The Transformation of Pain

Today is the first day of another worldwide celebration of the most important Week in the history of the universe. This Week we remember that Week when Jesus was crucified.

Jesus demonstrated, in the most unlikely events of this never to be equaled 7 days, the reason for His life. Those days, that ended in immeasurable suffering, the most barbaric of all deaths, and His burial revealed the goal of His life! Walter Wangerin, Jr., in his invaluable book, Reliving the Passion, asks why Jesus refused the vinegar offered to him as he hung on the cross. The answer? “Suffering,” he writes. “With a pure and willful consciousness, terribly sensitive to every thorn and cut and scornful slur: suffering. This He has chosen. This He is attending to with every nerve of His being – not for some perverted love of pain. He hates the pain. But for a supernatural love of us, that pain might be transfigured, forever.”

“Pain … transfigured forever”?

Yes!

Jesus has suffered all pain. He’s gotten up. He’s walked away! No longer is pain defeating. It is defeated. He suffered the sum of all pain and walked away the victor! No longer the power of the oppressor, pain is reduced to futility. In His triumph Jesus demonstrated, for all who would see, that through adversity – even the greatest of all tragedies – good can come. His sacrifice established for time and all eternity the power of love!

Who looks ridiculous now? The devil that coaxed Jesus to join Him in a cosmic power move. The religious power brokers who knew they’d end His threat to their cause if they killed Him. The spineless political figures who confused their verdict with something significant. Especially the soldiers and the mob who ridiculed Him.

Do we understand the implications of this? Do we realize what it means to us personally? Do we get that the one who is really in charge confirmed His sovereignty through “the things that He suffered”? Do we all understand what it means to us and the way we live?

Jesus radical teaching and exemplary approach to “pain,” has major implications for us! If we accept it He will teach and empower us to make “suffering” a positive force in our lives. For the next few days I will write about how this can actually happen.