Episode Transcript  

One

The Suffering of John the Baptist

You may be suffering today. Or someone you love. It may be something temporary or chronic, or terminal. There may be no human remedy. And very naturally, you may feel, as I often do, abandoned and bewildered. John the Baptist probably felt the same.

John lived a holy life. He spoke out when no one else would, when King Herod took his brother’s wife as his own. John said, “This is wrong, it’s adultery.” So, Herod arrested John and threw him into a very nasty prison. Probably had him chained to a wall. Very little, if any, food or water. Rats, fleas, lice, all the usual cellmates. And darkness. Lots of darkness. I am certain John experienced great physical, mental, and emotional suffering waiting for his impending execution. 

Then, in Matthew 11, from his prison cell, John sends a few of his disciples who came to visit him to go and ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or have we got to wait for someone else?” Basically, I think John was confused about the plan. He was probably thinking, “Wait, I did what was right, why am I suffering for this? Jesus, I don’t understand what you are doing.”

Why does God allow suffering? Why is it part of the plan?

Two

Why does God allow suffering?

God did not create suffering. We brought it into the world by sin, by our rebellion against God. Suffering and death are consequences of humanity’s choice to sin. God allows evil and its consequence, suffering, because He respects our freedom, and because suffering has a purpose, it purifies, strengthens, and expands the soul to receive more of God. 

So, if we or a loved one is suffering, then we should do all we can to remedy it. And when we can’t change it, we are invited to accept it with trust because we know that God works all things for good for those who love Him. We are invited to accept it with trust, and that trust becomes the key to transformation.

Three

That is all great theology…

But I still resist suffering, and I don’t want my loved ones to suffer. So, I beg God to take it away. He doesn’t. And I am angry and afraid and discouraged. What is God doing?

Okay, here we need the insight of John of the Cross. He reminds us that God has a greater plan for our lives than we do. God wants to make us like Himself. He wants us to share in His divine nature and become like God. (At least that’s what He tells us in the Bible in 1 John 3). 

There are two problems: First, I want things of this world more than I want to be like God. I have disordered attachments from which I need to be detached, purified. Second, my soul is too weak to receive God. It’s like putting new wine into old wineskins. The new wine will burst the old skins. We need new wineskins. Our soul needs to be strengthened and enlarged to receive God. 

Suffering is the greatest means to do all three, to purify, to strengthen, and to expand our souls…if we will accept it with trust. 

Four

We don’t trust the process 

John of the Cross explains why so few souls reach the goal of life, transforming union with God, and why so many require purgatory after death. The soul must be purified of disordered desires and strengthened to receive the fullness of God’s gift of Himself. God desires to give more, but we resist the process. We don’t trust the path of purification. We flee discomfort. We long for union with God, but we hesitate at the very trials that prepare us for it.

Listen to what John of the Cross says, “Here is why so few reach the happiness of perfect union with God. It’s not that God wants only a few; he wants all to be perfectly happy. But he finds few who will endure the process.  God tries them in little things and finds them so weak that they immediately flee from the process, unwilling to be subject to the least discomfort of suffering and trials, it follows that not finding them strong and faithful in suffering little things they aren’t ready for greater trials.”

“So, God proceeds no further in purifying them and raising them from the dust of the earth through the toil of self-denial. They need greater fortitude.”

“There are many who desire and pray to be good and holy. Yet when God takes them through the initial trials and self-denial, as is necessary, they are unwilling to suffer them and they shun them, flee from the narrow road of life and seek the broad road comfort. They are like small weak containers, for although they desire to reach a greater union with God, they do not want to be guided by the path of trials that leads to it. They hardly even begin to walk along this road by submitting to what is least, that is, to ordinary sufferings.” The Living Flame of Love, 2, 27

Five

Trust is the Key

Here is the point: Jesus knew that John the Baptist was suffering in prison and would be put to death. Jesus could have set him free and preserved him from death for a while, but Jesus wanted to give John something far greater than comfort and a longer human life. Jesus wanted to purify, strengthen, and expand the soul of John the Baptist so that he could be flooded with Divine Life, divinized, and transformed. 

As Ps 36:8 promises, “They will be inebriated from the richness of your house. And you will let them drink from the torrent of your delight.”

Do you understand that? God wants to flood your soul with the torrent of His divine life and divine pleasure. That is infinitely better than anything of this world. But we cling to the good stuff here, and it clogs our soul and keeps it small because we are as little as the things we love. By suffering, difficulties, trials, and death, God empties and purifies us of worldly desires and strengthens and expands our soul to receive the torrent of divine life. 

So if you are suffering, bewildered, angry, or discouraged. Do what you can to change it. But if you can’t solve this, take heart, God is working His process. He is flooding your soul, purifying, strengthening, and expanding. 

And what should we do? We do what John the Baptist did. John said, “He must increase, and I must decrease.” Basically, Jesus, I can’t do this. But you can. Jesus, I surrender to you. Jesus, I trust in you. 

Suggested Resolutions:

Choose one resolution for today to help you grow closer to God, or create your own. Here are some ideas to inspire you. 

• When you’re struggling throughout your day, remember that it’s an oppurtunity to grow in humility by repeating John the Baptist’s words, ““He must increase, and I must decrease.”

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