Now that’s a Jesus we can relate to!

Did you know there was a time when Jesus really didn’t want to do something that was part of God’s plan?

It was something that would require suffering — real, horrendous suffering — to the point of death.

At one particular moment, Jesus preferred that God would change His plan, and told Him so …

“Then, accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives. There he told them, ‘Pray that you will not give in to temptation.’ He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me …'” Luke 22:39-42a.

Now that’s a Jesus we can relate to! Who of us haven’t found ourselves in a situation where we knew what God wanted of us, but would prefer an easier way, especially if any measure of suffering was involved?

One thing we human beings don’t like is to suffer; suffering is an experience that confounds us.

Christian apologist and author, Lee Strobel, in doing research for his book, “The Case for Faith,” once asked Barna researchers and pollsters to conduct a survey to determine the one question most people would want to ask God if given the opportunity. The response to the survey was: “By far, the number one question that people wanted to ask God is ‘Why He allows pain and suffering in this world?'”

Pastor Fred Gates responded to that question like this …

In offering the world a theological answer to this question, it’s important not only to explain the involvement of free will and the consequences of the fall of man, but to also move the conversation to include the suffering of God. For although the world suffers as a consequence of disobedience, God has also suffered as a consequence of His love for us. He does not leave us here alone to suffer, but has come down and fully embraced our suffering, making it His own.

As [theologian] John Stott has so eloquently articulated:

“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the one Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the Cross.’ In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us.”

Although, for a moment that night in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus wished that God would “… please take this cup of suffering away from me …,” He didn’t stop there. Let’s add the rest of what He said in His conversation with the Father:

“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine,” Luke 22:42.

With that, Jesus would willingly submit Himself to be tried, beaten, and crucified. And so the writer of Hebrews notes …

“So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most,” Hebrews 4:14-16.

Jesus knows what it is to suffer, and He demonstrated for us that trusting God through such difficult times can lead to God’s greatest blessings for us! In Jesus’ case, His torturous suffering would provide for our reconciliation with God …

“He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed,” 1 Peter 2:24.

While it can be easy to relate to the Jesus who would prefer to avoid suffering, as people who have been redeemed from sin because of Christ’s suffering, we now have the privilege to join in suffering for the glory of God …

“For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him,” Philippians 1:29.

“Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad — for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world,” 1 Peter 4:12-13.

The Apostle Paul models for us a new attitude, one of relating to the suffering Jesus, as he writes, “I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!” Philippians 3:10-11.

As we ponder the events of Easter, we can be inspired to examine whether our lives push back on God’s will for our lives in favor of something painless, or whether we have embraced “… the privilege of suffering for him.”

Scotty