God Hidden in Suffering

As we’re making our way as a church through 2 Corinthians, we’ve been reminded that Paul’s relationship to success and suffering is quite different than our own. “If I must boast,” he declares, “I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” He points to his sufferings, weakness, and his humiliation as signs that he’s truly an apostle.

Paul doesn’t like suffering merely for its own sake, but he embraces suffering because through it he understands himself to be following his suffering savior, Jesus Christ. He is, as he explains elsewhere, sharing in the sufferings of Christ (Phil 3:10). However, it goes beyond walking the trail that Jesus blazed; it entails communion with Christ Jesus now. By faith, Christians are united to Jesus—made one with him. We are “found in him,” as Paul unpacks, “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” (Phil 3:9-10).

The sixteenth-century Reformer Martin Luther expounded Paul’s thoughts, affirming, “God can be found only in suffering and the cross.” Christ our Savior reveals God to us, and we see him was most clearly revealed to us on the cross. There, his love for us is on full display. Since God has made himself known to us in the cross, we will see him most clearly in our own sufferings and crosses. “He who does not know Christ,” Luther stipulates, “does not know God hidden in suffering.” But as we know Christ and him crucified, we will find that God meets us in our suffering.

Far from being a call to search out misery, these truths are a comfort to those enduring hardships now. We serve a Savior who has suffered for us and meets us in our suffering.