Human sufferings are realities of life. In itself, growing up is painful. Primary teeth must go to give way to permanent teeth. The process is painfully memorable for most people.
For religions of dualistic flavour, sufferings are accepted more easily because besides the benevolent principle, there is an evil one which explains all the destructions and sufferings of the universe. But for a benevolent and almighty God, it is more difficult to explain why He allows bad things to happen to good people. Therefore, He is either not a benevolent God or not an almighty God or both because of the existence of evils and sufferings. Of course, this is only human logic which cannot claim sovereignty over God. Isaiah spoke very well about this.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD (Isaiah 55:8).
Let's return to the gospel reading today. It is hard to understand how it was possible, after he was made the foundation of Jesus' Church, for Peter to persuade Jesus not to die. A moment ago, God the Father had inspired him, had revealed to him that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. God the Father must have given Peter the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, how was it possible for Peter to confess that Jesus was the Christ? Filled with the Holy Spirit, how was it logically possible for Peter to try to prevent Jesus from going to his death. Therefore, it is more reasonable to hypothesize that the Confession of Peter was anachronistic. It might be a post-resurrection event transposed to the present location. The whole thing makes sense. God does not choose a perfect person to do a job. Everybody is flawed one way or another. Despite our vulnerabilities, God still entrusts the mission of evangelization and salvation to our hands.
Look at the story from another angle. It tells us that following Jesus is not all roses. Don't expect life to be worry-free the moment you believe in Jesus. He does not promise us any gold or honour, money or power. Instead, he tells his followers to carry their own crosses.
Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:24).
We believe that nothing can happen without God's consent. The drama of Job illustrates just this. Satan had to seek God's permission before it could torture Job. If we interpret this drama cynically, man is truly a deplorable creature. He is merely a pawn in a game between God and Satan!
The story of Job is an attempt to understand the meanings of suffering. It struggles against the contemporary view that God rewards the good and punishes the bad. In the cruel reality of daily life, the bad usually runs away from punishments to enjoy their spoils while the good usually suffer for no reason. It violates the principle of justice.
It is a sense of justice lying behind our mind which makes us believe that the bad deserve to be punished and the good rewarded. This kind of thinking is intuitive and reasonable. People suffer because they have sinned. They deserve to be punished. But when bad things happen to good people, we cannot insist that the good must have done something bad which incurs God's wrath.
We are not trying to save God's face. But we really find that sufferings can be beneficial to us. They humble us, enable us to confront and recognize our weaknesses. Hopefully, we may manage to sublime and outgrow our defects. Everybody knows how hard it is to kick an addiction but the price (the pains of withdrawal symptoms) is worth paying.
When we come to Jesus, suffering is elevated to an even higher plane. Sufferings save. At the end of the age, Jesus will judge the living and the dead to repay our sufferings which become some sort of a measure of how much we love our God.
For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done (Matthew 16:27).
Dear Lord, You offer us opportunities to suffer in order to galvanize us. May we learn to embrace them, to see them as opportunities to love You more. Amen.
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