Does pain matter?

Does God promise a life of ease? No. 

So, what about all the promises of peace and light yokes?

This verse has often intrigued me.  "Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;" (I Peter 4:1). There is something good about  suffering, and he even specifies that it is real, physical suffering. 

This verse has often puzzled me.  I get the picture of monastic flagellation.  Folks obsessed with their own sinfulness that beat themselves in prayer and confession.  Worse yet, it sounds masochistic or sadistic like the phrase that has always given me chills -- "It pleased the Lord to crush him. . ." (Isaiah 53:10).  Is it somehow good for us to be in pain?  What kind of God proposes these sorts of things ?!?

Certainly, the Biblical concept of pain and suffering is wildly more complex and rich than I can understand and certainly more complex than the view proposed by modernism.  By modernism, I am referring to the basic approach dominant in the western world that says, "Pain is bad. Hard work and modern science can fix it."

There is a fascinating phenomenon common among teens who are in tremendous emotional pain.  They cut themselves.   Using razor blades or glass or knives, they pierce their skin to the point of gentle bleeding.  The cuts are significant but not to be confused with suicide attempts.  Cutting is an on-going way to express pain.  The behavior, of course, baffles care givers and frustrates child advocates.  If one is in so much pain, why hurt oneself more?!?  Ironically, the more one tries to correct the behavior, the more the teen insists on it.

I have been intrigued by this cutting behavior and now wonder if it is less bizarre/dysfunctional and more,  simply a reality, deeply rich with meaning. For someone who can't cry, cutting is their tears. One of the most vivid pictures I have seen is a drawing one teen gave me.  It is a simple pencil drawing of an eye that is crying -- only instead of drawing the tears, the teen used her own blood to paint the tears. This is not the type of art they teach in high school art class.

So am I saying cutting is beautiful?  No, but we all understand the beauty and health in tears.  When crying, the body, emotion, and spirit express a singular emotion.  Like tears, cutting brings the pain into the light by expressing it in the body.  This seems more redemptive than endless rationalizations or Pollyannaish optimism. At least it is real.

Jesus is real, too. 

Perhaps it wasn't enough for Christ to bear the consequence of sin in a spiritual sense.  He wanted to make his pain corporeal, so we could see it, so it would be real, real pain, real shame, and he calls us to do the same.

Protestants typically show the cross empty, clean, brilliant, triumphant -- perhaps with a gleaming purple robe draped decoratively over it.  Is this not indicative of our view of redemption.  Christ makes us confident, clean, raised up, but I think I see why people call us plastic.  The bloody crucifix is more real.  This is the type of Christ we have.  One who feels so deeply that he embodied his pain lifted up for us to see and enter into. It is only in that identification with Him.  It is only with a little blood and pain, that sin can be destroyed.  We need to have "that same mind" Peter says. When we make our pain visible with His, it is redemptive, and sin melts away.  Perhaps you have felt this pain in fasting or in serving others.

I thought about this as I was biking the other day.  My thighs were burning, my heart was burning, and God was there.  My pain was real, and God was real, right there with me. Sin was the farthest thing from my mind. Perhaps this is a little taste of what Peter was talking about.

I don't advocate choosing pain, but when it comes my way, I am learning to let it do its work.  Pain takes us to the end, to the bottom, to the place where transformation happens.  As the love song goes, "take me to the place you cry from."  

Christ went there.  I want to go there too -- even if it hurts.