“THE NECESSITY OF SUFFERING”
“Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
– Mark 8:31-33
Life is full of turning points. When they happen our values and our faith get challenged. It’s as simple as this… as we carry our values with us and as we live out what we believe when those turning point moments come along, we get what we’ve prepared ourselves for…for the good of it or not so good… having values to compare and a faith to use… our perceptions are reality until new information comes along causing our perceptions and perspectives to shift. This is one of those moments for Jesus and his disciples… this conversation above following their answer to his question, “who am I?’ and their response… Jesus being the ‘messiah’… God’s son and savior.
And when we pay attention to the details of life… we recognize we have those moments, too and it’s likely more turning points are on the horizon…
Decades ago Dr. James Fowler, a Methodist pastor, took on a project asking questions of 600 men, women, and children of all ages, from four to eighty-eight, including Jews, Catholics, Protestants, agnostics, and atheists. The interviews provided intimate glimpses into the various ways our lives have meaning and purpose… with his project’s conclusion called “stages of faith.” And he labeled three of them… the first being ‘beginnings and endings’ … things that we all experience throughout our lives … like learning to ride a bike… going to school, losing a tooth, making a friend or two, winning a trophy, getting a diploma or certificate for a trade… getting a job… buying a car…getting married… things young people look at on their way to adulthood… and along the way Dr. Fowler said… we learn things about God and the world and ourselves and others…
But then something happens… we fall off our bike and skin our knees… we learn again about God and the world and ourselves and come to realize life includes ‘crisis moments’… a second level of faith development… real… yet most often temporary… when that friend moves away and we make a new friend… or we lose that job… and have to go find new work… even a better job… crises moments where things don’t go according to plan and our faith in God and the world gets challenged and we wonder how long is this going to last… only to find out that it’s not forever…
But, Dr. Fowler didn’t stop there because in all those conversations people also revealed a third and deeper level he titled, ‘intrusive life markings’… where from that moment on one’s life is never the same… the death of a parent, the end of a marriage you said would last forever, the death of child, or the loss of a hand when your life’s passion is painting and playing the piano… turning points where everything you held near and dear gets wiped away and you need to find a new road to walk making sure you don’t end up in your own ditch…
Thus… we all get our share of suffering… and when Jesus calls himself the Son of Man… the one different from all the rest… he becomes the intrusive life marking whose presence made everything different for the world forever…doing exactly what he said he would do… experiencing exactly what he said would happen…not because suffering is good for Jesus… rather… the necessity of his suffering is brought on by the suffering humanity creates… our unfaithfulness and how the world dishonors God and our disrespecting of the ways of God… making the necessity of Jesus’ suffering… good for us! Faith matters.
The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Gigee is a long-time resident of Pearland, having pastored four churches over the last four decades in Texas and Louisiana. Read more following Brian’s blog ‘murmurings’ at https://briangigee.wordpress.com/. Send comments and/or questions to godworks247365@gmail.com.
