"I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church." (Colossians 1:24)
I can remember as a kid going to the amusement park like it was an annual pilgrimage. I grew up just about an hour away from Cedar Point, so I was riding roller coasters, bumper cars, and spinning rides from an early age. And in particular, I find myself thinking today about the warnings they would post at the start of the line for the water rides--the log flume, the giant water slides, and the ones with names like "Snake River Falls," "Whitewater Rapids," or "Thunder Canyon." There was always a sign with big clear letters that read, "You will get wet on this ride."
Some part of me always thought it was humorous that they felt the need to make such a disclaimer (I'm sure some legal expert probably warned them that they needed to be clear). After all, with a name like "Whitewater" conjuring up the churning spray of a waterfall, or the suggestion that the torrents of water roared like "thunder," you would think it should be obvious that you could get wet. If that weren't enough, you could easily see the riders disembarking from their rafts and see that they were soaking wet--you would presume, wouldn't you, that this same outcome was in your future if you got in line? And of course, if you are a water-ride kind of person, that's the whole point. You want the thrill of riding the current, of brushing with the cascades of a waterfall, of the big plunge as you go down the chute into a deluge at the bottom. That's what the whole ride is about, and if the name didn't tell you, then watching the people ahead of you should certainly tip you off. Go on a water ride at an amusement part, and you will get wet. That's what you signed up for.
I mention this because quite frequently the New Testament has to remind us that the Christian life is much the same. We haven't signed up for an amusing pleasure cruise, but rather we have been called to follow in Jesus' footsteps--to walk the way of Jesus, to love the ways Jesus loves, to go to the kinds of places and among the kinds of people that Jesus surrounds himself with, and to bear suffering the way Jesus does, too. Passages like today's verse from Colossians (which you may well have heard in worship this past Sunday) are rather like the sign at the entrance of the water ride insisting, "YOU WILL GET WET ON THIS RIDE." They are reminder that the Christian life is, by definition, a life patterned on Christ, and Christ Jesus very much chose the path of self-giving love that often involved enduring suffering for the sake of others. This should not be a surprise to us, any more than it would be a surprise to get wet on a water slide, or to have a waterfall soak your clothes on a ride that has "Waterfall" in the name. At the very least, we can see from both Jesus himself and from the life of Paul the apostle (who was in line ahead of us for this ride, in a manner of speaking), that being disciples of Jesus will mean sharing in the sufferings of Jesus. That is not an off-chance possibility, but a defining feature of the Christian life... because of Christ himself.
Of course, quite often Respectable Religious Folks are not interested in that part of the arrangement. It's very tempting to try and repackage Christianity as some kind of means of avoiding suffering, or as though following Jesus was your ticket out of the sorrows and struggles of the world. Just in the last week, I caught the pronouncements of another high-profile religious spokesperson declaring that those who had prayed fervently enough (and written checks big enough to this person's ministry) would have their fears of financial hardship, family stress, and career worries all "cancelled," as though their membership in the VIP Gold Level of the Jesus Club brought the perks of getting out of the day to day struggles of life. The implied message was that Christianity is a means for getting out of suffering and avoiding heartache, rather than one of deliberately sharing the sufferings of others and bearing the pains and heartaches of speaking love to a world full of mean.
There's the same wrongheaded impulse to see Jesus as our ticket out of suffering rather than our leader pioneering the way through it ahead of us in the misguided theology of the "rapture," which was invented a couple of centuries ago and offered the appealing idea that when Jesus returned he would whisk off the true believers up to heaven before the world went through tribulation and turmoil so that they would not have to go through it. It's the same sales pitch in every televangelist who has offered prosperity and wealth as God's rewards for your faith (and faithful giving... to their televised ministries). And it's there in every Respectable Religious Leader who talks about wanting to see Christians put in charge of every area of government or political leadership as a means of preventing them from being "persecuted," when history has shown us how terribly things go when people who name the name of Jesus get tangled up in empires. All of those are variations on the same misunderstanding--that there is some way to ride this waterfall without getting wet, so to speak. But if Jesus' own words ("If any want to follow me, let them take up their cross...") were not clear, the witness of the apostle Paul should remove any illusions.
When the apostle says to the Christians in Colossae that he is "completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions," I don't think the idea is that somehow Jesus' death on the cross wasn't "enough" to redeem the world, or that there needs to be periodic recharging or renewal of the ol' salvation bank account with a certain amount of suffering from us. And it's not to say that Jesus' own suffering was somehow insufficient, partial, or ineffective. Rather, I think it's Paul saying, "I am a disciple of Jesus, and that means suffering love is a part of my calling, not necessarily on a cross outside of Jerusalem, but in the ways I spend my life for the sake of others." Paul, of course, did end up regularly getting himself into good trouble for the sake of Jesus and his good news--he was often run out of town by lynch-mobs, stoned by Respectable Religious Leaders, ridiculed by the intellectual crowd, and arrested for disturbing the peace. And it is also highly likely that he was eventually executed by the Empire on charges along the lines of treason (Caesar never likes to hear that somebody else is Lord, you know). But even apart from the official threats on his life, Paul spent his energy, time, and resources on helping other people--collecting food for the folks in Jerusalem living through a famine, training leaders for new congregations, teaching and telling anyone who would listen about Jesus, and making sure that outsiders were truly welcomed into the church. All of that flowed naturally and logically for Paul from his belonging to Jesus: because Jesus' way of life was one of self-giving and suffering love, of course Paul would follow that same course himself. That's how it works--this is a water slide, so you will get wet on this ride.
So when Paul would find himself before yet another imperial official's whip, or staring down an angry mob, or risking his life on a voyage at sea to transport the funds that would help Judean Christians buy bread, he saw it as his part of the wider way of Jesus--a sharing in the same kind of self-giving love and enduring of suffering that he first learned from Jesus. You don't get the sense that Paul regretted it or looked for a loophole to weasel out of those hardships; he just understood that they were a part of what it meant to follow Jesus, because Jesus' own mission centered on self-giving love, too.
Today, then, we shouldn't be surprised if the path of discipleship leads us to live, act, speak, and yes even suffer in ways that look like Jesus. If we have signed on to the Christian faith as a way of avoiding suffering or securing the easy life for ourselves, then we have fallen for a bit of false advertising--that is now how the Jesus way of life works. But if we are seeking to be disciples of Jesus, who follow in his footsteps, then we will be ready to spend our lives giving ourselves away even in the face of suffering, because that is the way Jesus has gone ahead of us. When it happens, we won't throw ourselves pity parties--we'll see that it is a sign we are on the right path. For us, the cross is the sign at the start of the line reminding us what we are taking up if we follow Jesus... and a reminder of the resurrection hope that waits on the other side of that cross, too.
Lord Jesus, give us the strength, grace, and courage to give ourselves away in suffering love as you have first done for us.
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