The Sacrament of Suffering?

Pain and suffering are terrible and unfortunate realities of human existence. People are constantly struggling with the awful reality of suffering and are forever thwarted in their attempts to understand it. Some people try to justify the existence of suffering by various means; God wills it, naturalism, character building, etc. I think this is looking at the problem of suffering all wrong. It is a self-evident truth that suffering sucks, I mean, is not the definition of suffering, "A situation that sucks?" Well, maybe not quite, but a property of suffering is definitely its distinct lack of fun. 

Yet how does one maintain that suffering is an awful thing, and then rationalize Scripture that exhorts believers to rejoice in their suffering. Jesus suffered immensely on Calvary, and what he accomplished through his death and resurrection has brought saving grace to the world. Christ is the archetype of Christian behavior, we strive to be like him in all ways; this is made possible through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus also lets us know that, just as the world hated him, so too will they hate us because we come from him. Suffering therefore should be an anticipated and familiar phenomena to Christians.

This still does not explain why Christians should necessarily rejoice in suffering. Here is a thought, perhaps suffering should be viewed as a sort of sacrament. When we suffer in the flesh we join together with the suffering of Christ, the apostles, and all of the various Christian martyrs throughout the ages. We participate in the suffering of Christ and thus also in the saving grace that came as a result of Christ's bloody work on the cross. This indeed is cause for rejoicing, we are participating in Christ's suffering and also becoming more Christ like. 

Viewing suffering as a sacrament makes it a lot easier for me to understand why I should rejoice in it. I was always raised with suffering be explained away as being for character building or some similar higher purpose, which always fostered a sort of, "grin and bear it" mentality in me. A sacramental understanding of suffering easily allows me to identify with the disciples who rejoiced for being found worthy to suffer disgrace for the sake of the gospel!