Christ Didn't Die

So You Would Needlessly Suffer

That is called Masochism. It is a mental disorder. So is a martyr complex when no one is after you.
It is no form of Love to watch or cause someone's suffering needlessly when it is within one's power to redeem them from it.
There is a twisted heresy out there which compels the view that one must suffer for the sake of suffering because Christ suffered on the Cross. Thus, the heresy goes, the more painful a course of obedience the more holy because the closer identification with Christ on the cross. If you aren't suffering it isn't love. This is as dangerous a heresy as any- and an affront to God.
If you are suffering for the sake of suffering, get over yourself. Get a job. Get a life. Get a dog.
Some suffering is intrinsic to fulfilling a greater mission, some is ridiculously self imposed to puff up pride and feel martyred without good reason. These people can be annoying, can't they?

Christ died so you would have LIFE and have it ABUNDANTLY.
Christ died so your JOY would be complete.
Christ died so you would be resurrected from the death of your mysery-even when it is largely completely self or institutionally imposed.

I sometimes have to gasp when I contemplate what Christ must think now about his Church and how they have twisted his mission statement.

In the middle ages there were the high holy "self-flagulators" who thought that they were apeasing the God of the plague by whipping themselves until they bled thinking this might fend off the plague which was viewed as a punishment. Somehow this self-flagulation by home made whips cutting into their backs was, they believed, an acceptable sacrifice and self-mortification that would appease an angry God (after all this immitated Christ's flogging prior to his crucifiction), and this is how they partook of the sufferings of the Cross.
We look at that now and consider self-mutilation or cutting an almost pagan form of mental illness. In their day the self-flagulators had quite a following. People thought that they were extremely pious holy and uber-religious. They would parade through streets whipping themselves silly and a crowd of people followed them chanting as their blood spackled the stone pathways.

What do we do now that will look ill and absurd to the people following the same God centuries from now? What do we tell ourselves is partaking of the suffering of Christ when we really are just a bit "off" as they say- in need of a bit of mental healing. What do we do that passes for religious when we really need to get a life. Seriously. Wake Up. Love and Suffering are far from synonymous.

It is sin to mistake love for suffering because Christ suffered.
Love is an action word. It mandates concrete
positive action. Matthew 25 does not state that only those who pine for the Fiords and suffer or only those who beat their passions into the ground will hurdle the goat/sheep fence. He says you must DO the Matthew 25 things to be considered a true follower of his. He doesn't say setting the altar table and getting to eat every day gets you there. He says clothe the naked, visit people in prison, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, take care of the widow, the orphan and do not mistreat the alien (foreigner), and DO justice and LOVE mercy, and all those action words. He doesn't say Suffer, immitate me getting crucified and that will earn you masochism points. He didn't say line up for the guillotine. Deprive yourself of every Joy. Live a myserly miserable tiny pathetic life to suffer, because I suffered a gruesome tortured death. He says, frankly, exactly the opposite.

That is a seriously perverse heresy. And one it is good to remember as we do our Lenten "penances." If you are suffering for the sake of suffering- get over yourself. Get a job. Get a life. Get a dog.