Topic: Suffering

We may not be able to see all which God is doing to redeem our present difficulties, but we can see His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, standing before us, ready to sustain us, and asking, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” May we respond like the man born blind, saying, “Lord, I believe.”

When we focus on Christ instead of complaining about the many hardships in our lives, we become a witness to the Gospel. Our lives become saturated with the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. This doesn’t make any sense if you don’t know Christ! This is how Spafford could write a hymn praising the Lord mere days after all his children died in a shipwreck.

Most of us spend our entire lives trying to avoid pain and suffering as much as possible, even at all costs. But we serve a God whose Son endured the ultimate pain and suffering on the Cross, so that we might have eternal life. How should we approach suffering, then? In this sermon, the Bishop-retired explains how we should relate to suffering, and that we need not be afraid.

The prophet Isaiah gives us the image of the Suffering Servant, a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ. In the image of the Suffering Servant, we receive not only a depiction of Christ, but also a depiction of His example which we are called to follow.