Why Suffer?
Shivering, burning, sweating, moaning. The fever has run through your whole household, and the only reason you're alive is a neighbor moved in. He cooked, cleaned, drew water, and washed the soiled bedding. But in nursing your family back to life, he caught the disease that will end his. His final words were, "Your humble servant bids you good-bye." Dionysius, the Bishop of Alexandria, watched this happen as a plague tore through his city in the third century. When everyone else ran away, Christians cared for the infected. An "empty courtesy," he wrote, had become true.
Hebrews 12:1-13
So then, a great cloud of witnesses stands all around us. Let us cast off every weight and the sin that clings so tightly. Let us run with endurance the race marked out for us, our eyes fixed on Jesus, the trailblazer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, disregarded its shame, and took his seat at the right hand of God's throne. Consider him who endured such hostility from the sinners set against him, so that you will not wear out and lose heart. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted all the way to shedding your blood. And you have forgotten the encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not shrug off the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he sets you straight, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and reprimands every son he welcomes as his own." Endure it as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is never disciplined by his father? If you are without the discipline that everyone experiences, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Besides, we had our own human fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. How much more, then, should we submit to the Father of spirits and live? They disciplined us for a short while, as best they knew how, but he does it for our good, to give us a share in his holiness. No discipline seems enjoyable at the time; it hurts. Yet later it produces a peaceful harvest of right living to those it has trained. So lift up your sagging hands, strengthen your buckling knees, and clear a straight track for your feet, so that what is lame may not be wrenched out of joint but healed instead.
When I ran track, I cared about the weight of my shoes. Without much natural talent, I needed every advantage I could get. As our legs and lungs burned from the exertion, our teammates' cheering helped us keep going. If we take this much care to win athletic competitions, why not give greater care to how we run the race of life? When everyone else is competing to get ahead, God wants us to see how Jesus ran his race. He ignored the shame and the suffering; his attention was fixed on his joyful future. He wanted to be with God in glory. The pastor who wrote this passage covers three obstacles to running like Christ. The first is our sin, which holds onto us even as we try to shake it off. Resisting sin is a matter of life-or-death. Under persecution, believers must choose between apostasy and martyrdom. In prosperity, we must choose between easy comfort and sacrificial love. I often get discouraged that I have not yet overcome my many sins. How can I teach the Bible and still have sin holding onto me? But the pastor who wrote Hebrews understood this battle is brutal. Only Jesus ran the race without sin. We can trust that one day, he will make us perfect, too. The second obstacle is our natural desire to avoid pain. Sometimes I go to a pastry shop in my workout clothes. I should be at the gym, but I want a croissant more. Most of us want to be comfortable more than we want to be like Christ. This passage reframes everything: discipline isn't a sign that God is ignoring us, but that he cares about us. We know the Father loves the Son, and the Son went to the cross. So how should we expect our heavenly Father to treat us? First-century disciples of Jesus had hard questions for their leaders: if Jesus has saved us and loves us, why are we losing our jobs, and sometimes, even our lives? The pastoral answer of this chapter is that the suffering is evidence of Sonship. That might seem like it excludes women, but consider that both women and men are now called God's sons. Every disciple is given the honor that was previously understood to be only for sons. Nor is there any spiritual bypassing. The discipline hurts. It is unwanted. But the benefit is to share in God's holiness. Instead of violence, we choose peace; instead of evil, righteousness. The third problem is trying to follow Jesus by ourselves. When we are limping in our faith, it's hard to confess our struggles. In the 2026 Boston marathon, Ajay Haridasse collapsed about 1000 feet short of the finish line. Dozens of runners sprinted past him, but then Aaron Beggs and Robson De Oliveira sacrificed their own race times to stop, lift him up, and carry him to the end. On social media, De Oliveira explained, "two are stronger than one. I'm grateful to God for the strength He gave us in that moment." God gathers not only a great cloud of witnesses to cheer us on, but the very present help of one another as we follow Jesus together. The Christians in Alexandria lost their lives, but they finished their race with joy. The plague decimated their bodies even as their Heavenly Father shared his holiness with them. As they laid down their lives for their neighbors, they looked ahead to the everlasting joy that would soon be theirs.
What do we learn about Jesus that he endured the cross for the sake of joy?
Has a difficult season ever shaped you to be like Jesus in a way that you couldn't understand at the time?
When you're limping in your faith, what makes it hard to let other Christians help you?
Tell Jesus about one place you're struggling to run after him. If you have someone trustworthy to talk to, let them know where you're having a hard time.