A Theme Of Jesus And Suffering In Man’s Search For Meaning By Viktor Frankl
Experience is the hardest teacher. It gives the test first and then the lesson. Suffering provides a powerful opportunity for a person to learn from within themselves and transform the pain and personal evil they are experiencing into something good and beneficial for the future. American psychotherapist explores this idea on how suffering gives us a chance to discover and express our unique identity through such events. Such events brought onto us by god, but why? There are many reasons for suffering, it makes us stronger and gives us a wider more beautiful perspective on the world. Frankl explores this in his memoir “Man’s Search for Meaning”. However, to enhance his assertion he makes; the life, death and resurrection of Jesus can also be used in conjunction to teach us valuable lessons that we should uphold in society today.
Survivor of four concentration camps, Viktor Frankl author of Man’s search for meaning is an Austrian Jewish psychotherapist who foremost followed the theories of Freud and Adler, but then developed his own school of Logotherapy.
Frankl has accumulated many years of experience counselling people with suicidal tendencies and other problems, he put this exact expertise to work in Bergen-belse and Auschwitz, helping both others and himself to survive the atrocities and brutalities of Nazi imprisonment. The key to Viktor Frankls search for meaning is that man must be able to achieve a sense of purpose even in the midst of suffering. Frankl lists three ways in which we can find meaning in our own lives, these include
- By creating or doing a deed.
- By experiencing something or encountering someone.
- By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.
In context of the concentration camps, it was those who offered their last piece of bread who endured the longest, those that offered proof that everything can be taken away from them except the ability to choose their attitude in any given circumstance. The sort of person the prisoner became was the result of inner decisions of that person not of the camp influences alone. Those people that took hold of their spiritual and moral selves to give up, eventually fell prisoner to not only themselves but by the camps degenerating influence as well. Whilst those who took advantage of these experiences and made victory of them experienced a true inner triumph. And thus, Frankl concluded that humankind’s deepest desire is to search for purpose and meaning.
Victor Frankl’s assertion of Mans search for meaning, conforms to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection in many ways as in Luke 13: 2-5 “Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them — do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” During WW2 did the Jewish, disabled, and other minorities deserve their suffering than more than any other individuals? The answer is no. The cause of suffering was not born from lack of faith or sin. These victims did not deserve their death and imprisonment any more than anyone else. This ties in with today’s context, the world today as we know it is beautiful; filled with Active volcanoes, bright green valleys, glaciers, snowy mountains, black sand beaches, and roaring rivers yet despite such beauty many people still suffer all over the world. These sufferings seemingly underserving, with different intensities and in different situations. Those that do suffer do not deserve it any more than anyone else. This leads many to believe that god clearly does not deliver the good from suffering. But this does not mean god has abandoned us. As through suffering we come to realise true happiness, goodness and beauty. That the only way to understand sorrow and evil in our lives is to immerse ourselves in the opposite, we should divulge ourselves into gods embrace, comfort and creation. The beauty in creation which makes suffering bearable without explanation.
Many people are eager to know what good can come out of suffering, how can there possibly be a positive event. Although it may seem hard suffering and difficult times shape who we are, and can allow us to learn new things. These lessons include the teachings of true comfort, wisdom and humility. Suffering produces true comfort: God entrusts us to comfort others so the more that the more we suffer, the more we are comforted, and the more we are comforted, the better we can be comforters. The Paul the Apostle suffered like no man ever should but through these experiences he was able to give back to his society for the better; he administered the gentleness of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:8) with the tenderness of a mother (1 thes. 2:7). To conclude we cannot be true comforters to others if we truly have not experienced pain and comfort within gods limits.
Suffering yields great wisdom: During a period of suffering we often need to ask god for strength and wisdom to endure this painful period. Doing so will help us have a better attitude towards suffering and to see the providence and sovereignty in our unique situation. Such dependence on god is synonymous with prayer “let him ask god”. Therefore, one of the overall purposes god allows through suffering and evil trials is to make us more dependent and closer with god.
Suffering yields true humility: Another truth of sufferings is that it does not exclude favourites. This operates throughout the whole natural world. Disasters, crimes, diseases and accidents affect rich and poor alike. It is a hard realisation to come to terms with, but difficulty does not discriminate. Through these difficult times individuals must keep their hearts and minds open to the prospect of evil ending. As hard as it may be, god’s purposes are not always apparent at the start of the trial, but that should not defer us from seeing the suffering till the end. That we need to trust in gods sovereignty and remember that God works in mysterious ways.
What can we learn from the life and death of Jesus? The life, death and resurrection of Jesus can be a template for our own approach when confronting suffering and personal evil. Suffering and evil comes in many different forms and intensities, it is to be expected, because what is life without suffering? it may not be as intense of that experienced by Jesus, but it is pain non-the less whenever we may encounter suffering or evil we should remember what Jesus endured for us. Christ was able to display the grace of god through his death: 1 peter 2:24 “he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” and Isaiah 53:5 “he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our inequities”. The sins that we committed and those before us (Adam and Eve) were transferred to Jesus, and thus purchasing our forgiveness, which he had to do by suffering. Through Jesus’ death and sequential resurrection, he provides us with a way to heaven, he gave us another chance at eternal life in heaven. He became the ultimate sacrifice and through resurrection he proved the immense power of god.
This acts as a sign from heaven. As Paul says “through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin” (acts 13:38-39). Whilst not only the death of Christ but his resurrection too upholds many teachings and behaviours that are now set upon the way we should be living. As Christ died for our sins if he was not resurrected, then we too would have no hope of it either in the afterlife, there would be no saviour, no salvation, just emptiness. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:14-19 that our faith would evidently be useless, and our sins would remain unforgiven.
To conclude from the life, death and resurrection of Christ we learnt that there is a positive outcome to sufferings. It makes us who we are, it lets us experience all that the world has to offer, it teaches us that there are hard times, and to appreciate the good ones, to see the true beauty in nature and to see things from another light or point of view, to truly be empathetic with someone and to be able to help them overcome suffering, to become a comforter, to know true humility that is suffering. Throughout life we need to not only trust in god but also each other. Therefore, the life of Jesus and the teachings of god conform with Viktor Frankl’s assertion that through suffering there is a positive transformative event and an opportunity to express a truly unique identity.
