Suffer

With what anguish and loss
Jesus went to the cross
And He carried my sins with Him there

I am a fan of the sci-fi programme Dr. Who, which his been in existence for over fifty years. An important key to its longevity is the concept of regeneration. Here the lead actor goes through a deadly situation that costs him so much of his life that he employs a method of starting afresh through regeneration. He emerges as a new man.

A good regeneration story heightens the degree of sacrifice and suffering that the Doctor must endure to cause the regeneration. He may give up the last of a life-saving concoction to someone he hardly knows to save them. He may absorb a significant amount of fatal radiation to save an old man. He may live until he breaths his last to defend a small nondescript village and his own people.

Whatever it is, he is heroic in suffering great agony to the last for the sake of others.

In countries around the world, followers of Jesus Christ are likewise enduring great hardship, suffering and pain to the point of death itself, for the sake of proclaiming and demonstrating the gospel of Jesus Christ. They see loved ones tortured and killed before their eyes as condoned by the ruling government of the day. They are robbed of their livelihoods and are rejected by the community for what they believe. In it all they refuse to hate their tormentors, they decline the chance to be bitter at those who betray them, they give up any right for hatred to live the love poured into them by the Holy Spirit.

As with Abel, their sacrifice does not go without recompense. Their shed blood is not for nothing. Their suffering is not fruitless. The blood of the martyrs remain precious in the sight of God.

Indeed they can endure and rejoice because as they suffer they recall their example who took the sins of the world with Him all the way to the cross. As He suffered, so He knew His followers would suffer. Yet in the suffering, endurance would bring with it the crown of life, and eternity with the Father and Son in glorified bodies.

That hope, that knowledge and that amazing love helps believers to endure the suffering. For even in this death, there is a regeneration to come far more glorious than the Doctor’s thanks to the Great Physician.

For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden