fellowship of suffering ...

‘For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.’ Hebrews 4:15 

We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize …  

Those words have brought comfort to many believers – myself included. They let us know that our Savior can relate to what we are experiencing. And I do not believe it is [for us] simply a case that misery loves company – rather that misery seeks above most things to be understood and comforted. 

But what happens when we as believers, who are the kings and priests that He has made us to be, are called to sympathize with the sufferings of our Savior? 

• What happens when the circumstances of life leave us alone in the dark with none who will tarry with us for even an hour?
• How do we comprehend when we have sown good seed, ample seeds (of kindness, finances, encouragement, time and self) into the lives of the many that we come in contact with; yet there is but a handful present when the hours of crucifixion commence? 
• Where do we turn when our experience betrays the truth of His Word, when we cry out, like Jesus did, and no response comes from heaven?
• How do we endure the taunting and torturing of enemies, along with the scorn from those who identify themselves as ‘God’s agents’? 

Perplexing situations –   

Yet completely natural and to be expected, if we are like Him, if we want to know Him.   

Do we desire to know Him?

‘He is [was] despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.’ Isaiah 53:3 

Do we truly hunger to know Christ like this?

Do we strive to know Him in the manner expressed by Paul?

‘I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.' Philippians 3:10 

It is certainly not the Christian experience that has been marketed to the masses. Yet it is the closest thing to reality that I have been able to comprehend in the years that I have been following Jesus.  

We desire to know the power of His resurrection but would just as soon leave the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings on the buffet table. We want to go where He went after His death, burial and resurrection. Yet we would kindly like to skip the aloneness, shame, beatings, cross-bearing, nail-piercing and slow painful dying that He endured.   

Yet we are called to and given the directive to, ‘Rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed.’ I Peter 4:13 

Rejoice!

Why? Because you are able to participate in the sufferings of Christ.

Rejoice!

When?  Any time you are able to participate in the sufferings of Christ.

Such an often overlooked portion of the Christian experience … the fellowship of suffering. 

Yet, this is the walk...