February 28, 2021: Second Sunday in Lent
Mark 8:31-38
Jesus began to teach his disciples 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.”
When I became an adult, I was surprised by how hard life is. Every day presents challenges and problems to be solved. To be sure, our attitudes make a huge difference in our sense of wellbeing, but that doesn’t take away the inherent struggles that are part of any human life.
Does taking up one’s cross mean embracing the fact that life is difficult? Maybe. It seems to me that when we accept our everyday trials and tribulations with equanimity, we suffer less.
I can give an example from my own life. When I came back to working as a chaplain in the ICU after some years spent away, I was chagrined with the level of devastating, overwhelming suffering I dealt with on a daily basis. I encountered death frequently and it was very difficult for me. I questioned if I was up to the job and started looking elsewhere for employment. Finally after a year during which I went part time to recover from compassion fatigue, I came to accept that suffering and death was a part of my ministry. I decided that I could do this work with God’s help, and I began to pray for strength more and stop fighting how tough my position was. I still have tough times, like when a young person dies or when a patient’s death seems especially senseless, but I don’t struggle the way I used to.
To help us think more about the role of suffering in our lives, perhaps we can take some cues from the tenets of Buddhist philosophy. “Buddha’s noble truths say that people are unhappy everywhere and that suffering comes from our craving for more and from our fear of losing what we have” (Weiss, Yinon. “Born to be Unhappy. How We Can Overcome Our Own Biology”, July 19, 2018. Accessed February 18, 2021. https://medium.com/the-mission/born-to-be-unhappy-how-we-can-overcome-our-own-biology-part-2-of-4-c0b7588adcff.
Suffering is part of life, and life spent as a disciple of Jesus means that we seek our strength and our solace from God and not from anything in this world, because only God gives us the grace we need to flourish and thrive despite our challenges.