Not the miracles, just the suffering and death.

The issue here is that it doesn't end on the cross. We have the empty tomb. Resurrection! Life anew, renewed, redeemed. To be fair, none of us have risen from the dead, but does that mean our faith must end with the cross? Our faith demands of us, indeed, defines us as people of the resurrection. We must find a way of identifying with the resurrected one. We need a shift of focus away from death and suffering, and toward resurrection and redemption. When I am in pain and offer it to God, I believe that I am taking my present suffering and sending through the empty tomb directly to the resurrected Christ.

I have no doubt others have written about this with more sound theological thinking, and greater erudition, yet where is the fruit of it? Where is it preached? Who points the way?