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As Easter approaches, I will be reflecting on the 7 “words” or sayings that Jesus spoke from the cross. My words count for very little but his are worth hearing.

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At Easter, Christians like me gather to celebrate that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by Roman soldiers on a hill outside Jerusalem. We even call it “Good” Friday.

Weird right?

The gospels record him hanging on a cross, between two criminals, a crown of thorns piercing his brow and his body covered in blood, the skin of his back torn open from flogging and his bodyweight borne by the nails piercing his hands and feet.

As this sorry figure hung there, he was not just despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and personally acquainted with grief. Perhaps if this is all he was, his words from the cross might still be worth noting. A case-study in human suffering.

But Christian belief goes much further. That he is God himself in the flesh. This voice that speaks to us from the cross is the same that spoke creation into being. The hands held down and nailed, once placed the stars in the sky. 

Who cares?

People rightly ask of Christians “Where is God in a world full of suffering?” Or to bring it from the global right down to the personal; “Where is God in the midst of my suffering?”

These questions are 100% valid and must be asked if we dare to speak of a God who loves. Suffering is real. The loss, tragedy and grief you have known is as real as it gets. The human heart feels few things as keenly as sorrow.

The renowned Professor of Neonatology and Ethics at UCL, John Wyatt, remarks:

“Suffering is not a question which demands an answer, it’s not a problem which demands a solution…

It’s a mystery which demands a presence”

I’m not naïve enough to think I can solve this mystery in a series of short, seasonal reflections. But this idea of “a presence“ which is demanded by suffering, is perhaps something you have experienced in your own life.

The friend who sat quietly with you as the tears streamed. The parent who held you tightly when your heart was breaking. The loved one who unwaveringly went through it all by your side, and is there still.

Indeed Jesus himself, on the night before his crucifixion, sought the presence of his friends. “Overwhelmed with sorrow, to the point of death,” he asked them to stay and keep watch with him.

We can be comforted by a presence in the midst of suffering.

The presence

And this is one of the great hopes and comforts of the Christian faith. The presence of God himself. In our lives and in our trials. But not in the abstract sense of God being there because God is everywhere. His presence is much closer and more palpable than that.

When Jesus was born, he was given the name Emmanuel, meaning “God with us”.

God. With. Us.

God actually with us. In the flesh. Here with us on earth. Not high in the sky or remote in a far-off heaven. No, down here with us on this little old earth where we live and love and lose.

And not just with us geographically, but with us experientially too. Our God knows what it is like to be human and to suffer. Not just because he is God, and gods know everything, but because he hangs on that cross, experiencing the deepest depths of physical, emotional and spiritual agony imaginable. Because of this, his experience and his scars can speak to our own.

He knows how it feels because he has felt it too.

So, as he speaks these 7 “words” from the cross, do not hear them as an academic observation on the subject of suffering, nor as words spoken by a detached God who speaks from a heavenly bliss, but hear them spoken by a voice made raw by the agonies of a crucifixion. It was for the cause of love and mercy, that their speaker underwent such public humiliation.

“Where is God in a world full of suffering?”

This Easter, I want us to see that one place God has been in the midst of a suffering world is in it. Himself suffering with it and ultimately for it.

From this starting place perhaps the mystery will deepen. Maybe it will initially make no sense at all.

But it is my personal testimony that knowing this presence; His presence, in the midst of the real pain of life, can change it forever. Both the hurt of your past, and the trials yet to come. This God who can and does empathise with you in your suffering, speaks to you from the midst of his.

So I hope that you might find some hope and comfort in realising His presence this Easter as you consider Jesus’ dying words. Hear them for yourself and hear him say to you in the midst of your own suffering:

I am here for you.

The words of Jesus spoken from the cross: