Give Praise to God
Remembering with Joy
Hebrews 2:10-13 The Message
10-13 It makes good sense that the God who got everything started and keeps everything going now completes the work by making the Salvation Pioneer perfect through suffering as he leads all these people to glory. Since the One who saves and those who are saved have a common origin, Jesus doesn’t hesitate to treat them as family, saying,I’ll tell my good friends, my brothers and sisters, all I know about you;
I’ll join them in worship and praise to you.
Again, he puts himself in the same family circle when he says,
Even I live by placing my trust in God.
And yet again,
I’m here with the children God gave me.
For Reflection
What does it mean to be "perfected through suffering." I suppose we could ask Job. What was it that Job understood after his suffering that he did not know before and with knowing, placed him at peace.The short answer, but mysterious one, is that Job looked into the face of God and saw himself in a relationship with the Creation. Job may have understood that suffering is not penitence.
Quite the opposite, hard or easy sufferings spur our need to seek wisdom and understanding. Suffering is not bad but a natural phenomenon of living. A man deeply suffers the loss of his wife who died after a long and painful illness. The man sees his own pain and wishes he would have died instead. If his wish to die before his wife were realized, his wish would transfer his suffering to his wife. Trading places does not free his wife from the pain of suffering his death. It merely ends the husband's pain.
God shows us the reality of the world in which we live and offers another perception. God asks us to set aside our negative opinion of suffering and instead look for the intent of God in the design of God's creation. Christ suffered a horrible death. But Christ yet lives. Where, indeed, is the sting of life and death.
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