Bombs exploded yesterday at the Boston Marathon finish line, killing 3 and injuring more than 140. Many people are suffering today. Only four months ago, Americans were shocked by the tragedy at Sandy Hook. When such tragedies happen, all America suffers—as persons united to one another by common citizenship.
By now of course everyone knows that Rick Warren’s 27-year old son committed suicide a week ago Friday. He had struggled for years with terrible depression. When I heard the news, I wept. He was not just Rick Warrens’ son. As a member of the body of Christ, he was the son of all of us. “When one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it” (1 Cor. 12:26).
To suffer is to feel pain or distress. It can be physical or emotional. Even as it is the one thing that unites all humanity, so it unites all Christians. As I have suffered through an operation, and now chemotherapy, so many of you have asked how you can help. I know it is because you feel my pain and the pain of my family. We are connected to one another. And in some way, which we cannot fully comprehend, by doing so, we are connecting with the sufferings of Christ who left His heavenly abode to live in a world of suffering (sickness and death and the pain of rejection). It is good that we join in the sufferings of others that we might be like the One Who suffered with and for us so that one day we shall never suffer again.
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