Are Our Sufferings The Key To Comforting Others?
For because He Himself has suffered and been tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted.
Of all the things people are called to do for one another, surely the greatest and most powerful is to aid and comfort those who are suffering.
We are called to bear witness to the grief of those who have lost friends and family.
We are called to comfort others over the trauma over a lost job, a lost home, or any other manner of great loss.
We are called to share with our fellow human beings all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune—and if we know one thing about this life it is that there will be slings and arrows, for fortune is always outrageous.
Yet how can we share that which we do not ourselves know? How can we possibly relate to a grief we have not experienced?
Very often, we must admit of our own limitations, and recognize that when the experiences of others go beyond anything within our own lives, we will not be able to relate, we may not even be able to share, and so our capacity for offering much needed aid and comfort may be in many ways blocked.
Or will it?
As the Apostle Paul reminded in his letter to the Hebrews, when God manifested Himself on earth as Jesus Christ, He took on human form. He embraced human weaknesses and human temptations, and He allowed Himself to experience real suffering. It is trite and yet true that Jesus embraced one of the most severe of sufferings, death by crucifixion.
We do well to remember that Jesus the man was not looking forward to what He knew must come. We do well to remember that, as the Gospels tell us, He would have been quite happy for the suffering and crucifixion He knew must come to pass by.
And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
Yet Jesus embraced what was to come. He embraced suffering and death upon the cross at Calvary.
While out of that suffering and death comes the miracle of the Resurrection, as the Apostle Paul reminds us, there was another important dimension to Jesus’ suffering, and indeed to the whole of His human existence.
By coming down to Earth, by becoming a man, made of earthly flesh and walking the Earth as a man, Jesus experienced what it is to be human. When Jesus sits at the Right Hand of God, and judges all of mankind, both the living and the dead, He will do so with the fullest understanding of what humans experience throughout their daily lives.
When Jesus judges mankind, He will do so full of the wisdom of what hunger feels like, of what it is to have no place where to sleep. He will do so full of the wisdom of what it is to feel pain, and loss, and grief.
When Jesus offers mankind mercy and forgiveness, it will come from that place of understanding that mortal men need botⁿh mercy and forgiveness.
Is it ever possible for one mortal man to likewise gain such understanding about any other man? Can we, having experienced all the frailties that come with being human, ever gain the wisdom to approach others with that same mercy and forgiveness God offers us through Jesus?
Perhaps.
Perhaps in our own individual struggles lies some germ of understanding that opens the way to sharing the struggles of those around us.
Perhaps in our own defeats and our triumphs lies the wisdom that allows us to have sympathy, empathy, and compassion for the suffering people all around us.
Perhaps if we embrace trials and tribulations, we will find ways to connect with those around us who are most in need of our human mercy and our human forgiveness. Perhaps by so doing we can find ways to venture towards those who are suffering, meeting them where they are as a first step towards helping them find a way back towards the path they are meant to be walking.
We may not share similar experiences with others, but it is certain that we all suffer in some way, and that we are all tempted in some way. Perhaps by seeking to understand our own suffering and our own temptations we will find the wisdom to offer meaningful aid and comfort to others who are suffering and who are tempted.
Jesus embraced the sufferings and temptations of man, that He might offer some aid, some comfort, and some guidance to those are suffering, and those who are tempted. Can mere mortals do likewise, in even the smallest degree? Can mere mortals, through our own sufferings, offer some aid, some comfort, and some guidance to others who are suffering, and who are tempted?
Can we at least make that effort? We are not Jesus and we certainly are not God, but neither are we entirely impotent and powerless before our fellow human beings. If our personal sufferings and temptations in any way offer up teaching on how to aid and comfort others who are suffering, and who are tempted, surely we are called to learn that teaching, and then to apply that teaching.
If aiding and comforting others requires that we first confront our own trials and tribulations, then as we are called to aid and comfort others, we are likewise called to confront our own trials and tribulations.
Surely we can at least strive to do this much?