In Ordinary Time Amy Peeler writes,
“He [Christ] went through the full gamut of the human experience, the moment of death as well as the process of burial, both of which are deeply painful for the loved ones of the person who has died. God willingly experienced these realities on behalf of humanity in the person of the Son. That means that God the Father and God the Spirit experienced the Son’s submission to these forces. We are at the edge of the capacity of human language here, but though we are unable to explain it fully, we can say that God, the God of life allowed himself to experience death.” (p 52, emphasis original)
What struck me here is that the Father and the Spirit were profoundly and personally moved by the Son’s death. Not simply as passive witnesses to that darkness, they somehow entered into his experience; similar to the how a parent might be present to their dying child (think Mary, the mother of Jesus, at Golgatha). In ways we can only imagine, Father and Spirit share in a kind of solidarity or mutual indwelling with the Son such that each Person is present to, present in, and present with the other; including the Son’s passion. Whether weeping over the death of Lazarus (John 11), the agony at Gethsemane (Matthew 26), or Christ’s final hour on the cross (Luke 23), all three Persons enter into those experiences. This is not to say that the Father or Spirit suffered death. It is to say that all persons of the Trinity, though distinct, had a unifying experience as the God-Man literally died.
Could it be that God is also profoundly and personally moved by my pain and suffering? The whole of Scripture does seem to indicate that God’s strategy for making himself known involves doing his divine bidding here on earth through human life — and most often through pain and suffering.
Blessed are those who mourn.
Perhaps there is an organic connection between the full range of my personal experiences and the evidence of God to the world through me. If so, then I see great incentive to carefully and graciously deploy my speak and monitor my mannerisms before a watching world. Whether by word or thought, action or attitude, every manifestation from my entire human existence is optimal when I mirror the One in whose image I am made. To be sure there are differences between what God must feel in my experiences and those the Father and Spirit felt as the Son succumbed to death. But what I go through in sorrow and suffering the Triune God surely knows and is surely present with me and in me during my darkest moments.
I wonder, too, if that connection between Christ’s sympathy and my afflictions might serve to refocus and enlarge my perspective. As our earliest Creed says, tradition supports, and Scripture suggests (1 Peter 3:18-22), believing that Christ ‘descended to the dead’ helps to situate all personal struggles within a larger framework. Pain and suffering must be interpreted in light of the cosmic conflict that Christ decisively won once for all—a victory whose scope encompasses every corner of reality. Even as battles rage on, humanity’s Opponent is defeated. This expanded outlook is only possible because “the God of life allowed himself to experience death.”
To be Christian in name means to be like Christ in being. That I have a choice on the extent to which I represent God on earth — especially in suffering — is no small thing.
Such privilege!
“Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens [by way of his life, death, and resurrection], Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16
This is a holy comfort indeed!