“Christ never promises peace in the sense of no more struggle and suffering. Instead, he helps us to struggle and suffer as he did, in love, for one another.” -Frederick Buechner

What is it “to struggle and suffer as he did, in love, for one another”? The writer doesn’t explain it so I’d like to offer the following.

If we define love by substituting the word helpfulness I think we get a better idea of what Jesus’ love is all about. Jesus loved his friends and his enemies. That is to say, he did everything divinely possible to help each one experience and respond to the goodness of God. In his presence no one — friend or foe — is helped any less or any more than anyone else.

So what was it about such complete helpfulness that generated struggle and unspeakable suffering in him? It had to do with coming face to face with how utterly deceived people were. They all had satanic lies imbedded in their hearts regarding God’s goodness and lies about what would happen to them if they were unwilling to try and make sense of what he was teaching and doing.

Think of it this way.

Suppose you are visiting a remote island. Aside from a rare few who know a smattering of english, the natives only speak their native tongue.

You are on the beach soaking in the sun. Many native people around you are going about their daily business — some are fishing, others are working on various crafts and trade work, children are running about and playing games.

Suddenly someone from your travel group comes racing down the beach to you. He frantically explains that there’s been a massive earthquake out in the ocean. An enormous tsunami is headed towards shore. In short order, half the island will be inundated. You must get to higher ground immediately.

You look around and are instantly distressed for all the native people milling about. They know nothing of what’s coming.

It’s simply unthinkable to you to just flee the area to higher ground leaving them all to perish.

But can you imagine the struggle and suffering in your soul while trying to communicate to them the horror of what’s coming? Your frantic efforts would likely become such a spectacle as to give them the impression that you’d lost your mind.

And so with matters of eternity. We will never experience anything more than a subatomic particle of how much Jesus cares for people, but even just that will result in struggle and suffering throughout our lives as we reach out to people fooled by satan. And the more care in our hearts, the greater will be our heartache.

However, heartache does not have the final say:

“For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.” — 2 Corinthians 1:5 (CSB)

And just as in his moments of greatest anguish we read that “an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him” (Luke 22:43 NIV) so with each of us, “…the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” (1 Peter 5:10NIV)