Terrence Malick’s beautiful 2019 film, “A Hidden Life,” focuses on Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian conscientious objector during World War II. It is a powerful film. There is one scene in which Jägerstätter enters a church and has a conversation with Ohlendorff, a painter who is working on various paintings within the sanctuary. As he works on these paintings of Christ and other biblical figures and images, Ohlendorff says the following to Jägerstätter:

I paint the tombs of the prophets. I help people look up from those pews and dream…

I paint all this suffering but I don’t suffer myself. I make a living of it.

What we do is just create sympathy. We create admirers. We don’t create followers.

Christ’s life is a demand. We don’t want to be reminded of it so we don’t have to see what happens to the truth…

I paint their comfortable Christ, with a halo over His head. How can I show what I haven’t lived? Someday I might have the courage to venture, not yet. Someday I’ll paint the true Christ.

It is a heart-rending scene. It hits me especially hard as a pastor. Am I painting a comfortable Christ? Am I helping in the formation of admirers of the comfortable Christ instead of followers of the suffering Christ?

The painter Ohlendorff declares that he will “someday…paint the true Christ.”

We turn away from the suffering of Christ. Or, more precisely, we turn away from the suffering of Christ except in a transactional sense that benefits us. We do not mind His suffering insofar as it wins us our salvation. But what do we do with His suffering as it challenges our own comfortable lives? What do we do with His cross as a way of life, with His words from Matthew 16:24: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”?

He “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” the Creed tells us. What are we to make of this? What, in other words, are we to make of the suffering Christ? Why did He suffer and what does that mean for you and for me?

Jesus suffered.

Our first point will be simple and relatively brief. It is known but it needs to be said and we need to sit quietly with this truth for a spell so as not to miss it: Jesus suffered.

Church, Jesus suffered.

Jesus used two metaphors in the gospel of Luke to speak of His suffering. The first is found in Luke 12. There, Jesus says:

⁵⁰ I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!

This baptism is clearly His passion, He crucifixion and His resurrection. He will suffer, die, and rise again. This is the baptism of His suffering and death. I will resist the observation that Jesus here offers a picture of immersion because that is not the point…even though it is true! Rather, notice the language that speaks of the anguish of His heart: “to be baptized with” and “how great is my distress.” He will undergo this, though willingly, and the reality of it weighed heavy upon His heart. This fully-God-and-fully-man Jesus suffered.

Perhaps more well-known is the metaphor we find in Luke 22, in Gethsemane. Watch:

⁴¹ And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, ⁴² saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” ⁴³ And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. ⁴⁴ And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Here the sufferings of Jesus are depicted as “this cup,” which is an image of divine judgment or wrath elsewhere in scripture. Notice as well the corollary realities of Jesus’ suffering: (1) He asks that the cup might be removed if the Father is willing. (2) An angel “strengthens” Him. (3) He is said to be “in agony.” (4) His sweat “became like great drops of blood.” Here we see the intensity of the suffering of Jesus.

Note that both of these metaphors—baptism and cup—are articulated before the scourging and the cross! Jesus suffered in a way we cannot imagine.

Jesus’ suffering arose from His clash with the powers, both earthly and spiritual.

We offer a second point, simply and relatively briefly, and it is this: Jesus’ suffering arose from His clash with the powers, both earthly and spiritual. The Apostles’ Creed lists very few names, and it is fascinating that Pilate is one of them. Theologian Michael Bird, who called Pilate “a thug in a toga,” observes:

Consider this: Pontius Pilate, a second-tier Roman aristocrat sent to a backwater Roman province, is the only other person besides Jesus and Mary named in the ancient creeds of the Christian churches[1]

Why is this? It is likely intended to ground the suffering of Jesus in concrete history. That is, Jesus really did suffer as a man at a particular place and in a particular time and before a particular governmental power. In this sense, Pilate, as a representative of the dominant world power, is essentially a symbol of all the world powers. The fallen world opposes the Kingdom of God and seeks to silence it. In Matthew 11, Jesus speaks of this dynamic when He says:

¹² From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.

Yes, “the violent” of the world seek to destroy the Kingdom of God since the Kingdom opposes all that the world holds dear and wants to control. But the sufferings of Jesus are not only related to His collision with the earthly powers. They are also related to the spiritual powers. In Ephesians 6, Paul delineates these powers when he writes to the believers in Ephesus:

¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

The Kingdom, then, is opposed by both earthly powers and spiritual powers, by local powers and “cosmic powers.” The sufferings of Jesus—while embraced by virtue of Jesus’ incarnation and giving of Himself on the cross and not inflicted, as if the lesser powers could even assail the Lord God—arose in the matrix of the clash between the kingdoms: the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness.

Jesus’ suffering was redemptive and restorative for us.

The reality and context of Jesus’ sufferings being established, we must now consider this important question: Why did Jesus suffer? And to this, scripture gives a number of fascinating answers.

Because Jesus suffered, He truly fulfilled all righteousness.

In order to die as a perfect sacrifice and as a true substitute for humanity, it was necessary that Christ Jesus experience the full gamut of human experience while not abandoning the perfection necessary for Him to be “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). It was not enough for Jesus to experience heat and cold and hunger and fullness and physical growth and human relationality, etc. He must experience suffering as well. In this way, He could truly be shown to be the obedient and perfect Son and therefore die as a fit sacrifice in our place.

This point is made in a fascinating way in Hebrews 5.

⁷ In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. ⁸ Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. ⁹ And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him

Ray Stedman, who notes of these verses that “[t]he major commentators agree that they describe the experience of Jesus in the dark shadows of Gethsemane,” writes of them, “There in Gethsemane he learned how it feels to obey when such obedience only promises further pain.”[2]

The sufferings of Jesus secured our salvation, not only in the actual transaction of the cross, but, before the cross, in His anguished anticipation of it. Jesus’ suffering obedience was joined to His joyful obedience in establishing the full range of human experience. Jesus, who was fully God and fully man, knew what it was to suffer greatly (“with loud cries and tears”) and still say, “Yet not my will but Thy will be done!”

He “suffered under Pontius Pilate” is not a mere, wooden, historical fact. It is a salvific fact. Jesus could truly die in our place because Jesus had truly experienced suffering! And, through it all, He obeyed.

Because Jesus suffered, we can know that we are not alone in our own sufferings.

Hebrews 2 makes a similar point, though there is a note here of solidarity and of our companionship with Jesus in our sufferings.

¹⁴ Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, ¹⁵ and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. ¹⁶ For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. ¹⁷ Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. ¹⁸ For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Jesus “is able to help those who are being tempted” “because he himself has suffered when tempted.” Jesus was tempted by the devil and tempted throughout His earthly life, it is true. But he was also tempted in the sufferings of the cross. The temptation there would have been to abandon the cross, to avoid the cross, to call down angels of vengeance upon those crucifying Him. But He did not. He suffered and stayed true to the call upon His life. As a result, Jesus “is able to help” us.

How so? By saving us, first and foremost, but also by standing with us when we suffer. Because Jesus suffered, we can know that we are not alone in our own sufferings.

What a help it is to know that we do not suffer alone! What a help it is to lay in a hospital bed or stand broken-hearted in a cemetery or hear the prison doors shut hard behind us and then look up and see the cross! When a comfort it is to know that our God is not unmoved. He knows what human suffering is. He has experienced it!

Jesus can help you in your suffering!

In 2007, Stuart Townend and Mark Edwards penned these words in their hymn, “There is a Hope”:

There is a hope that lifts my weary head,
A consolation strong against despair,
That when the world has plunged me in its deepest pit,
I find the Saviour there!
Through present sufferings, future’s fear,
He whispers ‘courage’ in my ear.
For I am safe in everlasting arms,
And they will lead me home.[3]

He is with you, Christian, especially in your suffering.

Because Jesus suffered, we can have focus and perspective in the midst of our own sufferings.

The sufferings of Christ not only strengthen us in the midst of suffering, they also give us a focus and perspective that enables us not only to endure, but to thrive. Paul, in Philippians 3, writes:

⁷ But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— ¹⁰ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

This is a quite astonishing passage of scripture. Paul writes that he has truly given up everything for Jesus. He has “suffered the loss of all things” without regretting the loss. On the contrary, Paul “count[s] them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.” It is as if Paul takes whatever riches he had, drops them all at the foot of the cross, and proclaims, “Here! I care nothing for those things anymore! Just give me Jesus!”

But it is more than even this. Paul is not asking merely for salvation here. No, he wants to know “the power of his resurrection,” it is true, but he also desires to “share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.” In this way, Paul writes, He may “attain the resurrection from the dead.” If he dies unto himself, in other words, Paul believes he will live!

It is fascinating to place these words from Philippians 3 alongside the passages from Hebrews we considered. In Hebrews, the text seems to be saying, “Christ suffered in order to identify with us.” In Philippians, Paul seems to be saying, “I desire to share in His sufferings so that I can identify with Him.” And if the church is the body of Christ, should this not be the case, that we would take the cross willingly because our Savior did so?

Let us be clear that we are not speaking of some sort of masochistic desire for suffering in the abstract. Rather, we are simply saying that we desire to follow our King, and the steps of our King went to a cross. If our King suffered, we will suffer alongside Him to know Him.

This has radical implications for the way that Christians suffer. Because Jesus suffered, we can have focus and perspective in the midst of our own sufferings. The perspective we have is this: if the Son of God worked His greatest work through the means of human suffering, what amazing work might God do through our own? Jesus, in other words, redeems suffering and shows us that it is not the bitter fruit of a nihilistic, atheistic disorder. Instead, the God who is good and who loves us works even through our pain to create beautiful things!

We need not live our lives, then, with a frantic and fearful debilitating dread of suffering. We should not seek it in the abstract, to be sure, but neither must we fear it if it comes. Our Savior went to a cross. Our Savior saves us through His life and through His suffering and death. Suffering is the school in which we learn what it is to love the Father like Jesus does.

Because Jesus suffered, we can now be saved.

Above all else, we are saved through the sufferings of Jesus. In Hebrews 13 we read:

¹² So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. ¹³ Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.

We are sanctified, made holy, purchased, redeemed, through the sufferings of Jesus. His cross is our life. His shed blood is our salvation.

He “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” That is true. And He did so “in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.” So we have the call: “Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.” Let us, in other words, flee to the cross that is our salvation, to the Savior who is our very life!

We began by considering the film “A Hidden Life” about Franz Jägerstätter. Jägerstätter’s last recorded words on August 9, 1943, before being beheaded by guillotine, were these: “I am completely bound in inner union with the Lord”.

Jägerstätter could say that because he was willing to suffer for Jesus. But he could say that in a deeper sense because Jesus was willing to suffer for Jägerstätter.

“Suffered under Pontius Pilate.”

And the church says, “Amen!”

 

[1] Bird, Michael F. What Christians Ought to Believe. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2016), p.120, 122.

[2] Stedman, Ray C. Hebrews. The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Series Editor Grant R. Osborne. Vol. 15 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992), p.65.

[3] https://www.stuarttownend.co.uk/song/there-is-a-hope/