Chapter 6 No.6

The Discipline of Sorrow

FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT

Revelations vii. 14

"These are they who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

Two considerations only can throw any light on the dark mystery of suffering, the problem which has baffled the intellect, the perplexity which has torn the heart of mankind from the dawn of conscious life-"I believe that Jesus Christ was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man"; "I believe in the life of the world to come."

The two thoughts blend in our text with a harmony of illumination which, though it does not solve the problem, renders it less dark.

Only in the light of another world, where the seed sown here shall bear wondrous fruit, can we even begin to reconcile the existence of suffering with the goodness of Almighty God. If there be no hereafter, then indeed suffering must be the work of a vengeful tyrant rejoicing in cruelty, or of a fatalistic machine grinding out its foreordained consequences.

What we require is some comprehensive plan which will knit together past, present, future in one great purpose of progress towards ultimate perfection, which will guarantee not only an existence hereafter, but will render that existence personal, conscious, capable of the highest development.

We find this in the Incarnation, the eternal purpose of God the Father, formed in the eternity of the past, that His Son should take our human flesh.

This plan is working itself out in the present by the power of God the Holy Ghost, through the life of the great Church of Christ, militant and expectant.

It stretches forth into the future, with regard to which we have parables, promises, visions, warnings, all pointing to a continuously progressive growth till the perfect manifestation of the Kingdom of Christ be reached.

Thus the Incarnation supplies the unifying principle, and in its light we catch some ray of hope on the dark problem of suffering.

In consequence of sin our Lord was a sufferer, even in some mysterious sense was "made perfect through suffering" (Heb. ii. 10).

The climax came in the "full, perfect, and complete sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world" made upon the Cross.

It is suggestive that these words should occur in the Consecration Prayer of the Holy Communion Service, as if to remind us that our true spiritual and commemorative sacrifice draws all its validity, power, and preciousness from the one offering of Christ made by Himself in His death.

Thus we see that most essential act for our salvation was not one of victory, triumph, or glory, as the world reckons these things. Oh, no! It was one of absolute self-surrender, involving untold anguish of soul and body. The results of the sufferings of our Lord have justified their tremendous cost.

Its efficacy consisted not in the physical pains, but in the entire yielding up of the will. Thus it represents for us that victory over self which is the only path to eternal life.

But this victory, even now in these emphatically feather-bed days, is always more or less painful. In the early times it meant persecution, poverty, isolation, death, for the sake of Jesus Christ.

It is always so; the greatest deeds the world has ever known, nationally, or individually, have been wrought out by suffering; because suffering, more than any other agent, deepens character.

Look around among your friends and acquaintances. Who are the morally strongest? To whom do you turn in your times of difficulty, doubt, trouble? Not to those whose lives have been easy, to whom the lines have fallen in pleasant places, to whom success has come without effort! No! You turn to the one who has fought his way through the doubt, the difficulty, the trouble, and you find a tower of strength. There is the secret of Charles Kingsley's power as a counsellor; once he did not believe that there was a God; he went through the agonies of doubt.

There is the secret of the wondrous force of Archbishop Temple. Rough, rugged, almost discourteous at times; hating shams and penetrating them with an unerring instinct, but tenderness itself to the really distressed. He knew what it was as a lad to do field labour in poor clothes and with insufficient food. In later years, when up at College, he was wont to study by the light in the passage, because he could not afford oil for his own lamp.

Yet another illustration, showing the directly spiritual influence of suffering-those countless cases of bed-ridden invalids, often in intense pain, who develop an intense, fervent, yet restful piety, seldom attained even by the most devout in active life.

Those who have had experience in missions or dealing with individual souls know how constantly suffering-especially in middle life-lays the foundations of conversion. Ay, and lays them strong and deep. The soul in trouble feels its need of God, turns to Him, and then gets to know the fulness of His mercy, even in and through the affliction.

And now, how stands it in regard to the War? We need not repeat in detail those various points on which we have already dwelt. Spite of all the ghastly sufferings the War is bringing in its train, nay, in a sense, because of them, it has linked together the Empire in the closest bonds, allayed political and polemical strife, evoked a wealth of heroism, self-sacrifice, prayer, and benevolence, and braced up the moral fibre of countless lives.

Yet all this does not explain the existence of suffering, the why and the wherefore still lie hidden in that region of the infinite which we, finite beings, cannot penetrate. We can see, from its results, that suffering is no more incompatible with the eternal love of God, than the surgeon's knife is inconsistent with the tenderness of his heart. "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth," "God dealeth with you as with sons" (Heb. xii., 6, etc.). Our great mistake is to look upon trouble as punishment, inflicted by an angry God, and to rebel under the chastening hand. When God sees that His child, whether the nation or the individual, needs discipline He sends it, and there is no more lack of love than there is on the part of the wise earthly parent, when he corrects his child and makes him suffer pain. Nay, it is the very love that prompts the discipline.

Once more, let us look at suffering in its power of producing sympathy.

The Incarnation was the greatest act of sympathy the world has ever known. The Word made flesh, our Saviour born as a babe, that He might enter into all the experiences of our human nature; that He might not simply feel for us, but feel with us.

Here is the essence of the word; take it in Latin, compassion; take it in Greek, sympathy-alike it means feeling with. And in the wondrous mystery of the Church, the spiritual body of Christ, the same great principle is still working itself out.

Very strange, very mysterious, yet real with the essence of reality, is the connection between the suffering Christ and the suffering Church, "inasmuch as ye have ministered to one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." And yet it is the Christ Who helps and sustains us from on high. The same Christ Who was here upon earth, suffering in His martyr Stephen was yet standing at the Father's right hand to succour him.

The same Christ Who flashed the wondrous vision of Himself on the eyes of S. Paul, was yet so intimately present in and with His infant Church that he "thundered" forth the question, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?"

It is just this thought of Christ still present in the person of His suffering children, that gives the glow of enthusiasm to philanthropic work of a definitely Christian character. But may we not go a step further and try to see Christ, in a measure, in all suffering, even that of the animals? He came to redeem the world, and we in our little view are apt to narrow down the purposes, and limit the possibilities within very contracted lines.

The War is opening up to us opportunities boundless in their character and scope. Probably to-day tens of thousands who have hitherto spent aimless lives; whose time, means, gifts have gone in the shallow channel of self, now know something at least of the joy of launching out on to the broad stream of living, loving sympathy. This has been because, though in some instances unconsciously to themselves, Christ, in the power of His Holy Spirit, has touched their lives.

If anguish has come to our hearts let it work its discipline upon us in and through Christ, by the opening out of ourselves to Him, that we may take in the full measure of His priceless sympathy. Let us try to lose ourselves in ministering to others, one of the surest anodynes for grief and pain.

But if we have, as yet, passed unscathed, let us be all the more diligent, tender, and loving in our care for others.

There is no need to go into details. Wherever your lot be cast you have only just to look around and you will find there are individuals, wives at home, soldiers at the front, whose lot you can brighten in very simple yet very real ways; perhaps institutions, such as Red Cross Homes, Hospitals, Belgian Hostels, to which you can render practical service; Funds to which you can send your money; all these are means through which you may enter into the glorious discipline of opportunity that comes through suffering.

Have you ever thought how infinitely poorer the world would be in all that is highest and purest in its life, were there no suffering to call forth the tender ministry of sympathy?

And now let us summarise what we have been saying. Suffering is a great mystery, but two facts throw light upon it-the hereafter, the Incarnation; suffering does discipline character, therefore, judging by results, it is not incompatible with the love of God, even though its existence be still a problem; suffering presents us with the splendid possibility of sympathy, to be exercised in the power of the loving Christ.

Can we close better than with the thought of the saints in Paradise?

On earth they lived in the always realised consciousness of a personal Christ. When the Apostles were persecuted and beaten, they departed from the Council "rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name." So it has been all down the long story of the ages. And the saints are those "who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb"; their sufferings sanctified by, and borne in, the power of Him Who was made perfect by the things which He endured. Their "light affliction, which was but for a moment, has worked out for them the exceeding abundant and eternal weight of glory."

Thus the Incarnation, the eternal counsel of the past, that embraced them while they were on earth, is still enfolding them, while they, with us, wait and pray for its final consummation, in the coming of the Kingdom.

Let us so use our opportunities for discipline now, that the uplifting of character shall be permanent; not a mere spasm of passing enthusiasm, but a real growth into the character and likeness of Him Who suffered death upon the Cross, that all might live unto Him.

For suggested Meditations during the week see Appendix.