Lemonade from lemons

Mark 8:31-9:1

            There are expressions that people say that I find somewhat problematic. That there is 'value in suffering' is one such expression. Another is the belief that 'there's a reason for your suffering'. 

           I  believe both of these common sayngs but with caveats. First, I would never invite suffering. I don't believe in flagellation or self harm as a means to revelation. I think the world visits enough pain and suffering in our lives that there is no need to invite more. Still, when suffering dose come, I find no reason to let it get the upper hand. I try to turn it around as best I can.

           A case in point is the suffering my dear mother went through the last years of her life. By extension, my life was heavily burdened and I had frequently described it as the worst ten years of my life. Now however, I can see the fragility and vulnerability of life as expressed by my mothers suffering. I also see what an opportunity to love it was. My actions were an active sign of God's loving graces through me. I would never have visited such pain on my mother, me, my siblings or my family. Yet I can see the silver lining if you will. From a situation in which I had little control I am now resolved to help n situations where I can help.

            Jesus suffered tremendously. The obvious reference is to the passion. However, his entire life and ministry could not have been easy. As a child he clearly must have been different and that is never a good recipe for a mainstream childhood. Children can be brutal bullies. If, as some suspect, Jesus was gay,  there would be even more reason to think his life was a source of suffering. Jesus knew what suffering was and he almost seemed to invite it but he gladly endured it for us. 

            If there is any kind of suffering in your life now, or you have experenced it in your life at some time, this Lent would be an excellent time to draw on that experience, that memory and those feelings.  This is no different than what Jesus was exeriencing. If  you wish to understand and appreciate what Jesus experienced during his ministry especially, it would be good to draw on your own experence of suffering and even loss. 

             As any person in the LGBTQI acronym will tell you, they know first hand what stuffing, rejection and pain is all about. Again, not that one would invite such pain and not that it is justifable in any way. But we can use that pain and suffering to understand and then actually empathize with Jesus as he tried to live his life, live his love for all of us. And what did it get him? Tortured and killed? 

Jesus would rise after three days changing our human history, our lives and gaining us salvation and freedom. The original, 'It get's better' story.

            If we can draw the line between wanting suffering and using it's inevitable presence in our lives, we will be able to  enrich our personal Lenten mission as well as our entire lives.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he  comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’ 
And he said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come withpower.’