By Courtney Ropp, Coordinator for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Scripture: Isaiah 50:4-9 (NRSV)
In his autobiography, Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl talks about his experience in concentration camps. He depicts graphic scenes of the horrors that took place and starving, gaunt bodies, and haunted eyes. He knew suffering. He himself was experiencing it. And yet, each morning he arose, called to purpose. Each day he worked to encourage, listen and care for his fellow survivors. In his time in the concentration camp, he began to realize that those who found purpose for their suffering, no longer called it suffering, and while painful, it was no longer all consuming. He shared this vision with those around him. They found purpose in supporting and encouraging one another in the very bleakest of circumstances. These were the ones who survived.
As I read this scripture and reflect on the story Frankl told, I am reminded of the purpose Jesus had in His life on earth and that He calls each of us to. In those moments of pain, suffering, and seamingly bleak circumstances He calls us to remember purpose and community. This is a purpose of freedom, love, hope and sharing it with the world around us. Jesus’s purpose was to set us free out of His love for us. He promises that we will not be put to shame as we look to him and remember the hope that he is calling us to. Even when all seems bleak- when there is war, famine, the earth fading away, and death around us, we are to remember Him as our helper and sustainer, the One that does not change and offers life, purpose and hope ESPECIALLY in the midst of pain and suffering. As Henri Nouwen writes, “life is a continuing process of the death of the old and the familiar and being reborn again into a new hope, a new trust, and a new love.”
Scripture: Isaiah 50:4-9 (NRSV)
The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. 5The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. 6I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. 7The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; 8he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. 9It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty? All of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.