The “Lack”in Christ’s Suffering

In his letter to the Christian community in Colossae, St Paul makes a startling and, at first glance, troubling assertion. “Now I rejoice in [my] sufferings [endured] for your sake,” he declares, “and I complete in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His Body, which is the Church” (Col 1:24). In what sense can the apostle complete, make up for, or fulfill what is lacking in Christ’s own afflictions and the suffering they entail?

From the early patristic period down to the present, biblical commentators stress the point that Christ’s redemptive work—the work by which He reconciles rebellious people with the God who loves them and seeks them for His own—was wholly achieved by means of His Passion: His suffering and death on the cross. If the eternal Son of God became incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth, He did so primarily to endure suffering and death, then to rise from the tomb as the Vanquisher of death. Through that unique and decisive act, He destroyed the power of death, and with it the power of sin and corruption, thereby opening before us the way that leads to eternal communion with God the Father. As St Paul and the whole of Scripture make clear, that saving, reconciling work is complete and lacks nothing. Christ has accomplished everything necessary for our salvation, without exception. What can the apostle mean, then, when he declares that he completes the “things lacking” [in Greek, hysterêmata] in Christ’s afflictions?

The answer can be found in St Paul’s understanding of the Church as the Body of Christ. In his earlier letters—to the Corinthians (1 Cor 12-14), for example—he uses the image of a body with many interconnected members in reference to local Christian communities. In Colossians, he is more concerned to stress Christ’s Lordship over the entire cosmos, as over the living organism which is the ekklêsia, the Church universal. Incorporated into Christ through baptism, the Christian lives in intimate communion with Him. So intimate, in fact, that Christ actually dwells within the believer: “It is no longer I who live,” Paul affirms, “but Christ who lives in me!” (Gal 2:20). The apostle’s own suffering, endured on behalf of the whole Body, thus shares in Christ’s sufferings, because of the communion that unites him with the One who is the Head of the Body (Col 1:18).

Yet the question remains: in what sense do Paul’s sufferings make up for what is lacking in Christ’s own afflictions?

As so often in Christian faith, we need to hold together in this regard two truths that seem incompatible or even contradictory. We can describe this juxtaposition as an antinomy, a truth that defies human logic. On the one hand, we affirm that Christ alone fulfills the Law, suffers crucifixion and rises from death, in order to release us from the power of death. His suffering is complete, whole, perfect. It lacks nothing, and there is absolutely nothing we can “add” to His suffering, nothing we can do or need to do to fulfill what He has accomplished.

On the other hand, in the time of the Church, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, members of Christ’s Body must bear their own suffering, in order for the gospel to be proclaimed and witness to be borne throughout the world. This suffering is necessary and inevitable. Because of the mutual indwelling between believers and their Lord, their suffering and affliction participate in His own suffering for the world’s redemption. Their suffering, once again, does not in any way accomplish that redemptive work. That is Christ’s role; it is His work and His alone. Yet we are called to “work out” our own salvation in fear and trembling (Phil 2:12), by serving as living witnesses to the gospel. In a hostile and very fallen world, that witness will inevitably invite suffering, as we so clearly see from the persecutions borne by Christians in Asia, Africa and throughout the Middle East, as well as from the personal afflictions so many of us have to endure.

Christ’s saving work is complete. Yet our communion in Him involves us—necessarily and inevitably—in our own suffering, for His sake and in His name.

This truth has important implications for each of us, and particularly for those who are subject to acute or chronic suffering, whether physical, emotional or spiritual. Over the years I’ve had ongoing phone conversations with women who were brought up in satanic cults or exposed as children to severe sexual abuse. A man whom I talked to just a week or so ago has been tempted by suicide throughout his life, at least in part because his father was a violent alcoholic who threatened and beat his son when the boy failed to “measure up.” A close friend has for years been carrying on his own battle with a debilitating and potentially lethal disease. These people, and countless others like them, bear suffering that defies comprehension. Every day is a struggle to survive. Understandably, they often feel themselves rejected by God, or at least abandoned and forgotten by Him.

Yet each of them is a member of Christ’s Body, and each longs to live in intimate communion with Him. Their most arduous struggle is to surrender their suffering every day into God’s hands, with the unshakable conviction that their afflictions truly can and do participate in the ongoing afflictions of the Crucified Lord.

We may never be able to formulate this in a way that is theologically convincing and satisfying. But St Paul’s words to the Colossians seem to speak very clearly and compassionately to those who live their lives as “innocent sufferers,” people who are not responsible for the agony and anguish that so profoundly mark their every day existence. Insofar as they can take that suffering and offer it to Christ—through gritted teeth, yet with faith and love—they can be sure that He welcomes, blesses and uses it in His own ongoing work for the world’s salvation. Their suffering participates in His; they share, in some mysterious but very real way, in His Cross. And in some equally mysterious way, their suffering is necessary, to fill up or complete what is lacking in Christ’s own afflictions.

What is lacking in His afflictions, then, is nothing other than the martyrdom of the saints, as well as our personal martyrdom. This is true at least to the degree that we accept our own affliction, not with bitterness and rebellion, but with courage, patience, and the firm conviction that what we suffer has a purpose, an ultimate purpose that one day will become clear. It is a purpose St Paul describes in another of his letters: “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him, but also suffer for His sake” (Phil 1:29).

When, one day, the meaning of that suffering becomes clear, we shall see that what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions is precisely our own participation in them. That participation involves taking upon ourselves seemingly unjust and inexplicable pain and anguish—with patience, courage and boundless trust—with the full knowledge that our afflictions can and do complete His own, for our life and for the life of His world.