Stronger Than Pain

“‘Now when it was evening, and the sun had set, they brought to him all who were ill and who were possessed. And the whole town had gathered together at the door. And he cured many who were afflicted with various diseases, and cast out many devils; and he did not permit them to speak, because they knew him’ (Mark 1:32–34).

The picture is a moving one. The heat of the day is over, and from the mountains comes a breath of coolness. It is as though the world around Jesus were opening its heart. From all sides human suffering streams to him; on foot, on the shoulders of the sturdy, on stretchers. And Jesus walks through the flood of pain, and the power of God flows from him in a wave of healing, and the words of the prophet are fulfilled: ‘Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows’ (Is. 53:4). The Spirit within him has the power to heal—to heal from the root of the evil. He recreates original life new and unspoiled. Jesus’ salutary powers are inexhaustible—more than adequate for all the misery. He does not recoil before the wounds, the distorted limbs and faces that gather at his door. He holds his stand. He does not select, does not choose this malady as particularly urgent, that sufferer’s faith as particularly promising; he receives them all, simply, accepting each burden as it comes. His ‘Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened’ is practiced before it is preached (Matt. 11:28).

Suffering is a shoreless ocean that surged in on Jesus, tide upon tide. Has anyone seriously determined to help set out and not been so overwhelmed by what he found, that he counted himself fortunate if he managed to keep afloat? Jesus felt it all and was rocked by pity. He opened the dykes and let in the terrible flood, but he mastered it always.

We know of no word from him that reveals him as an utopian. He never even suggests that pain will be banished from the world. Still less does he exalt himself above it in transports of pity or enthusiasm. With customary realism he looks it straight in the eye; he never loses courage, never grows tired or disappointed. The sympathetic, all-comprehending heart of Jesus Christ is stronger than pain.”

~Romano Guardini