Sermon Blog
Endurance, the Christian’s Portion
March 28, 2024
Is there a pattern to life? Certainly, there are stages of life – infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, retirement and advanced age. Some are marked by more difficulty than others. But for the individual, the particular difficulties may come at any time and last for any duration. The pattern of the Christian life, according to St. John Henry Newman, is entirely different from the strictly biological pattern, because it is based on a different premise. The Christian does not assume peace and comfort marked by periodic or spontaneous suffering, but rather trial and difficulty are the rule. And he does not face these trials with uncertainty, but with unwavering confidence in victory. The Christian expects suffering, but also expects to come through it in the pattern of Christ.
This Christian pattern is so upside down that Jesus’ own disciples resisted it vehemently. When Jesus says He must suffer and die, then Peter rebukes Him and tells Him this will not happen, and Jesus replies, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men” (Matt. 16:23). Peter, like all the disciples, believed Jesus would bring about a political revolution and establish an earthly kingdom. The Gospels regularly record the disciples arguing about who would have the greatest title in the kingdom and the mother of two of Jesus’ disciples even asks for special places of honor for her sons, one on His right and the other on His left. Jesus’ response to them is the same as his to Peter – “you know not what you ask for. You will drink the same cup of suffering I drink from, for the servant is not greater than his master. You will also bear the cross.”
To meet obstacles and trouble has always been the lot of those who follow the One, true God. Just as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob endured profound trials – as great and successful patriarchs as they were – so must all their children in faith follow. In “Endurance, the Christian’s Portion,” Newman comments: “Thus did Almighty God, by the instance of the patriarchs of His ancient people, remind that people themselves that this world was not their rest; thus did He foreshadow that condition of life, which is not only a lesson, but a pattern to us of our very state of life, ‘if we live godly in Christ Jesus.’”
Today, on Good Friday, we remember our Lord’s crucifixion, not as though it was a wrinkle in His otherwise peaceful earthly life, but rather as the focus and the pattern of His life. Every day, He lived as a sacrifice poured out for the whole world and every day we can enter into His sacrifice for us through the Mass. This is not a sad sacrifice – it’s called Good Friday for a reason. It is the day that death lost its sting, that sin and Satan could have no more power over us.
This pattern of trial, evidenced in all those who follow God, should not lead to a gloomy countenance or a stoic acceptance of suffering. The Christian, though beset by trial, has his eyes fixed on heaven, where St. Paul in the Letter to the Romans tells us that earthly pain cannot compare with the glory that will be revealed in us. Let’s be heavenly minded even as we think on these words: suffering is not something we merely “put up with” in order to attain heaven; no, it is through this suffering that Christ joins us to Himself. In an earlier verse, St. Paul writes: “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Rom. 8:17).
We can learn to endure, if we see that God has fashioned the whole pattern of our life – joys and sufferings – to conform to His purpose: our salvation. We can be confident of our own victory, for we know that Christ has already won. That’s why He told us, and we must remember: “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).
