Editors’ note: 

This is the sixth in our Easter week 2022 quiet time series. From our core team of volunteers to each of you, please accept our sincerest wishes for a hope-filled and deeply meaningful Easter. 

Whether you choose to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection according to the Catholic or Orthodox tradition, or in some other way mark the miracle as a disciple of Jesus, we hope you’ll take time to enjoy this short series of personal devotionals as a special seasonal gift from us to you. Prepared by our own Sharon Gauthier — elder’s wife, women’s minister in the Chicago church of Christ (https://www.chicagochurch.org) —we pray that these short bible studies may help to fortify your heart with lasting joy in Christ, whatever you may be facing, wherever you are in the world.  

In Remembrance of Suffering

Scripture Reading:  Mark 15, 1 Peter 5:8-11, Hebrews 12:1-3

From the Garden of Gethsemane to the cross at Golgotha, Jesus’ last hours were filled with intense pain and suffering.  During the Easter season, especially, we tend to focus on those last torture-filled days and hours.  However, when we read through the gospels and the Old Testament prophecies of Jesus, we see that His suffering began long before the cross.

Suffering is defined as “the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship” (Oxford Dictionary).  Jesus must have endured emotional pain and distress every time He pondered the condition of humanity.  In Luke 19:41, Jesus wept as He looked over Jerusalem and considered the spiritual blindness of the people and the future destruction the city would face.  Jesus went through many hardships as He traveled through towns and villages teaching about the coming kingdom of God.  In his prophecy about the coming Messiah, Isaiah wrote that He would be “a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3).

For those who may have experienced exceptional suffering in life—whether physical suffering or emotional suffering—it surely brings comfort to know that our Savior can relate.  He understands.*

One fascinating feature of Jesus’ suffering is that He always considered suffering temporary.  In Hebrews 12:2, we see that Jesus endured the cross because He was able to look beyond the suffering and see the joy that lay ahead.  From His eternal viewpoint, Jesus understood that suffering would not last forever.

Yet that is not the perspective that we humans typically have.  We often can’t see past the next day or next moment.  I wonder what it must have been like for the men and women disciples who witnessed firsthand the crucifixion of Jesus.  What must the women have been thinking and feeling as they prepared the spices and perfumes for His lifeless body, but had to wait through the Sabbath before they could apply them? (Luke 23:55-56) Could they see beyond the suffering of their Lord and their own suffering in their loss?  

For us humans, suffering and waiting can feel unbearable because our eyes cannot see beyond the present.  We may have hope for tomorrow.  But what happens when tomorrow comes and the suffering continues?  Then another tomorrow comes, and another, and another…and the suffering lingers?  Usually at some point our patience wears thin.  We try crying out to God.  There is no visible answer.  No visible answer.  When we think about our Savior, the key word is “visible.”  Jesus saw what human eyes could not see.  He saw joy beyond the cross.  He saw heaven... an eternal heaven filled with all those dear to Him with whom He had shared His earthly life.  He saw a heaven filled with the many disciples of future times (that’s you and me!) who would spend eternity with Him.  So, with that amazing faithful view, Jesus endured the cross.

In this Easter season and beyond, may God give us the eyes of Jesus that we may be able to look beyond our own suffering and disappointment and waiting…and waiting…and waiting…and by faith, see the joy our Savior saw.

Questions for Reflection:

1. After the crucifixion, Jesus’ followers had to wait in their suffering through the Sabbath.  Recall a time you have “waited” in your suffering.  What gave you hope?

2. Hebrews 12:1-3 calls us to fix our eyes on Jesus.  Reflect on Jesus for a moment.  What about Him helps you to “not grow weary and lose heart”?

3. What suffering are you facing in your life right now?  What could possibly be beyond—on the other side—of that suffering?  Pray that God will give you the eyes to see what joy may lie beyond your present suffering.

*for an extensive biblical review of the many different faces of suffering and loss during Jesus’s life on earth, you may appreciate this article: https://www.tammytaxterfleming.com/blog/2020/2/24/jesus-and-loss; for practical comfort from God’s word in times of suffering and even intangible loss, see Jeanie Shaw’s book Understanding Goose (https://www.ipibooks.com/search?q=understanding%20goose&_=pf&pf_t_tag=Book)