For ten years Bill Watterson entertained the world through his cartoon series, Calvin and Hobbes. In these cartoons Calvin – an intrepid little boy – is always off on some grand adventure with his faithful sidekick, Hobbes.
Calvin’s father – a hybrid of Watterson’s own father and himself – is often seen trying to help little Calvin “build character”, usually in the middle of a camping trip gone wrong. Yeah, you may have been there too.
Calvin regularly fails to see the point of this character building exercise, often noting how the lessons in life his father so eagerly dishes out seem to save his father some expense.
For many of us, we can relate to little Calvin when we experience suffering. It may be personal and felt, it may be trivial and inconvenient, it may be grotesque and life-altering.
Calvin felt left alone to suffer without meaning and without support.
There is a difference however between the world of Calvin and Hobbes and this life. His name is Jesus. Christianity says that there’s nothing man can do to make it to God. Instead, God came to man. His name is Jesus.
When it comes to suffering Jesus suffers alongside us. We do not have a God indifferent to the human condition. He has been there. And he is with us in our pain, no matter the circumstances.
More than that too, Jesus suffered for us. He willingly, lovingly and purposefully laid down his own life to pay a price that was around our necks. He suffered in agony, alone for hours and he did it thinking of each of us.
There is a present, felt reality about suffering in this world. Some of us will go through more than others but all of us will suffer and all will die.
Jesus’ suffering wasn’t pointless. It had a purpose. More than that, it had ultimate purpose that speaks into this life as well as the next. And there’s more good news: Jesus can use your pain and your suffering and turn it for good.
Suffering and pain can devastate joy, tear up hope, bring the strong to their knees and cause us to cry out, “Why?” In this world gone bad Jesus came to bring healing. He came that we might be saved out of despair and into a living, lasting hope. He’s done it all for us.
Jesus suffered and died that we might see him through our suffering and live.
