Meditation on Suffering

From Workshop "The Agony in the Garden as a Model of Human Suffering"

At this weekend’s Faith & Evangelization Congress (Archdiocese of Hartford), I reflected with participants on Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.  We considered what makes this story so unique:  it is a time of intense reflection between the ministry and death of Jesus; it is a period of mental and emotional struggle before the physical trial of the Cross; and it is a place where Jesus wrestles within himself, surrenders to the will of the Father, and is ultimately strengthened to move forward.  We looked closely at the parallel accounts in Matthew 26:36-46, Mark 14:32-42 and Luke 22:40-46 and closed our session with a meditation on suffering.  Some participants asked if this last part of the presentation could be made available, and I’m happy to share it here.  Though the meditation begins by asking the question of why we suffer, I suppose it really more closely addresses the question, What does it mean? 

I’d like to offer a brief meditation to wrap up our thoughts on suffering and what we have learned from Jesus’ Agony in the Garden.  Even though we have talked about how we can learn from and take comfort in this Gospel account of Jesus’ mental and emotional turmoil, we are still left with the perennial human question:  Why do we suffer?  I am not about to unlock the mysteries of the universe, but this is a topic worth revisiting, because rarely a day goes by that we do not suffer in at least some small way, and some days (some weeks, some months, some years), we suffer very much. 

So why do we suffer?  I don’t believe that God inflicts suffering upon us, but it is a fact that he allows it.  We can easily see that the way God cares for us is not by protecting us from all bad things.  But a great lesson of the Cross of course is that God brings great good out of the inevitable suffering of human life.  And because we are a resurrection people who have faith in one who beat back even death itself, who conquered sin once and for all, and who showed us a way to live – we have a perspective on suffering that can offer comfort, hope and meaning.

First, think of suffering not only as an event or as something that happens to you but as a place.  Suffering brings us to a crossroads.  It offers us a difficult choice between two paths.  On both paths, we suffer – there is simply no avoiding that.  But one path is a road that leads right back into ourselves.  When we choose this path, we are alone.  We fret, we become bitter, we stagnate, we go nowhere.  We just get stuck.  The other path before us is the one that turns us outward – in our suffering, we embrace people and relationships.  We open ourselves to God.  We choose to have faith in one who is with us when we suffer.  When we allow suffering to open us up this way, despite our pain, we are free.  We go places.  We may even flourish.  This is why St. Paul wrote, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10).  Because when we already feel strong, when we already are strong, we have no need of God or his transforming presence.  You may recall an itinerant preacher of the 1st century who wisely said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician” (Lk. 5:31).  When I am weak, then I am strong – Why?  Because now it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20).  When we are weak, it is then that the “power of Christ” dwells in us (1 Cor. 12:9). 

Of course we know that suffering changes us.  We all know that we are pruned and shaped by the aches and pains of this life.  It does hurt, but if we allow it, we can be transformed.  No human being escapes the pruning shears of suffering, not even the Christ.  His pruning – the pruning of the Master we follow and imitate – brought forth new life and redefined suffering forever.

Friends, we are a part of this “re-definition” of suffering.  The one who suffered in the Garden and died on the Cross invites us near, very near.  So near that we can smell the dirt of the Garden, so near that the nails pierce our hands too.  He never promised we would not suffer.  He simply said, “Follow me.”  He invites us to follow, he invites us close so that we can be like him, so we can be one with him, so we may say with St. Paul:  “I have been crucified with Christ; it is now no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me” (Gal. 2:19-20).

When we suffer, Christ is near.  And the surrender of Christ is perhaps the greatest lesson of all – about suffering and how to make peace with it, about love and how to give and receive it, about God and how much he loves us.  Your wrestling matches in your Gardens of Gethsemane, your journeys to Golgotha, the nails in your own hands and feet, the swords that pierce your heart – you have a share in this great lesson, in this great truth, in this awesome surrender of Christ. 

It may seem that surrender would weaken us, make us vulnerable.  But in actuality it strengthens us for anything that may come our way.  We have not “given up.”  We have “surrendered.”  There is a big difference.  Our surrender is not a frustrated throwing up of our hands.  That is not the Christ we see in the Garden.  No, our surrender is deliberate, it is an intentional “giving over” of ourselves and our own will to God because we trust him – we trust him with our bodies, with our minds, and with our futures.  Our surrender is to finally and decidedly speak the words:  Not my will but yours be done.

For when we finally take up our crosses as he told us to – every single day as he told us to – we find in this surrender a way of profound peace.  In our surrender we have finally trusted our God – not to take our pain away, but to be present there with us; not to explain our pain away, but to make of it a time for giving and receiving love; not to ignore our pain, but to help us make of it a place where we can lie with Christ in the dirt of the Garden or hang with him upon the Cross.  It is Jesus who taught us that unless a grain of wheat falls down to the earth and dies, it remains just a seed.  But if it dies, it bears much fruit (Jn. 12:24).  What better place to fall down to the earth and die with Jesus, to be a seed trampled and buried, than in the Garden of Gethsemane?  This is where we are meant to be, for he also said:  “Where I am, there will my servant be also” (Jn. 12:26). 

I close with a final thought.  St. Paul said quite simply:  If we die with him, we will rise with him (Rom. 6:8).  We do not just suffer for the sake of suffering.  We are never left to wait endlessly in a Garden or to hang forever on a Cross.  No, we will rise up from prayer in the Garden, we will be brought down from the Cross.  There is a glory to come – a sharing in the glory of Christ.  Now we have only a foretaste of that glory, when we suffer with him, when we surrender with him, when we place ourselves in the loving hands of God with him.  Yes, we could choose other Masters that might be easier to follow.  But as disciples we would find no greater love and no greater peace; we would hear no richer promises.  So let us join him in the Garden – in the dirt if we must – but always remembering that in our agony we are not alone – we are never alone – we will bear fruit and we will be raised – we who have surrendered with Christ.  

Agonia Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, in the pages of Scripture, I read the story of your suffering.  It is a story that begins with the rebellion of humankind and plays out over the pages and over the centuries, from the Garden of Eden to the Garden of Gethsemane, from the long road out of Eden to the burdened path to Golgotha.  In the world around me, and in my own life, I see your suffering continue.  Though I find strength within myself and comfort in the support of others, there are times when my self-reliance becomes hollow; there are times when I am alone.  In those times of true agony, I enter the Garden.  I throw myself to the ground before you.  There is nothing left to hide.  There is nothing left to cling to.  I only see the cup before me and the agonia within me.  In my struggle, bring me to a place of peace and surrender:  not my will but yours be done.  Strengthen me to rise from this earth.  Remain with me in this Garden of struggle and surrender, and I will drink this cup:  Into your hands, Lord, I commit my spirit!  Amen.

Enjoying the Good News!

Sometimes when using a psalm in a prayer service, I turn to an old friend:  The Good News Bible.  Although my husband and I had very different upbringings, we both read our Good News Bibles as children, and in some deep part of us, those funny line drawings and those straightforward messages took root.

The Good News Translation (GNT) never claimed to be the most accurate or the most beautiful English language translation of the Word of God.  It isn’t for academic use or for our formal liturgies.  But for giving us a fresh look at familiar passages, or for introducing us to Scripture, it certainly has its place!

This is why I sometimes turn to the Good News Translation for re-introducing the Psalms, or for moving people out of “I know this one” and into a new experience of an old prayer.  Take Psalm 139 for example, a beloved psalm about the nearness of God.  The psalmist is saying:  “Even if I wanted to get away from you, God, I couldn’t!”  The words of this psalm in a translation such as the NRSV are just beautiful:  “If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.”  But so are the words of the GNT, stated a bit less poetically perhaps, but with satisfying simplicity:  “If I flew away beyond the east or lived in the farthest place in the west, you would be there to lead me, you would be there to help me” (Ps. 139:9-10).  Both translations have something special to say, and I like them both.

Another example from the same psalm:  Which do you think best expresses the intimacy we had with God before we can remember?  “Your eyes beheld my unformed substance” (NRSV) or “You saw me before I was born” (GNT; Ps. 139:16)?  I cast a hearty vote for the GNT on this one!  You saw me before I was born?!  I love it!

Click here for a side-by-side comparison of Psalm 139 in the NRSV and the GNT.  I hope you will enjoy praying them both.

Note:  If you don’t have a copy of the Good News Bible, you can always look up psalms or verses at biblegateway.com (though you would be missing out on the illustrations!).  You should always check a translation such as the RSV/NRSV or the NABRE for accuracy, but don’t hesitate to pray with the simple words of the GNT.

When Jesus Asks a Question

Have you ever noticed that Jesus asked a lot of questions?  It is one of the ways he taught and preached (“Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give him a stone?” Mt. 7:9).  Questions are also a hallmark of Jesus’ encounters with individuals (“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Jn. 21:15).  In fact, the Gospels record more than one hundred questions asked by Jesus!  (See Msgr. Charles Pope’s compilation of “100 Questions Jesus Asked and You Must Answer.”)

Questions have an effect on us that answers do not.  They draw us in.  They create space for a natural process of reflection and learning rather than a quick and easy leap to pat answers.  They invest us in our own answers, or in our own search for answers.  The answers we come to on our own ultimately mean more to us than the answers someone else provides (consider, for example, the classic question:  “Who do you say that I am?”).  Jesus did not need to be educated in the Socratic Method to know this.  He only needed to understand human nature.

There are times and circumstances in life when one or another of Jesus’ questions will pierce us to the heart.  On Saturday at Mass, I was struck by a question Jesus asks in the Sermon on the Plain:  “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I tell you?” (Lk. 6:46).  We could certainly ask ourselves that one on a daily basis.

Here are a few more of Jesus’ questions to ponder.  Each one can be an occasion for prayer, an opportunity for self-reflection, or just an honest moment between yourself and the One who is asking: 

 Why are you afraid? (Mt. 8:26)

 What do you want me to do for you? (Mt. 20:32)

 Do you believe that I can do this? (Mt. 9:28)

 If I am telling you the truth, why do you not believe me? (Jn. 8:46)

 Have I been with you for so long and still you do not know me? (Jn. 14:9)

Yikes Scripture #2! The Gerasene Demoniac!

I can’t think of a more graphic story from Jesus’ Galilean ministry than the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac.  Sometimes when I read it, I find it funny.  Sometimes I find it troubling.  But I never get tired of it!

The story is told with particular zeal in Mark, who is known for narrating stories in a way that makes you feel like you are right there.  He usually achieves this with details and dialogue that seep into your mind and make it easy to imagine the scene.  In this account (Mk. 5:1-20), the details draw you into the distress of the possessed man (“he was always howling and bruising himself with stones”), the power of Jesus to expel “Legion,” the desperation of the swine as they throw themselves into the sea, and the fear that grips the local people.

This is perhaps the most fascinating part of the story – the fact that the people of Gerasa were so disturbed by this healing that they asked Jesus to leave!  As the swine hurl themselves off a cliff, you think the story can’t get any weirder.  But it definitely does!  The townspeople, who were once burdened with a crazy man who could not be subdued, who was so powerful that he wrenched apart chains and broke shackles into pieces, are now presented with a man “clothed and in his right mind” (Mk. 5:15)!  Why in the world would you want to get rid of the person responsible for this amazing transformation?

I suppose one might ask this question all the way to the Cross.  There were certainly reasons that people kept trying to get rid of Jesus, until they succeeded (sort of) by crucifying him.  But in this particular case, in Gerasa, think for a moment how startling, how alarming, how supernatural and unfamiliar, was this power of God on full display in the person of Jesus.  Imagine standing near that cliff, hearing the demoniac unable to speak his own name (he could only speak the name of the demons), begging Jesus to send them into swine.  Hear Jesus shout “Go!” (Mt. 8:32).  Hear the thundering hoofs of the swine and watch the dust fly until you see them do something completely unnatural for animals to do.  Watch them splash into the water and see the demoniac, now just a man, sink to the ground, exhausted, healed, relieved.

When I was a kid I prayed a few times that I might see an angel or Mary or Jesus.  Then I started thinking about what it would really be like.  I knew that in order to see what might already be there, I would have to enter into another way of thinking and perceiving, coexist with something totally beyond my understanding or experience.  When I really thought about that, I was afraid.  I withdrew my request!  I understood why the angel’s first words to Mary were, “Do not be afraid.”

Something happened on the cliffs of Gerasa that had people shaking.  This was a power far beyond breaking chains and shackles, it was of another realm, it did not make sense in their world, and it frightened them.  I think we can understand this.  And yet there was one man who had a front row seat but did not ask Jesus to leave.  Instead this man “begged him that he might be with him” (Mk. 5:18).  Yes, this was the demoniac.  This man was no stranger to supernatural powers.  For him, there was nothing left to fear, not for his whole life. 

The Gerasene Demoniac by Sebastian Bourdon (1653)

Obscure Scriptures #2: Tough Words from Jesus

But he looked at them and said, “What then does this text mean: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls” (Lk. 20:17-18). 

There are not many “obscure Scriptures” in the Gospels, so it can really take you aback when you read something there that you feel you’ve never read or noticed before.  I felt that way when I came across this passage.  We are familiar with Jesus quoting Psalm 118:22 in reference to himself:  “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”  But what is obscure, or lesser known, is the commentary he adds in both Matthew and Luke:  “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”

Here Jesus is likely referring to another Old Testament passage (Isa. 8:14-15), but that doesn’t soften the blow.  And yes, he was speaking directly to the scribes, chief priests, and elders – but this does not soften the blow either.  We know that whatever Jesus says to those who opposed him most, we must hear for ourselves.

 Luke is known for highlighting the compassion of Christ.  But he does not “edit” or “cut” these somewhat harsh words. Indeed, the Gospels are full of grim warnings and serious demands made by Jesus.  You may have noticed that it’s pretty hard to read through an entire Gospel (I recommend Mark) without feeling an urgent need to change.  It’s true that the highest motivation for anything is love; but sometimes we might just need a tough warning first.  For this we can always count on the Cornerstone.  New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson remarks in reference to this passage:  “This stone is not simply a passive block against which one may stumble – it can fall on someone!”