Written by Joel Stucki, a contemporary writer.
It is more pleasant to focus on the result of Jesus’ death than the actual event, or to focus on the resurrection instead of the crucifixion (disclaimer: I am not downplaying the resurrection here; please bear with me!). It may be nice to imagine a world without the Fall of Man. But if we do not engage with pain as pain, if we deny or trivialize the evil that Jesus overcame, then we dilute the gospel message itself. If we speak only of the apparent defeat, then we speak as those who have no hope. But if we speak only of the victory of the resurrection, we deny the evil, the pain, and the suffering of Jesus and of those who followed him. That is sentimentality at its worst. Consider a time of suffering in your own life. Were you ever truly lifted from it by some pithy axiom like “every cloud has a silver lining,” or “when God closes a door, he opens a window?” Probably not. More likely you were helped by someone who was willing to enter your pain and walk through it with you, rather than someone trying to cheer you up right away. We must be willing to absorb the horror of the depths to which the love of God will descend in order to redeem. We need to live in the moment of the scriptural narrative instead of constantly indulging our desire to “fast-forward to the good stuff.” Why? Because that’s life. That’s reality. That is the world that Jesus Christ came to save. If we do not engage with and understand our need for him, and the world’s need, then how can we properly value what he offers?
In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. [Hebrews 2:10]
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