Why suffer?
That is the ultimate question.
It comes to sharp and challenging expression
in the contrast
between the serene and passionless Buddha
and the tortured figure on the cross.
In Jesus we see One who looked at suffering
with eyes as clear and calm
as those of the Buddha. He saw no reason
to reject it, to refuse it, to eliminate it.
He took it into himself
and felt the fullness of its bitterness and horror;
by the grace of God
he tasted death for every man.
Others suffer;
he will suffer with them and for them,
and will go on suffering till the end of time.
But he does not believe
that suffering is wholly evil;
by the power of God it can be transformed
into a redemptive miracle.
Suffering is not an obstacle to deliverance,
it can become part of deliverance itself.
And what he was he bids his children be
the world’s sufferers,
in order that through suffering
the world may be brought back
to God.