Day 43: When the Veil Between Jesus’ Suffering and Ours’ is Thin

DAY 43

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK SEVEN: SUNDAY 26 APRIL 2020

When the Veil Between Jesus’ Suffering and Ours’ is Thin

“On a very personal level, the story of Jesus felt unusually close for many believers this past Holy Week, and not just on Easter Sunday. Christians on the front lines of the coronavirus fight described in interviews their feelings of being drawn into the memory of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection as they stared into suffering in their own midst and reflected on what it meant to hope. The veil between the story of Jesus and the story of the nation, they said, has felt thin.” - In Time of Anguish, Taking Solace in the Passion of Jesus newspaper article by Ellizabeth Dias 1 April 2020

Proximity – a closeness to the suffering of Jesus experienced in a way unlike any other holy week. What is it about the suffering of Jesus that draws us to His suffering in ours?

One day I was visiting a man dying of cancer, and without thought offered our standard cultural offer of support to those in pain: “I know how you feel,” I said, and the look in his eyes penetrated deep within me his unspoken response: “No, you don’t.”  From that day forward I have refrained from saying that to someone unless I have actually been where they are. Otherwise, it’s “I haven’t been where you are now, but I can imagine how it would affect me.”

Identification - Jesus has been where we are, wherever we are, no matter what, and from the vantage point of the cross can say so and in the saying identify with our individual journeys pockmarked by pain, loss, disappointment and physical, emotional and mental suffering. Thus compassion means literally ‘to suffer with,’ which is what Jesus does so we are not alone.

While the Roman Catholic Church has sanctified suffering, we Protestants have desacralized it with no room for it in our larger spiritual journey, and in the process we are missing the relationship of the suffering of Jesus to our own. Perhaps it’s time we revisit suffering from the vantage point of the cross. “I want to know Christ,” said Paul, “and the fellowship of his sufferings.” Philippians 3:10. For that to happen, we need to look for Him in our own suffering.

Reflective question: In what personal place of pain and suffering do you need to look for Jesus?

Reflective Scripture:

Romans 5:3 – “…we glory in our sufferings, because…suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character; and character, hope."

Reflective hymn:

“My Faith Has Found a Resting Place” – Lidie Edmunds (1851-1920 

My faith has found a resting place, not in device nor creed:

I trust the ever-living One – His wounds for me shall plead.