Jesus speaks of his suffering in today’s gospel (Mk 8:27-35). This he does right after Peter rightly confesses his belief in Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus’ ensuing forecast of his suffering exposes the inadequacy of Peter’s understanding about the meaning of his being the messiah. He rebukes Peter: “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do” (v. 33).
Peter’s initial understanding is from a human perspective. As such, it tends to be self-preserving, if not self-centered. He understands Jesus’ messiahship as other Jews who have long waited for the messiah do--in terms of power of lording it over… the power to subjugate the enemies by force. Hence, from this human perspective, suffering is unthinkable. It’s foolishness. It means weakness. It means defeat! Suffering cannot possibly be the destiny of the messiah!
But God’s ways are beyond human’s. Jesus sees his role as messiah from the mind of God. From the perspective of God, the messiah is understood in terms of a different kind of power—the power of love. And this power is at its highest expression in the total self-emptying of God in Christ. The complete self-giving of Christ on the cross, his extreme suffering and humiliation, is the utmost manifestation of the unsurpassable greatness of God’s love for us and his creation. Seen in this way, suffering is not foolishness but God’s wisdom; not a weakness but God’s very strength; not a defeat but God’s triumph.
Like Peter, we all need to be converted—from human’s ways to God’s ways. Conversion as a total change of mind and heart means putting on the perspective of God. It is in this level of consciousness that we can appreciate Jesus’ demand for discipleship. At the end of today’s gospel reading we hear Jesus summoning his disciples and us today: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (v. 34).
How else can we make sense of this demand if not through the way Jesus understands his role as a suffering messiah. Like Jesus, we are called to express our Christian love through the acid test of suffering. It’s easy to be charitable if it means giving donations to the needy. But it takes a lot of self-denial and even self-emptying (kenosis) to suffer with and for those who are suffering around us.
Right now I’m asking myself, “Can I love to the point of suffering?” “Have I suffered with and for someone?” There are millions of them who are suffering from innumerable forms of pain, misery, and affliction in the world today. The whole of creation itself is already groaning! “Have I suffered for God’s creation?” Or am I too concerned about self-preservation to see the pain of humanity and the groaning of creation around me?
We need to pray for our conversion ardently. It seems that the Christianity we are becoming in this secular and materialistic society is one that gradually forgets the cross of Christ. We pray for the grace of courage and strength--that like Jesus, we, Christians of today, may embrace the cross of suffering once more as a sublime expression of our love.
I find Fr. Manoling Francisco’s composition “Your Heart Today” both instructive and inspirational in relation to our calling to suffer with and for those who are suffering:
Where there is fear I can allay, where there is pain I can heal,
Where there are wounds I can bind, and hunger I can fill.
Lord, grant me courage, Lord, grant me strength,
Grant me compassion that I may be Your heart today.
Where there is hate I can confront, where there are yokes I can release,
Where there are captives I can free, and anger I can appease.
Lord, grant me courage, Lord, grant me strength,
Grant me compassion that I may be Your heart today.
When comes the day I dread to see our broken world,
Compel me from my cell grown cold that Your people I may behold.
(Repeat 1st Stanza)
And when I’ve done all that I could,
Yet there are hearts I cannot move,
Lord, give me hope… that I may be Your heart today.
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