most often we forget our pleasures and we remember our sufferings.As we journey through this life that God has given to us, we struggle day-to-day to bring our faith in God and our humanity together. In our efforts to be faithful, one of the most difficult things for us to accept and to realize is the fact that this life is full of suffering and death. This is true even if we are faithful, even if we have truly repented of our sins, even if we have been totally faithful members of the Church, indeed, even if we are holy. This suffering and death is the result of the fallenness and sin of the world.
In a human sense, though, we want to avoid suffering. Indeed, we will do anything to prevent it, being endowed with the “fight or flight” instinct which fills us with adrenaline when it is necessary to protect ourselves from threats to our human existence. But this instinct and desire to protect ourselves and avoid suffering and death can only be temporary.
Suffering and death, realistically, are things over which we have virtually no control. Despite the ability to work out, watch our diets, go faithfully to the doctor for check-ups and prescriptions, we will one day be surprised to hear that we are ill, perhaps even unto death,yet the bible says ..we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5).
If we suffer (and we will) without hope, we are tempted with despair. If we despair and there is no hope in my life for the Kingdom of God, then Dr. Kevorkian is right. Some of the church fathers defined the one sin that Jesus claimed would not be forgiven (blasphemy of the Holy Spirit) as despair. When we despair, we turn from God and do not allow Him to be effective in our lives. We even convince ourselves that He can’t affect our lives. If we don’t have hope, everything we do, even going to church and receiving the Sacraments, would be useless. “…if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain.” (1 Cor. 15:14)
There is going to be suffering present in each of our lives and we are all going to die. But the Christian transforms the suffering and death. The story comes full circle. We were created by God for communion with Him, we destroyed His creation and ourselves, we were redeemed by His Son, and His love has been poured into our hearts by His Spirit. Hope cannot disappoint us when His Spirit fills us with His love.
Finally, St. Paul reminds us that “while we were still weak,” the Lord died for the ungodly. Jesus Christ did all of this for us before we were justified by His blood. Before we heard His word. Before we knew His Church. Before I was baptized into Him. Before I tried to struggle and live a Christian life.
But now that we are heirs of this promise, now that we have His Spirit poured into our hearts, now that we are baptized into Christ, “much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” Christ did everything for us even before we knew Him. As St. Paul says, “if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” (Rom. 5:9-10)
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