From Jim McGuiggan... Matthew 8.16-17 & SUFFERING

Matthew 8.16-17 & SUFFERING

Biblically there’s more than one face of suffering and loss. Over the years one of my failures as a student of scripture and life is that I’ve responded to complex realities with answers and proposals that are too simple. In addition to my sheer ignorance I’m sure one of the reasons I did that was because I was impatient. I’d like to have these matters all squared away so the sooner I can set them aside thinking, “That’s another one taken care of” the better I like it. It’s important that I don’t do that. I need to work patiently through the ins and outs because when I make it too simple somebody suffers, some poor soul falls through the cracks and is left comfortless. Besides, if I leave the job half done I haven’t heard all God is saying to us and that’s always a loss. I recognise the task is unending and in some ways always beyond me but that doesn’t excuse me if I don’t make the attempt.

Take for example the work of Stanley Hauerwas, a brilliant and provocative theological ethicist, and his remarks about suffering in general and the suffering of children in particular. In Naming the Silences (1990) and The Suffering Presence (1986) he thought that suffering that came as a result of one’s devotion to God made sense but that suffering that is part of what we might call “the human condition” is beyond explanation. In particular, the suffering of a child, he thought, is “a blackness before which we can only stand mute.” (NS, page 86) Quoting Brueggemann with approval he rightly wants us to avoid a sort of masochism that’s “too understanding” about suffering so that we won’t take it like whipped dogs. On the other hand he rightly urges us not to trivialize the cross by identifying our own losses with Christ’s cross and so reduce his death to one more example of suffering to be borne. I think Hauerwas’ work here leaves a profound gap that begs to be filled. The bulk of the world’s pain involves disease and loss that is not the immediate result of one’s devotion to God and Hauerwas thinks we have nothing worth saying in the face of it all. I think that’s untrue and maybe we don’t have to stand utterly mute before a little child’s suffering.

Scholars urge us to take suffering seriously and not to gloss over it but perhaps we aren’t taking the general suffering of the world seriously enough when we sever it from the cross. And maybe we’re robbing sufferers of something they can ill do without.

It might be that we aren’t wrong in recognizing secondary and intermediate causes but that we’re wrong to exclude the ultimate Cause of pain and loss—God himself who uses secondary causes as instruments. We’re urged to hold God accountable by having an authentic faith that will protest. It might be that laying the entire world’s suffering at the feet of God is the most serious way to “hold him accountable” and to give our suffering the dignity it deserves. Screaming at him in our pain even while we think “the blame” should be laid at the feet of free will abuse, bad luck or demonic thugs—maybe that’s not really holding God accountable. At least when Job did his raging and insulting, he knew it was God he was mad at (“If it isn’t him, who is it?” he asks). Some say, "Hold God accountable and show authentic faith" and then they go on to "explain" everything in every conceivable way while keeping God out of it. The bold call to authentic faith melts to mush.

To stand mute before Auschwitz makes sense in many ways and to be speechless in the presence of the suffering of little children is a measure of its awful nature. But maybe that is to make too little of it. Maybe its true measure is seen only when we link it to the cross and a cosmic catastrophe. You understand, Christians aren’t interested in making less of these awful realities especially if the biblical witness makes them part of a vast divine/human Story. If the world’s suffering is God’s strange but redemptive work in response to human sin it is taken more seriously and given an aura and dimensions that poor hurting hearts can’t give it and for which they beg.

Suffering’s many faces

The scriptures speak a lot about suffering that results from faithfulness to God. In fact, this is almost exclusively what the New Testament talks about. I say “almost” because there are a few (important) texts that speak more broadly. Then we hear that suffering transforms and enriches us and brings Christians more into the likeness of Jesus Christ. Then again there are the sufferings of a particular class of people who have a peculiar place in God’s service (apostles, for example, see this developed in 2 Corinthians). We read of suffering that is punishment for wrong done and we read of suffering that is chosen for the sake of others. There is suffering that is remedial chastisement and there is some that is “terminal” punishment. These are spelled out in various texts but it’s easy to see that there is also a kind of suffering, an inner suffering, that’s experienced because of love for others. Anxiety and sleeplessness, the kind of thing Paul felt because he loved the little congregations that he established and that were undergoing great trials. This is real suffering but it isn’t exactly “inflicted” (though it exists because redemptive love has come into conflict with a dangerous and sinful world).

It’s important that we allow a biblical text to speak its own message rather than generalise it beyond recognition. Not to see that Paul in 2 Corinthians is dealing immediately with his own apostolic sufferings is to miss the edge of Paul’s message and that helps nobody. But maybe there’s a way to view Paul’s suffering that keeps faith with what he had in mind and still allows it to speak to a wider situation. I believe that all the various faces of suffering can be brought together under one head without losing their own particular place in a multifaceted truth.

I think one biblical aspect of suffering that is insufficiently noticed is that it is the redemptive work of God expressing itself in curse in response to humanity’s rebellion (as recorded in Genesis 3:11). If all suffering is connected with the curse then all suffering has a moral and redemptive context to it. And if this is true it should come as no surprise to us that it is embraced in the Christ and his cross. I would like to develop this line by taking a look at a passage in Matthew.

Christ and kingdom authority in Matthew

Scholars are still coming up with new ways to look at Matthew and what he meant to achieve by his gospel narrative. It isn’t really surprising that they can come up with different emphases that usually add to rather than contradict earlier proposals. On anybody’s view, Matthew’s gospel is as rich as cream.

It’s clear that there’s a lot in Matthew about “authority” and power and it’s also clear that that authority and power is related to the kingdom (reign) of God which was showing itself in the person and work of Jesus. It’s just as clear that that kingdom authority and power is intimately related to the love and mercy of God toward a nation that’s under his judgment. Those two truths don’t seem to sit together easily in our minds. If the nation was under judgment and needed to be called to a national repentance we might have expected the wrath of God against sin to show itself in Christ instead of love and mercy which brought forgiveness and healing. (That last sentence is risky speech because it seems to suggest that wrath and mercy are conflicting responses when in truth God’s wrath is a face of his mercy. But there’s biblical precedent for such risky speech as Exodus 20:4-5 illustrates. More on this later.)

The religious leaders thought this a strange “Christ” who in their eyes belittled the law (torah) and was “soft on sin”. While they stressed commandment-keeping (and especially their own commands), which resulted in isolating sinners, Jesus stressed love and mercy which drove him into the fellowship of sinners. It wasn’t that Christ didn’t speak of judgment and wrath because he certainly did but he saw wrath and judgment as servants of love and mercy; more, he saw them as expressions of love and mercy. He also insisted that rightly understood the central call of the law (torah) was that Israel should respond to God and one another out of love and mercy; God-imaging love and mercy.

The teaching of Christ in Matthew

He came as an authoritative teacher of the true understanding of the law. It wasn’t that he was abolishing the law; the reverse was true (see this with special clarity in Matthew 5:17-20). In his own life, and the life to which he called people, the fulfilment of the law was of paramount importance. He hadn’t come to make it easier for men to sin. Nor did he think that he was the only one who was able to see the truth he taught, though clearly, and for many reasons, his grasp of things was far beyond anyone else. He held people responsible for not seeing the true thrust of the law and he makes that clear in places like Matthew 23:23. There he held Pharisees responsible for leaving undone the more important matters of the law as the result of an undue emphasis on the less important (not unimportant) matters. And in Matthew 12:7 he clearly expected his critics to understand passages like Hosea 6:6 and held them responsible for not doing so. So, far from claiming executive privilege to pick and choose what suited him in the law, the Christ lived by the true meaning and nature of the law and expected others to recognize that truth. His grasp of biblical truth gave him authority that made jaws go slack (see, for example, Matthew 7:28-29 and Matthew 13:53-54).

Christ’s teaching about the reality and awfulness of God’s wrath is seen clearly in Matthew (a few examples, 3:7-12; 7:13-19; 8:12; 10:15,28; 11:20-24 and chapter 23 and 25). But for Matthew’s Christ God’s wrath wasn’t vengeful or a divine lashing out, it was set within his character as part of his holy love and faithfulness; a holy love that came to redeem his people. In Matthew Jesus Christ raged most against people and views that estranged children from their Holy Father and shut up the kingdom of heaven against God’s wayward children (23:13). Even his scathing Matthew 23 ends with sadness and not a foaming at the mouth. The single thrust of the whole of Matthew 18 is to say that every single individual is precious and that we’re to go the distance to regain them because this is the heart of the Holy Father (Matthew 18:35).

This kind of teaching underscores the nature of the reign of God and it adds a moral and spiritual dimension to Christ’s miracles even while the miracles give confirmation to the teaching.

The miracles of Christ in Matthew

But his authority wasn’t confined to teaching since Matthew’s record is filled not only with large teaching blocks but also with scores of healing sessions. Chapters 8 and 9 illustrate this point where he heals “all” and casts out demons “with a word”. Because Christ’s miraculous power almost invariably eased suffering and restored great losses we have again the stress on love and mercy. And since he did all this because God was with him (see Acts 10:38) we’re reminded again that the reign of God focussed in on love and mercy and restoration. His life, teaching and miraculous power all served one grand stress: the kingdom of God had finally shown itself and it was loving and merciful even while it acknowledged sin and brought judgement. More, the reign of God showed itself merciful and loving by exposing sin and judging it.

The leadership saw the masses as under condemnation and fit only to be isolated and to experience wrath (Matthew 9:11 illustrates). Then comes the Christ, proclaiming the reign of God and bringing love, mercy and consequent fellowship to the diseased and the sinful. But he doesn’t do this without authority and he makes it clear that the same power that guides and empowers him to heal the sick leads him to fellowship sinners because he regards them as sick also (Matthew 9:11-12). In Matthew 9:1-8 he links his capacity to deal with sins and diseases as though they were two sides of one coin.

The nature of Christ’s teaching/acting authority in Matthew

Yes. But why is he the one to whom this authority is given? It’s because he embodies the heart and mind of God toward his people. It’s because like his Holy Father Jesus announced the call for holy behavior but still desires mercy and not sacrifice, fellowship rather than isolation. Kingdom authority could not have been given to the current leadership precisely because this was not their way of thinking or behaving. They laid burdens on people rather than easing them (see Matthew 11:28-30 with Matthew 23:4). And it was precisely because Jesus knew as his own experience that the will of his Holy Father was mercy (“hesed,” love that expresses itself, for example, in covenants) rather than sacrifice that he could embody the reign of God. Jesus exegetes the meaning and nature of the reign of God precisely because he is God reigning.

In a very real way Christ’s character and devotion to his Father and his people is his authority. He is identified with both. He possessed and shared the holy passion of his Father with its steadfast love and kindness. He shared God’s judgement along with his sinful family and bore with them their sicknesses and diseases that were part of that judgement (see Matthew 8:16-17).

It was this identification with both God and man that made Jesus the agent of the reign of God, which, when it would manifest itself, was to rescue people from their sins that life with God might be restored in its fullness. It was because of sins that the curse was on Israel (and mankind) so that in dealing with sin the Christ would deal with the curse and in undoing the curse he was demonstrating that sin was being dealt with. (The complete removal of the curse would coincide with the complete restoration of all things and the final dealing with sin. See 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 54-56 and Acts 3:21.)

This weaving between sin and sickness, between repentance and health in the book of Matthew is one movement in Christ’s ushering in of the kingdom of God. The life and ministry of Christ undermines isolation or restriction of fellowship as a mark of sin and judgement by drawing near sinners. He touches isolated lepers, answers the prayers of a hated Canaanite woman, visits outsiders like the Gentile centurion and calls to him a hemorrhaging woman who has touched him. He touches the dead, has table-fellowship with the notorious all the while he offers forgiveness and full fellowship with God to those who are astray from God and outside the circle of the self-proclaimed elite.

But, again, why is he the one who embodies kingdom authority to forgive sins and heal the sick and oppressed? Because contrary to the leaders who isolated the sinners and the diseased he made himself one with them and bore their sins and diseases (Matthew 8:16-17; 20:28; 26:28). Kingdom authority, Matthew would teach us, is the authority of identification and bearing.

He comes to save “his” people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). His own life recapitulates the career of his people (Matthew 2:15,17,18; 3:13 4:11; 12:15-21 and elsewhere). He comes to be God “with” them (Matthew 1:23) and this is seen in how he socializes with them and in his “compassion” for them (Matthew 9:36; 14:14) and in the way he views them as “sick” and in need of a doctor though they are sinful (Matthew 9:10-13).

In all this Matthew teaches us that kingdom “authority” and “power” has nothing to do with naked force and that it is only related to divine “muscles” rather than that being the sum total of it. The authority and power is moral through and through and is motivated by love and mercy even when it shows itself in judgement. The miracles are not mere prodigies or wonders; they are God’s faithful, holy and loving response to his commitment to his people (and to humanity at large). Given the God the Old Testament bore witness to, there was an inevitability about the manifestation of his reign and it was inevitable that it would be loving and merciful as well as holy. Therefore it was holy love coming into close contact with sin and God’s grand provision coming into contact with human need. And this faithfulness on God’s part, Matthew teaches us right from the beginning, is not to be shown from the “outside”. In Christ, God had identified himself with his people and was bearing their sin and disease in order to fully heal and restore.

And when Christ shared this authority and power with his followers it is for no other reason than to heal and deliver and proclaim the good news that God’s reign was breaking in (Matthew 10:1-9).

We need not deny that Christ’s miracles had credential value but it’s important that we don’t empty them of their full biblical content. They are a sign of God’s gracious return to a people that had begged for judgement. Deuteronomy 32 is a long declaration of God’s coming judgement against a people that would apostatize. God says he will bring his four sore judgements against the nation. He might have utterly obliterated them he says, had it not been that he feared their enemies might misunderstand. The enemies might think that Israel’s pain and loss was their doing when it fact it was the Lord’s (Deuteronomy 32:26-27). “I said I would scatter them and blot out their memory from mankind, but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest their adversary misunderstand and say, ‘Our hand has triumphed; the Lord has not done all this.’” But the Lord that insisted that he is the one who brought them under judgement also assured them that he would return to them through and beyond judgement (Deuteronomy 32:36-43).

And the authority of Christ is not that of a demagogue or rabble-rouser. He didn’t overtly seek public acclamation. He forbids people to tell of his powers and deeds (Matthew 8:4; 9:30) and is described in terms that contradict the description of someone anxious to make a name for himself (12:14-21). In fact he insisted that true power and leadership was the way of the servant and the renouncing of pagan power (Matthew 20:20-28). Like Moses and David before him he took pains to make it clear he wasn’t seizing authority. If he was to be exalted it would be by the hand of God.

Matthew 8:16-17 in particular

Matthew 9:1-8 insists on linking sin and disease. In it Christ insists on linking his authority to dismiss disease with his authority to dismiss sin. In Matthew 9:10-13 he defends his being with sinners on the grounds that they are sick and need a doctor (and he is that doctor).

Chapters 8 and 9 of Matthew are bracketed by the amazement of the crowds in Matthew 7:28-29 and the amazement of Matthew 9:33. In 7:28-29 it’s astonishment about his teaching and in 9:33 it’s amazement about his deeds. In between these we have the disciples amazed at his power over the elements (Matthew 8:27) and the crowds at both his teaching and healing powers in Matthew 9:8. It’s in that kind of a context that we find this in Matthew 8:16-17.

"That evening they brought to him many who were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, 'He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.' "

The fact that this section is clearly stressing the authority and power of the Christ and that Matthew connects Christ’s power with his “taking” and “bearing” of their diseases suggests the nature of and grounds for kingdom authority. He has identified with them and taken their sicknesses on his heart, to be his own, and so is empowered to remove them. Kingdom authority and power is “bearing” and “carrying” power.

The text quoted by Matthew (Isaiah 53:4, see Isaiah 52:13-53:12) was an atonement text, received by the early church and used through the New Testament as centering in Christ and his cross work. This would suggest that for Matthew (as for Paul in Philippians 2:7-9) kingdom authority and power is rooted in Christ’s identification with and bearing loss with and for his people.

It could be that the passage isn't connected with the atoning and reconciling cross-work of Christ at all. It might be that Matthew is using those words to underscore Christ's compassion for the people. The purposeful (if often puzzling) way Matthew uses prophetic scriptures makes it unlikely that he just wants to add depth and color to the occasion. He's more than capable of telling us that Christ had compassion on the people without bringing in a word of prophecy (see Matthew 9:36). Besides (and in light of his way of using prophetic texts), it's a bit of a risk to bring in such a theologically freighted passage simply as a rhetorical flourish. His readers (or listeners) are more likely to think he's making a theological point than a verbal exclamation point. I'm taking it that that evening's events had a direct and profound connection with the cross and atoning/reconciling work of Jesus Christ.

We shouldn’t think that Matthew believed that only that evening’s healing work fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy. He would have seen the Master’s entire healing ministry as one piece so that any day that saw him healing and delivering would have been another occasion when he was taking and carrying in Isaiah 53 style.

Nor should we think that he was bearing only the diseases and losses of those he healed. Precisely why Jesus healed this one and not that one, or these and not them, may be open for discussion but it would be a mistake to think he was only working for the people he healed and had no concern for the people he left sick. There would be something representative in the people he healed. They would surely speak of his complete care for all the diseased in the same way Hannah saw in her own blessing God’s care for all the oppressed (1 Samuel 1:21, 2:11). This would mean that every time Jesus conducted a healing session Isaiah 53 would be heard.

Again, the events we witness here are deeds of great power but they’re immediately linked with bearing and taking. Matthew hasn’t taken leave of his purpose to stress kingdom authority as showing itself in Christ but he does insist on linking it with carrying and sharing so we shouldn’t ignore this. Evil spirits are dismissed with "a word" and every sick one who came went away freed from disease. The text portrays great power but Matthew says it was a "carrying" session.

In Isaiah 53 the "suffering servant" shares in hurt and loss that is not of his own making (note the “ours” and “theirs” throughout the chapter). In addition, the healing and liberating that comes in and through the servant is immediately connected in Isaiah with his vicarious "bearing" and "carrying". The servant doesn't heal or liberate from the "outside". At the very least he shares their conditions and in Isaiah’s text that is one of the elements essentially linked to his power to liberate and heal (compare Isaiah 53:11).

We need to note that the suffering in texts like Matthew 8 has nothing to do with “persecution for righteousness sake”. It isn’t something these people were bearing for Christ, it is something Christ was bearing for them. It would be a mistake to look at all their (and our) suffering (even the suffering that is directly related to our sinning) and see it as “the cross I have to bear.” But it would be a mistake not to see all their (and our) suffering as focussed and embraced in the cross of Christ (even the suffering that is the direct result of our sinning).

Matthew’s use of an atonement text which, for the early church, is a text about Christ’s cross-work, links Jesus’ work as Savior and kingdom-bringer with his healing their diseases. How does that work?

It’s difficult not to think that Matthew looks back on all this from a post-cross perspective and sees that that healing work was part of the whole Christ-event that came to its critical moment on the cross. But if that’s how we should see it then Matthew makes a connection between cancer or heart disease and the cross-work of the Messiah. These are the very things that we see as merely part of the “human condition”. They’re certainly part of the human condition but if Matthew links them with the atoning work of Christ then the whole human condition can be brought into contact with the cross. Universal suffering is embraced and Christ bears it. Universal suffering is given another dimension; a dimension that can’t be given to it by awed silence and deep human grief.

How does that work?

The Isaiah text focuses on the suffering of the servant. (The Isaiah text is too rich to exclude from it Israel’s suffering that the nations might be blessed. It’s too rich to exclude the suffering of the righteous remnant that Israel might be blessed and it’s too rich not to see it come to its fullness in the world’s Redeemer.) But the text doesn’t suggest that the pain and loss of others fall on him so that no one else suffers. There is no sense of “transference” in the sense that all their hurt and pain vanishes from them and lands on the servant. Those who are in the know are aware that he is suffering not as a result of his own sins but he has (in the immediate Isaiah setting of exile) borne exile with them and for them. The sinners aren’t exempt from exile, he shares it with them. He bears their sins in the same way (Isaiah 53:11-12). There is no transference of sin and guilt to him and away from them. He bears the judgement of God on the nation’s sin and does it for them though he himself does not become a sinner nor does God view him as a sinner (Isaiah 53:11).

The Isaiah passage immediately speaks to Israel’s situation but Israel’s place in the purposes of God reflects his purposes regarding the whole world. I would be taking Matthew’s immediate concerns and expanding them bearing in mind that Jesus healed not only Israelites (Matthew 8:3-13; 15:21-28 and compare 8:28).

What seems clear is this: Matthew makes the healing of diseases a facet of the atoning work of the Christ. Supposing that to be true how might we understand it? How do we make the connection between cancer or heart disease and the cross-work of the Messiah?

Perhaps the simplest and best suggestion is that the biblical record would have us believe that disease and death are in the world in response to our sin. That not only are disease and death never neutral, they are not “natural”. They always have theological significance. Paul, for example, however else he saw death, saw it as the righteous judgement of God against sin (Romans 1:32). The Genesis narrative speaks of God bringing pain and loss to earth and humans in response to their sin (note especially the death sentence in 3:19).

If this is correct, then it was God who introduced the curse at the point of our sinning. This curse which fell on all humans—and not only those guilty of transgression—is part of the judgement of God against sin. The curse isn’t something independent of God. The curse isn’t written into the fabric of reality as if it were in some way autonomous. No, the humans sinned and God acted. The curse was as surely the work of God as was blessing (see Genesis 1—11 which is a single narrative of the Fall).

It would mean that disease in a specific individual is a specific outworking of the universal curse that God brought on humanity as a single family. It would be a specific application of a universal judgement.

What “authorized” Christ to remove the curse in the experience of so many sick people during his earthly ministry is that he had come to bear in himself, with and for them, the judgement of God against sin—the curse. This is what authorized him to forgive sins also.

His healing and nature miracles should be seen in light of the Genesis fall and curse narratives as well as Israel’s wilderness experience. The control of seas, the undoing of death, the multiplying of fishes and bread, the banishing of darkness by calling for light—these all were the prophecies and promises of a complete obliteration of the curse when all sin and all the woes that go with it are removed.

A newly born baby in Amos’ day despite its innocence would suffer the agony of a famine (see Amos 4) which was a divine judgment against Israel’s sin. This baby’s agony would not be punishment for the baby’s guilt (it has none). Nor would it be the case of a “legal transference” of guilt (the baby doesn’t become sinful and the nation innocent). The agony is endured because of the baby’s solidarity with the sinful nation.

Nevertheless, the agony endured is the agony that is part of penal suffering. The child is never regarded as an actual transgressor though it suffers under God’s righteous judgment against sin—the famine is never less than judgment against sin.

But the child's suffering is purposed of God. It would be possible for God to miraculously sustain all the innocents without food while punishing the transgressors with hunger. The punishment on apostasy is redemptive wrath. Its purpose is to work itself out of a job—that is, to obliterate that which provoked the wrath in the first place.

The wrath is no sign of God’s absolute abandonment of Israel. The reverse is true. So earnestly in love with them is the Holy Father that he shows mercy in the form of wrath. And, so earnest is he, that he will not spare his own infants but delivers them up for Israel. So it is when Matthew presents the coming of the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ. He shares (bears and carries) our sicknesses and by doing it he acknowledges the righteousness of God's wrath against sin. But by sharing and bearing our hurt he is removing it (then in part as prophecy and promise and later in totality and finally). In this he shows that the kingdom of God is not about ceaseless chastisement but mercy and judgment that results in life that is eternal. This is kingdom authority in Matthew. It is because Christ alone acknowledges and bears that he is the one with kingdom authority.

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.