#15 - Lent wk. 5: Why You Can’t Skip the Suffering

Lent is a journey—and in week five, everything shifts.Up until now, the focus has been inward: self-examination, discipline, and transformation. But this week—often called Foretaste Sunday—the Church turns our attention toward Holy Week and the suffering of Christ.The Gospel readings begin to center on both death and the life that will come through it.​In John 11, Jesus raises Lazarus—and yet still weeps.​In John 12, we hear: “The hour has come.”​In Luke 20, the parable of the tenants points to the Father sending the Son to be rejected.The invitation of this week is clear:To walk with Christ toward the cross.Through voices like Dietrich Bonhoeffer—“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die”—and the early Church Fathers, we explore a deeply countercultural truth:Suffering is not meaningless. It can be transformative.In a culture that avoids pain, Lent teaches us something different:​There is a redemptive quality to suffering​We are formed in the valleys, not just the victories​And we cannot get to resurrection without first walking through the crossThrough Scripture, theology, and stories from culture—including Silence, Gran Torino, and C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain—this episode invites us to ask:What might God be doing in the middle of our suffering?Because following Christ doesn’t mean avoiding the cross.It means walking it—with Him.