Why the cross, Lord?

I REMEMBER a priest friend of mine asking me one question that I'm sure is also in the mind of many people. “Why does our Lord want us to carry the cross? Why do we have to suffer? Did he create us only to suffer?”

Some years ago, that question also engaged my mind in some torturous exercise. This business of having to suffer simply goes against that primal human desire and need to be happy. That's really what is burning in our heart, isn't it?

We want pleasure, we want comfort and convenience. We want wealth and power, and whatever they are that fascinate our heart, and these can be endless. We are told that in heaven, there will just be bliss, unmitigated joy and goodness that “eyes have not seen, nor ears heard.” Then why do we have to carry the cross?

I believe it is a question that needs to be answered not only adequately, but also repeatedly, giving fresh arguments, pieces of evidence, etc., because we tend to lose sight of the whole picture with which it has to be viewed.

Besides, the question possesses many aspects and side issues that also need to be tackled properly. Given current human and world conditions that handicap deep reflection and wholistic, integrative thinking, this duty to give timely reminders of the entire truth of this matter acquires urgent necessity.

In the gospel, we are encouraged to always give reasons for our hope of the promised supernatural life of eternal happiness with God in heaven. This task faces tremendous challenges and difficulties in view of the continuing flow of hardships that many times lead people now not to look for spiritual and moral solutions, but precisely the opposite.

Nowadays, big parts of the world, especially in the so-called developed countries, are lapsing into a neo-paganism era, where God is not anymore the transcendent Supreme Being but rather we ourselves with our newly acquired power especially in technology.

But indeed, why should there be a cross in our life here on earth?

Offhand, we can say that God for sure did not create us simply to suffer. We were created for joy. That's why every pore of our being just longs for it. In fact, everything that he created, he found it to be good. The creation narrative simply says that very clearly.

The problem is that in our case, and in that of the angels, who were both created spiritual (the angels are pure spirits while we are spirit and body), and therefore intelligent and free, we abused these endowments. We dared, first through our first parents and then us, to detach our freedom from God, its creator and law.

This is how evil entered into our lives, and with it all sorts of suffering and ultimately death. We actually cannot avoid suffering from then on. Evil and suffering in all its forms are self-inflicted by us. It's not what our Lord wants for us, though he took the risk and somehow knew in his omniscience that it would happen.

But precisely because of that he unleashes a much more tremendous display of his power by undertaking a very complicated plan to redeem us in a way fit to our wounded human nature and condition.

We could not argue that if nothing is impossible with God, why then would he not make it easy for us by simply making us anew and completely forgetting the past as if it did not happen.

That would not sit well with our human nature. It would be like annihilating us again into nothingness then make us as a completely new creature. That's like cheating. God does not go back to what he has created. From what has taken place, we will do what is necessary to fix the problem.

To do that, he is showing us how to handle suffering and ultimately death. The Son of God has to become man to assume all the sins of men and with his passion and death and later his resurrection, convert those sins into the basis for a new creature, the new, re-created man in Christ.

For this, there was no other way open to Christ but to suffer death on the cross. And so he wants us to follow him all the way to the cross, since his resurrection and ours could only be attained through it.

There's still a lot more of points to clarify, but for now I think what have been articulated suffice. May we not be afraid of the cross!