Manchester Lutheran Church

Why is suffering necessary?

The Christian message can sound ridiculous can’t it?

Think of it from the perspective of someone on the street:

“God loves you, so Jesus died for you.”

“Ok—great that God loves me supposedly—but why on earth does that have to involve death? That seems so morbid!”

Think of what the Christian message means for a Christian:

“If we suffer with Christ now, then we will be glorified with him later.”

“Ok—great that we’ll be glorified with him later—but why on earth can’t we just have glory now? That seems so unnecessary!”

We don’t want to be those who twist the scriptures just to say what people want to hear. We want to be faithful: and God says suffering is necessary. But, why is it necessary? Why does God work in this particular way?

This question also flows out of what we heard last week from Matthew 8: Why would I give up everything for Jesus? If you missed that, all our sermons are available online.

But having heard that sermon, it makes a lot of sense we might be thinking: Ok, I get that Jesus loves me, makes amazing promises to me, makes me just, and transforms my life through his Word: that’s why it’s worth giving up everything for him.

But why is this the way the Christian life has to be?

That’s an understandable question many of us may now have. And it’s also a question that someone reading Matthew’s Gospel might reasonably have as they get to the beginning of chapter 17.

Back in chapter 13, Jesus told many parables, showing that the true nature of his kingdom is hidden in this world; but will be revealed in the next world.

And in chapters 14-17 we see lots of little events where Jesus illustrates this teaching and applies it.

Now, right before this part of the story, in chapter 16, Jesus has started to spell out what it means for the kingdom to be hidden in this life. v. 21:

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things

Peter tried to rebuke Jesus for this, so Jesus says to him, v. 23:

“Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

And Jesus goes on in v. 24,

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

And then in vv. 27-28, right before our passage, Jesus says:

“the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father… Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

So having just said he must suffer, and his followers must suffer in following him, Matthew’s readers are left with this question: but Why is suffering necessary?

And this is why Jesus promises to reveal his glory to a select few. Something he does now, here, in chapter 17: …Jesus pulls back the curtain for Peter, James and John …to see the reality of the glory hiding behind the suffering of this life. And by doing so reveals to us why suffering is necessary.

And there’s three things Matthew’s account of this event will illustrate for us:

We want glory without suffering
But our sin prevents us enjoying glory
Suffering deals with sin

So, first, We want glory without suffering

Jesus shows his glory in vv. 1-3:

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.

Jesus is the eternal Son of God, who humbled himself by taking to himself a human nature. But, for a moment here, he allows Peter, James and John to see the glory he has as God.

And this means two awesome things for us:

First, if you have Jesus, you have everything. In Colossians 2 v. 9 Paul writes:

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,

Many people are tempted to think that they need to add something to Jesus:

“Yep, I get that Jesus saves me from my sins, but…”

“…to really know that God loves me: I need to pray enough.” or

“…to really be wise I need self-help techniques.” or

“…to be confident of truth I need a church leader to say it.”

All of us are tempted to add to Jesus in one way or another, but, God’s fullness is in Jesus. To add to him is to diminish him.

And the second awesome thing this means is that God’s glory is made accessible in Jesus.

The Son of God took to himself a human nature that is like ours in every way.

And neither his human nor divine nature was changed by this, but his human nature is lifted up.

This is a truth that was lost and confused in the Western churches, but preserved and protected in the Eastern Orthodox churches.

So, Athanasius writes:

a great addition has accrued to the human Body itself from the fellowship and union of the Word with it. For instead of mortal it has become immortal;

And John of Damascus writes:

Jesus’ holy mind… [remembers] the times He spent on earth and all He suffered, but it has communion with [his divine nature] in its activities and orders and governs the universe, thinking and knowing and ordering not as the mere mind of man, but… acting as the mind of God.

From ancient times this has been explained simply like this:

When you put an iron poker into a fire, it remains an iron poker, it doesn’t change, but things about the fire are shared with the iron poker: It gets hot, it glows.

And where does that picture come from? Just look at v. 2: his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.

My body doesn’t do that. That’s not natural for human beings. But, it’s like his divine glory is reflected off his human nature.

And we, as human beings, want this kind of glory now. And many churches today promise glory or blessing now.

This is why Peter says what he says in v. 4:

And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

This isn’t just Peter blurting out something random with no meaning.

Think about what he says: he wants to make tents. You make a tent to stay somewhere. He wants to stay on the mountain. Stay where the going is good. Stay where he’s in sight of the glory. Live in victory. Live in power. Live in the sweet spot.

Peter’s like “Jesus! You’re on fire!” (which is literally true, actually, he’s genuinely on fire) “I don’t want to go back down the mountain: it’s hard down there, there’s suffering, there’s opposition, there’s difficulty”

Peter’s response perfectly captures what we want: We want glory without suffering

And in your life right now are all sorts of temptations to try to build a tent at the top of the mountain:

A pathway that is against God’s commandments, but seems easier.

Trying to “name it and claim it” before God in prayer.

Equating success and happiness with spiritual maturity.

Health and wealth. Dressing in blessing. A glory story. All of us really want to build that tent.

But the problem is… our sin prevents us enjoying glory

Please look again at vv. 5-6:

He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified.

Again and again, throughout the whole Bible, when people come face to face with God, their response is horrific fear.

And that is because, deep down, all of us know, there is something not right with us. Something crooked, something wrong, something warped.

And all of our experiences in life are connected to this somehow.

Our sin makes us vulnerable to abuse, because bullies are experts at picking on our inner sense of guilt: —gaslighting —shifting blame —emotional blackmail —appealing to our fears. All of these, and more, work on people because deep down, everyone has some sense of being wrong about something. Abusers and bullies know how to manipulate and twist that to their own ends.

And our sin also means that we exaggerate our own mistakes. When we make mistakes in life, then they trigger our inner sense of guilt and failure and so mistakes can feel totally out of proportion.

Our sin means we overcompensate and hurt others. Because we all have an inner conscience that wants to convict us, we try to excuse our failings and errors, and so we make silly life choices; and we put other people down to raise ourselves up.

And our sin means that even when we do get some success or glory in this life, we often don’t enjoy it properly! We feel imposter syndrome because something inside us niggles away telling us we aren’t worthy. We feel a fear of failure because something inside us tells us we kind of deserve everything to go wrong.

Paul describes it this way in Romans 7:18:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.

The disciples, when they heard God speak:

“fell on their faces and were terrified.“

So, while we want glory without suffering, and we’d like to stay on the mountain, the problem is: our sin prevents us enjoying glory

But… Suffering deals with sin

Please look again at vv. 7-9:

But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only. And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”

Sin leads to death… …and so to remove that sin from us, Jesus needs to die.

That’s why he—the God-man—can touch us: the one in whom divinity and humanity are united.

So that when he dies as a man, in a very real sense we can say: God dies for us.

Through his death, our sin meets its natural end.

In Baptism we are joined to Jesus and become like him, so Christians suffer to teach us to trust him and to make us like him.

And through our sufferings, we demonstrate to people that the gospel we trust is true.

This is how God is glorified in our sufferings. Because as we talk about Jesus, we clearly live for Jesus.

This is what Paul meant in Colossians 1:24 when he said:

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, Through our suffering, other people hear the Word of Christ.

So, why is suffering necessary?

Well of course, We all want glory without suffering. But our sin prevents us enjoying glory—something we see in all aspects of our lives.

But… Suffering deals with sin

Jesus, the God-man, suffered the natural consequence of sin for us …and as Christians suffer, it is seen that we are like Christ, it drives us to faith in Christ, and it clothes and advertises the Word of Christ that we share.

We suffer now.

But we will not suffer forever… …because Christ suffered for us. So, keep trusting in Christ and suffering with him… …looking forward to that time, when he touches you and says:

Rise, and have no fear.