A friend of mine related a story the other day: Her grandfather had
passed away recently and left behind several grown children with
children of their own. The grandfather had been a kind man and an
inspiration and example for his relations. At his funeral and in the
days afterward the family remained gathered together, grieving. One
of the daughters who lived several states away had a son who was
thirteen and considered himself a rather mature man now that he was a
teenager. Through the funeral and into the wake this young man took
it upon himself to be “the comforter,” approaching adults
with euphemisms and a big smile, assuring them “everything
would be okay” and that “he (the grandfather) was in a
better place now.” My friend described how his behavior wasn’t
only ineffective for comforting the grieving family members, but
grossly inappropriate and almost horrifying. Her story raised the
question of how and why human suffering is so fundamentally
inapproachable. This young man was an extreme example, but most of us
have had the experience of sitting down next to someone going through
an experience we have experienced in our own life and being
completely at a loss for words. This modern example actually sheds
light upon the ancient works of Job, Oedipus, and even the Gospel of
Christ. Though these three men suffered in very different ways and to
dynamically different ends, by examining who they were, how they
suffered, and most importantly how approachable their suffering was,
one can come to a deeper understanding of each work.
By comparing the suffering of Christ to the suffering of tragic
heroes, we can see a distinct difference on several levels. The book
of Job, Oedipus Tyrannus, and the Christian Gospel all present
dynamically contrasting portraits of three men whose suffering, we
hope, can help us better understand what it means to suffer and to
what purpose it serves. Job and Oedipus are distinctly opposite in
character from Jesus, but upon deeper inquiry it is obvious that the
similarities between Job and Oedipus are greater than one might
expect. While Christ can be isolated from the three as the one man
who is suffering totally unjustly and Oedipus as the man who most
deserves suffering as retribution for his actions, the position of
Job in this spectrum is somewhat more ambiguous. Job, as the
“righteous man” (Job 1:1) guilty only by being born into
a fallen creation (Romans 5:12), falls somewhere in between the two
figures-- although upon closer analysis his seemingly ambiguous
position becomes much clearer.
Though the suffering of Christ, Job, and Oedipus is often lumped
together under the broad category of tragedy. It is important to
notice that the suffering of each of these figures is dynamically
different. Suffering can be experienced in different areas:
spiritual, physical, emotional, and social. In looking at these three
figures, Job’s suffering, though intense, was isolated to
spiritual, physical, and emotional suffering, Oedipus’s
suffering, while horrifying, was limited to emotional and social
suffering, Christ, however, suffered most completely, experiencing
physical crucifixion, spiritual separation from God, emotional
suffering as he begged for God to find another way to atone for sin,
and socially, as when the people he had come to save ordered him
crucified. A reader contemplating Job’s story for comfort might
find some comfort in the fact that God answered Job’s spiritual
suffering, but if they were suffering from social ostrization this
narrative would be of little comfort. Similarly, a person struggling
spiritually find little comfort in the fatal visions on Oedipus as he
suffered. In Christ alone is the suffering complete, and thus
comforts completely.
The areas in which these men suffered is not the only important
distinction to look at, the way Job, Oedipus, and Christ understood
purpose significantly impacting their ability to comfort and be
comforted. For Oedipus, he knows there is no purpose to his suffering
other than a fatalist vision of destiny from the hands of the God.
His community, the polis, attempted to
comfort him but ultimately, through his own suffering and exile he
was able to help the community. Job, understanding a vague but just
purpose from the hand of a righteous judge, suffered and was
inconsolable by one circle of friends. Through his suffering and
confrontation with God, job is also able to help those who tried to
comfort him, his friends, by offering appropriate sacrifices that
were appeasing to God. Finally, Christ, who understood perfectly why
he suffered and to what end his suffering would bring, suffered for
not only his friends or family or community, but for all creation.
Having suffered the deepest and widest pain, as previously discussed,
the purpose his suffering achieved was also deeper and wider than any
who had gone before or would go after.
One aspect of the eucatastophe of human suffering that was achieved
in the suffering of Christ is the fundamental approachability of his
suffering. Despite whether a person is suffering beravement, a
chronic illness, depression, social ostracization, or any other
physical, spiritual, emotional, or social problem, Christ’s
suffering is approachable and comforting. This might not immediately
strike one as a groundbreaking revelation, but who in modern life
would turn to Oedipus or Job for comfort in times of turmoil? As
inapproachable as Oedipus and Job’s suffering was in their
lifetime, so it remains. Oedipus and Job’s suffering was
incomparable, and thus fundamentally inapproachable by family and
friends. No one in Hebrew culture had observed a righteous man
bereaved, bankrupt, and covered in boils for no reason- how could his
friends begin to consol him? Oedipus suffered for a sin no one could
even think about without recoiling- committing patricide and then
bearing children with his mother- if his would-be comforters could
not even imagine suffering so great- then they were powerless to
comfort or approach his suffering. These two characters give us a
portrait of the approachability of suffering in the ancient world,
and even today. But Christ somehow shifted this paradigm, the
inconsolable suddenly became the consoler, the unbearable became the
bearer, the wounded became the healer, the outcast- the head of a
community. The inconsolability of grief and sorrow passed away
through Christ, and ushered in was a new paradigm: Though fellow
humans may never be able to comfort adequately, because Christ
suffered and overcame suffering, we constantly have available one who
can approach suffering on any level. Tragedy, and the horrifying but
relatable suffering it reminds us of, will probably never be
approachable on the human level, but we can continue to look towards
this literary genre for illumination in understanding the external
manifestations of suffering and a beacon of the bearer and conqueror
of our suffering, Jesus Christ.
