Christ's suffering highlights the profound agony He endured, including the spiritual abandonment He experienced on the cross, as He bore humanity's sins. This theme often uses vivid natural phenomena, such as an eclipsed sun, to symbolize the darkness and mystery of His sacrifice (Matthew 27:45-46). It underscores the depth of His love and the cost of redemption.
Christ's sinless suffering enables Him to understand and sympathize with our pain.
Plato was right when he said that no one has a right to become a doctor who has always been healthy. Christ suffered, and therefore He can understand our suffering. He did not deserve to suffer for He was sinless. But God was glorified through His suffering, which was not really for Himself but for us, for our sin.
Christ’s forsaking on the cross is the profound mystery of divine suffering for sinners.
"To put out a candle is no great matter; but to have the sun eclipsed, which is the fountain of light, that sets the world a-wondering! For poor creatures to lose their comforts is no great wonder, who, though they live in God, are so many degrees distant from him; but for Christ, who was God-man in one person, to be forsaken of God, that is a difficulty to our thoughts and a wonder indeed, for by this means he was so far deprived of some part of himself." Yes, indeed, this is the wonder of wonders, the miracle of miracles, at which my mind would for ever stand amazed. "That the thrice Holy One should take the sinner's place, and, coming under the sinner's doom, should be smitten of God, is a mystery past finding out! Hell is horribly amazing, but the death of Jesus is far more astounding, and especially that in death he should cry, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' Only the Son of God could endure this great grief; yet is it a mystery of mysteries, that so divine a person should be capable of enduring it. The marvel is thought to be that a man should be able to suffer so much; but the real marvel is that, being God, he should suffer at all that which was the very essence of his grief—the being forsaken by the Father. My soul, adore and love; understand thou canst not. Behold the eclipse of thy soul's Sun, and know that, had not this been, thou wouldst have been in the dark for ever.
Christ's painful suffering shows the great price paid for our salvation.
It seems too costly for him who is the Prince of life and glory to let his fair limbs be tortured in agony; that the hands which carried mercies should be pierced with accursed nails; that the temples that were always clothed with love should have cruel thorns driven through them! It appears too much! Oh! weep, Christian, and let our sorrow rise. Is not the price all but too great, that your Beloved should for you resign himself?
Jesus' agonizing death contrasts with peaceful deaths, showing divine love and sacrifice.
The death of Socrates, peacefully philosophizing with his friends appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, and accused by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus, in the midst of his tortures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes! if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God.
— Rousseau
Christ's sufferings are infinitely greater than any suffering we endure for Him.
If you go to weigh Jesus, his sweetness, excellency, glory, and beauty, and lay opposite to him your ounces or drachms of suffering for him, you will be straitened in two ways,—1. It will be a pain to make the comparison, the disproportion being by no understanding imaginable; nay, if heaven's arithmetic and angels were set to work, they should never number the degrees of difference: 2. It would straiten you to find a scale for the balance to lay that high and lofty One, that ever-transcending Prince of Excellency in. If your mind could fancy as many created heavens as time hath minutes, trees have had leaves, clouds have had rain-drops, since the first stone of the creation was laid, they would not make half a scale in which to weigh boundless excellency.
— Rutherford
Christ's manhood suffered, but His divinity remained untouched during His passion.
As the precious stone called the carbuncle, to look at, is like a hot burning coal of fire, shining exceeding brightly, the which fcelth no fire, neither is it molten, changed, or mollified therewith; if thou shalt take it, and close it fast in a ring of lead, and cast it into the fire, thou shalt see the lead molten and consume before thy face, but the carbuncle remaining sound and perfect without blemish as before; for the fire worketh upon the lead, but upon the carbuncle it cannot work: even so Christ, our Saviour, being in the hot, scorching fire of his torments, suffered and died, as he was man; but, as he was God, he neither suffered nor died. The fire of his afflictions wrought, then, upon his manhood; but his divinity and Godhead continued perfect, and utterly untouched. Cowdray.
Christ bore not only physical pain but the full weight of divine justice for sin.
We may paint the outward appearance of his sufferings, but not the inward bitterness or invisible causes of them. Men can paint the cursed tree, but not the curse of the law that made it so. Men can paint Christ bearing the cross to Calvary, but not Christ bearing the sins of many. We may describe the nails piercing his sacred flesh, but who can describe eternal justice piercing both flesh and spirit? We may describe the soldier's spear, but not the arrows of the Almighty; the cup of vinegar which he but tasted, but not the cup of wrath, which he drank out to the lowest dregs; the derision of the Jews, but not the desertion of the Almighty forsaking his Son, that he might never forsake us who were his enemies. J. Maclaurin.
Among the many hymns with deep roots in the history of the Church, “O Sacred Head Now Wounded” is based on a 900-year-old poem written by theologian and mystic Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard was a towering figure in the political, intellectual, and religious life of 12th-century Europe.
In 1113, Bernard became a member of a new religious order known as the Cistercians. The group followed a strict monastic life of prayer, labor, and austerity. Two years later, he was sent by the order to found a new monastery that he named Clairvaux.
Bernard quickly became one of the leading reformers in the Church of his day. He participated in Church councils, worked to heal schisms over who was the legitimate pope, helped to found and promote the Knights Templar, and preached the Second Crusade, even convincing King Louis VII of France and Holy Roman Emperor Conrad III to join the expedition. He was also involved in intellectual and theological debates, most notably opposing some of the teachings of Peter Abelard.
Bernard’s greatest contributions were in the realm of spirituality. While earlier spirituality in Western Europe tended to emphasize Christ’s divinity, primarily portraying Him as a victorious warrior over the powers of Hell, Bernard focused on divine love, particularly demonstrated in the Incarnation and revealed in Christ’s suffering. Jesus’ love for us was so great that He chose to suffer for us, providing forgiveness of sins and identifying with humanity’s weakness and suffering. Thus, from Christ we learn compassion and mercy from both a human and divine perspective.
To Bernard, the only proper response to God’s love in Christ is to love Him in return and to imitate Him by loving our neighbor. Love was so central to Bernard’s spirituality that Dante portrays him as the one who leads to the highest levels of heaven in the Divine Comedy.
Bernard’s emphasis on a deeply personal relationship with God built on faith and love anticipated, in many ways, Protestant ideas. Both Martin Luther and John Calvin quoted Bernard in support of justification by faith; Calvin also quoted him in support of imputed righteousness.
Bernard also promoted lectio divina, an approach to meditation on Scripture designed to help the practitioner hear the Holy Spirit speaking and to increase personal connection with God. He wrote on many other areas of theology as well, particularly about the Virgin Mary. He also wrote extensively on the theology of music and authored many hymns and poems.
One of Bernard’s poems was the source of “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” “Salve Mundi Salutare” consists of seven sections, each addressing a part of Christ’s body (specifically, His feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart, and head) as He hung on the cross. Throughout, Christ’s suffering is portrayed as the ultimate expression of divine love, and it calls for a response of love from us in return.
The season of Lent and Holy Week is an appropriate time to meditate on Christ, His Divine and Human natures, His sufferings on our behalf, the love that prompted them, and what that love has accomplished on our behalf.
O Sacred Head by Bernard of Clairvaux is a wonderful, time-tested resource to reflect on these realities.
O sacred Head, now wounded,
with grief and shame weighed down,
now scornfully surrounded
with thorns, thine only crown!
O sacred Head, what glory,
what bliss till now was thine!
Yet, though despised and gory,
I joy to call thee mine.
2 What thou, my Lord, hast suffered
was all for sinners’ gain.
Mine, mine was the transgression,
but thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior!
‘Tis I deserve thy place.
Look on me with thy favor,
and grant to me thy grace.
3 What language shall I borrow
to thank thee, dearest Friend,
for this, thy dying sorrow,
thy pity without end?
Oh, make me thine forever,
and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never
outlive my love to thee.
4 Be near when I am dying,
oh, show thy cross to me,
and for my rescue, flying,
come, Lord, and set me free!
These eyes, new faith receiving,
________
Jesus shall not move,
for one who dies believing
dies safely, through thy love.
________
Copyright (c) 2023 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
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