Vicarious Suffering

Vicarious Suffering is a term used to describe one person seeking to ease the suffering of another person by taking on their suffering. I understood this yesterday when I took my daughter Amy to hospital. She had developed an enormous abscess at the base of her spine – which was surgically excised under general anaesthetic. I wished that I could have eased her suffering. I wished that she could give me some of her pain so that she could be more comfortable. And when the nurse caused pain during the changing of the dressing this morning I wanted to take it away.

The best I could do was to be alongside her / hold her hand / cry with her.

And in this moment I understand how God chooses to share our human sin/suffering as a way of leading us out of our mess. God suffers with us: bearing our sin, sorrow and sickness. In Jesus, God bears our injustice, abuse, pride, helplessness, doubt, hypocrisy, and hopelessness so that nothing would separate us from him and from Life. God thus becomes human and enters into our messy lives in solidarity with us. So Jesus died for us, with us, even as us...but not instead of us. Following Jesus is not the avoidance of suffering. In fact his death calls us to come and die with him. As we help those who suffer we discover that this exactly where God is to be found.