“Misery Loves Company” Brad Jersak
“In misery, Euphues, it is a great comfort to have a companion.”
– John Lyly, Eupheues (1578)
Faustus: “Stay, Mephistopheles, and tell me, what good will my soul do thy lord?”
Mephistopheles: “Enlarge his kingdom.”
Faustus: “Is that the reason why he tempts us thus?”
Mephistopheles: “Solamen misers socios habuisse doloris.” (2.1.38-41)
– Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus (1592)
“For that is commonly said, that companions in misery are a comfort one to another.”
– John Huygen van Linschoten, His discourse of voyages into ye Easte & West Indies (1598)
“I’m glad to see you, stranger – misery loves company.”
– Alphonso Westmore, The Pedlar (1820)
Question:
How does Christ’s suffering with us deliver us from suffering if we’re still suffering?
Response:
Let’s use a practical example. Think of those precious friends whose love for us is so deep that when we suffer, they feel our pain, weep, and mourn with us. We call that kind of love “empathy” (literally, suffering with). As the hands and feet and eyes and ears and heart of the Body of Christ, they embody Christ’s presence. In and through such friends, through his Body, Christ suffers with us as we suffer.
Under those circumstances, the very real part of our suffering—related to grief, loss, and pain common to the human condition—may not change immediately. Well, of course, they will change eventually. They will pass through us and over us, but we will suffer them. And Christ and our friends will suffer them with us.
But, but, but also… with an empathetic companion, other aspects of our suffering (that I call affliction)—such as meaninglessness, hopelessness, isolation, alienation—are transfigured and healed so that we can experience love, joy, hope, peace, and presence, even in our suffering. This is the part of our suffering that Christ’s co-suffering does, in fact, deliver us. Those are the wounds that his wounds heal.
I experienced that kind of deliverance recently through an encouraging message from a dear mentor. Despite facing his own mortality—and perhaps because of his suffering—he could co-suffer with me as Christ does. In that moment, I did not feel alone, isolated, or left desolate. That’s how I experience deliverance in Christ’s co-suffering love.
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