Cleopas and his companion were devastated: they had really thought that Jesus was the prophesied King sent to redeem Israel (cf. Lk 24:13-24). Yet, He couldn’t be God’s promised Messiah…because He suffered, dying brutally just three days before. As they discussed this with a stranger they met on the road to Emmaus, the stranger said something really odd: “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory?” (Lk 24:25-26). If they were taken aback by such a strong statement, they soon got over it. He walked them through the whole Bible and showed not only could the Messiah suffer: He must to accomplish God’s purposes. That stranger who made their hearts burn while opening the Scriptures to them that Sunday? He was Jesus, risen from the dead.
The idea that suffering must be part of God’s plan is a hard one for us. If God really is good, loving, and all-powerful, shouldn’t He be able to make a way that doesn’t hurt? Yet that misses the reality that our suffering isn’t because of Him: it’s because of us. Ever since humanity sinned, suffering is a part of life. So, it is only “fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Heb. 2:10). Isn’t it amazing that God sees it that way? Instead of abandoning us to our suffering, He meets us in it. Jesus chose to suffer because we suffer, and He is not ashamed to call us brothers (cf. Heb. 2:11). He wanted to be like us “in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest…able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb. 2:17-18). And God in His amazing grace honored that by raising Jesus from the dead, allowing Him to “taste death for everyone” and to free us from the “lifelong slavery” that fearing death causes (Heb. 2:9, 15).
Yet if it was necessary for Christ to suffer, it will also be necessary for Christians to suffer, too. We will suffer because that is just what sin has brought on the world, knowing that “the whole creation has been groaning together” (Rom. 8:18-22). We will suffer from the wrongs of others: “For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly…For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example” (1 Pet. 2:19, 21). Sometimes, we may even choose suffering just to be there for others: “If one member suffers, all suffer together” (1 Cor. 12:26). Every time we do, we become more like Jesus. Then as we suffer with Him, we can be sure that – just as God crowned Christ with glory and honor because He suffered – we also will be glorified with Him (cf. Heb. 2:9, Rom. 8:17).
Even in dark times of great suffering, God is working things out for good. Join us for Esther’s Missing God: Seeing Him in Dark Times at https://www.georgetownchurchofchrist.com/esthers-missing-god.