Overcoming Physical Pain, Emotional Trauma, and Spiritual Abandonment

Overcoming the physical, emotional and spiritual challenges we face in life sums up the totality of existence for some believers. However, we serve a risen Savior who has walked before us. He suffered every horrendous pain imaginable and He provided us with the tools to overcome whatever challenge in these areas that might come our way.

[pullquote]Jesus suffered while He was here. He suffered unjustly. He paid what should have been our penalty.[/pullquote]

In the prayer Jesus prayed in John Chapter 17, He made a statement about us. He said that we are in the world, but we aren’t of the world (John 17:16). The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in us (Romans 8:11).

Being in the world means that we are subjected to some of the same things that the non-Christian is subject to. The defining difference should be the power of God in us to overcome the things that we’re subjected to in this world.

Jesus suffered while He was here. He suffered unjustly. He paid what should have been our penalty. I don’t know about you but if someone purchased something for me, I’m not going to purchase the item as well. To do so, firstly would be stupid. And secondly, it would dishonor the person who cared enough for me to foot the bill on my behalf.

How Did Jesus Suffer?

Let’s look at the text in Mark 15. I think Mark shows us three primary ways Jesus suffered in the text. Jesus endured physical pain, emotional trauma, and spiritual abandonment. Let’s walk through each of the 3 ways Jesus suffered on our behalf.

After his arrest, very early in the morning Jesus is brought to Pontius Pilate by the high council of Jewish religious leaders to be tried for his claims to be the actual Son of God and for making himself out to be a King. During the trial, it becomes clear to Pilate that Jesus is innocent (Mark 15:14), and that the chief priests are envious of this upstart teacher & revolutionary (as they said). However, Pilate bends to the will of the crowd, sentencing Jesus to death by crucifixion – a punishment Jesus clearly did not deserve, but one fitting for treason against Rome. As was customary prior to a Roman execution, Pilate first has Jesus scourged.

Physical Pain

Scourging was an incredibly painful torture inflicted by a whip with multiple leather cords that would commonly have bits of sheep bone and sharp pieces of metal embedded throughout. This instrument was designed to inflict maximum pain and blood loss, as each lash would have ripped out large pieces of flesh, essentially exposing the skeletal muscles completely. With his hands tied to a post, Jesus endured this horrific pain at the hands of Roman soldiers as a crowd of onlookers watched. And like many other things on this day, Jesus had known this was coming – specifically predicting flogging to the disciples in Mark 10:34.

After the flogging, Jesus has lost a massive amount of blood. His back has been literally ripped to shreds, and he would have been incredibly weak. At this point, Roman soldiers drag him away to the governor’s palace, where they commence a new level of mockery and humiliation.  Twisting together a crown of thorns, they ram the symbol of the curse given to Adam down on to the head of the second Adam. With fresh blood now running down Jesus’ face, the soldiers begin to beat him over the head with a mock scepter, driving the thorns even deeper into his temples and forehead. When the horrific ordeal was complete, they rip off the mock royal robe and lead him outside the city walls to Golgotha, the Hill of the Skull.

And now, already weakened and bloodied to a state barely recognizable, Jesus is to be crucified. Again and again, Jesus is fulfilling Scripture.  In Isaiah 52, written hundreds of years before this moment, the prophet had written: “many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind…”  Jesus has truly been marred beyond resemblance.  And now, for the crucifixion. Today, when you hear the word crucifixion, you probably instantly think of Jesus. But back then, this was a method of torture, humiliation, and execution that ancient Rome had used liberally on non-citizens, criminals who would threaten Roman rule. It was a death reserved for the absolute dregs of humanity.

Writing in the first century, Mark would not have had to explain crucifixion to his audience. But we don’t live in a time where this is a commonplace event. After being forced to carry the horizontal cross-beam through the streets, Jesus collapses, requiring a random stranger from the crowd named Simon to carry it the rest of the way. At the top of the hill, Jesus is thrown down on his back, exacerbating his already open wounds. They grab his hands, place iron stakes over his wrist joint, and drive these giant nails into them. He is lifted up and affixed to the vertical beam, now forming the familiar “T” of the cross, where his feet are now nailed as well.

The cause of death in a crucifixion was typically suffocation. With the entire weight of your body hanging by your wrists, you cannot properly exhale. Suffice it to say that for the next six hours, every single breath Jesus takes is literally excruciating. The cumulative physical suffering and pain Jesus endures throughout this execution is some of the worst imaginable in human existence. While it’s important for us to understand the flesh and blood reality of what Jesus went through, yet there is a pattern of psychological and emotional suffering in this text that is perhaps even worse.

Emotional Trauma

And so we move to our second vantage point within our initial heading of how Jesus suffered: the emotional trauma. We’re going to rewind the scene back to 6AM and watch this unfold from a new perspective.

First, Jesus is rejected by the religious leaders (v1-5). He is brought before Pilate and accused of many things – many of which were false.  Have you ever been accused of something you didn’t do? You know that instinct of self-defense and justification that wells up in you? Jesus feels that temptation, and promptly crushes it, faithfully trusting the plan He and the Father have set out upon. He knows this is how it must be… but it hurts to hear your name, your reputation, dragged through the mud, and to allow it to happen. It hurts especially because these priests and leaders are the ones charged by God to shepherd and protect his people, to guide them towards truth and help them listen to Him. And now the God-man is standing in their midst, and they spit on him, literally and figuratively, completely rejecting his gracious rule.

Next, Jesus is rejected by the government (v6-15).  He’s brought before Pilate, and you think he might actually get justice. But no, Pilate’s cowardice before the people results in a rejection for Jesus here as well. The true high King of the universe suffers injustice at the hand of a system designed to protect justice. Injustice, being treated unfairly, cuts to the core of the human soul.

Then, Jesus is rejected by the people (v13-15). The same Jewish crowds who had lined the streets with palm branches and seemingly accepted their Messiah shouting, “Hosanna!  Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” as he rode into the city on the donkey, now turn on him completely. Given the choice between a convicted murderer and the sinless giver of life, the people reject Jesus for Barabbas. This signals the kind of king they had wanted Jesus to be – one who would storm in and throw off Roman rule. Instead, the crowds of people that Jesus taught, healed, fed, and ultimately came to save would send him to die. And again, here we can understand how painful the disapproval and disdain of others can be, even though we may not have experienced the outright hatred of a mob. On the cross, Jesus is even rejected by the criminals sentenced on either side of him. And his disciples are nowhere to be found.

Spiritual Abandonment

As the rejection builds, we move into the third vantage point on how Jesus suffered….spiritual abandonment. As awful as the physical torment, and as degrading and humiliating the emotional rejection by each successive party… the reason Jesus’ death was different from any others before or since comes in verse 33.  “And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.  (Literally the sun stopped shining for three hours in the middle of the day.  Darkness like this in Scripture carries with it a meaning of divine judgement). And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Now I don’t think we will be able to fully understand the mystery of what this means. But we know on some level that Jesus was forsaken. He was abandoned, deserted, stranded by God Himself, and he felt an intense pain of loss and loneliness in the core of his soul.

Our Overcoming, Victorious Savior

As Jesus breathed His last on that cross, He went into the bowels of the earth. He did battle with the enemy, and 3 days later He emerged with the keys of death, hell and the grave. This same Jesus is currently seated at the right hand of the Father. So with thoughts of our overcoming Savior in mind I have 3 questions for you.

• Is Jesus currently in physical pain?
• Is Jesus currently scarred emotionally?
• Is Jesus currently holding a grudge against the Father for abandoning him at the cross?

Admittedly, my questions are a little facetious, but I want to make a point here. Of course the answer to all of the above is NO. But if He is in us and we are in Him, how is it that we so easily put up with physical pain in our bodies? Why do we allow deep emotional scars to fester and cause us to live lives full of bitterness? How come we walk around holding grudges against people who have wronged us?

You might argue by saying “Jesus was God manifested in the flesh. He has the ability to walk in strength and power that we don’t have”. While I value you opinion, I’d have to disagree with that statement. In Christ, we have the power at our disposal to walk in a realm far above that of a natural man without Christ.

His victory is our victory. We have the same spirit within us that raised Christ from the dead living on the inside of us (Romans 8:11). And if that wasn’t enough, the scripture says “as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).

If Jesus isn’t currently in pain. If he’s not walking around emotionally scarred. If he isn’t holding grudges for all that He endured on our behalf, then what justification do we have in holding on to the baggage we may be packing around?

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