Blog

by Logan Ames

Today, my daughter Evangeline is two months old on the nose. She’s been a good baby, or at least we think she has since it’s not like we really have anything to compare this experience to, being that she is our first. Lately though, I’ve been thinking about how she deals with discomfort or suffering and it has me thinking about how our human response to it changes over the course of our lives, regarding both our own pain and that of others. Right now, even the slightest pain for Evangeline is a reason to scream her head off. Hungry? Then, scream. Tired? Let’s hear all about it. Dirty diaper? Time to make sure even the neighbors can hear her. As we get older, we begin to learn to deal with pain a little bit better, but still have a tendency to cry in order to get the attention we seek. When my daughter cries right now, it pains my wife and I if we can’t figure out the source. But I remember when I was around the age of 7 or 8 years old and started to cry and whine about something I didn’t like, my dad said, “You can cry about it all you want, but it’s not going to change anything."

At a young age, my brothers and I were taught the importance of endurance and toughness. Thankfully, our parents didn’t prepare us for a world where we always get what we want and all goes according to our plans and needs, because that world doesn’t actually exist. Because of sin, there is suffering. This is something every human being can understand and experience. As we get older, we also learn the difference between suffering for doing good and suffering for doing evil (1 Peter 3:17). Suffering for good doesn’t necessarily make it any less painful, but at least we know there is no guilt attached to it and we are actually being treated the same way as our Lord and Savior was. Peter tells us we should not be surprised at the “fiery ordeal” we face and should not consider it a strange happening, but ought to rejoice that we are able to participate in the sufferings of Jesus (1 Peter 4:12-13). As we transition into adulthood and then continue throughout the rest of our lives, we learn to accept that suffering is a part of life and our focus shifts away from avoiding or ending it to finding a way to endure it. When it comes to enduring suffering, Jesus is once again our example to follow (Hebrews 12:2-3).

The core root of our faith that we’re dealing with this week that ought to bear fruit in our lives is our belief that Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate. It’s not merely that he suffered that brings fruit in our lives, but the fact that he willingly accepted God’s difficult plan for his life, endured it with the toughness and strength we too can have, and suffered in OUR place for what we deserved.

Even though many of the Jews refused to believe that Jesus was the Messiah because he didn’t fit into their idea of a conquering hero, they actually had every reason to believe he would suffer if they paid attention to their ancient Scriptures. The prophet Isaiah told them about his vision of the Messiah: “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, and he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5). The suffering he willingly endured did not belong to him, but to us. It was the weight of OUR sins that he bore, yet many looked at him as if HE must have done something wrong in God’s eyes to deserve the curse that was on him. Those who mocked him lost sight of their own sin, so they didn’t even realize their need for a savior. The more he talked about that need, the more they viewed him as an enemy. Speaking of enemies, they wanted a Messiah who would conquer their national foes, but Jesus came to confront the greatest enemy of all, which was SIN.

Isaiah 53:3 shows us that we should’ve been more accepting of Jesus because he was a “man of suffering and familiar with pain." This means that he knows what it’s like to deal with the things we deal with, such as physical pain, emotional trauma, humiliation, and rejection. Despite these obvious reasons for mankind to accept Jesus, we still reject him in favor of whatever makes us feel good in the moment.

Fortunately, Jesus did not reject us, though Satan tried to get him to do so. One of my favorite scenes from The Passion of the Christ is when Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before his crucifixion, knowing what awaits him, and Satan is right there with him trying to convince him that the whole world’s sin is too great of a burden for him to bear. As Jesus ignores Satan and cries out to God, he receives the strength from his Father to resist the temptation to walk away from his destiny. He then turns back toward Satan and stomps the head of a snake that came directly from Satan himself, symbolizing his victory over Satan, sin, evil, and temptation.

Did you get that? By willingly choosing to suffer, Jesus won the victory for us. That goes against everything we naturally believe and everything those around him believed back then. Suffering meant pain and it only came to those who were “losers” in the world’s eyes, not winners. But Jesus remained in control throughout his entire ordeal and willingness to suffer under Pilate, a Roman governor who ordered the crucifixion at the demand of a hostile crowd because he didn’t have the guts or the humility to stand for truth. Each time Jesus CHOSE to suffer rather than walk away from it, he resisted temptation, thereby setting an example for us to follow when we are tempted to avoid the suffering that comes from doing good.

The writer of Hebrews summed up the ongoing impact of Jesus’ endurance and suffering in our daily Christian lives: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16). Friends, Jesus didn’t just suffer under Pontius Pilate and endure it so that we could be set free from the PENALTY of sin; he did it to give us power over the PERSUASION of sin. He did it to show us that when we are tempted, no matter what it is, it’s something he already resisted. This means we don’t have to pretend that we aren’t tempted, but instead can approach God directly (something we couldn’t do before Jesus) and ask for the mercy and grace to resist. Let Jesus’ suffering and endurance impact your life in this way today.

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