He had finished, He was in quite as exceptional a degree a
sufferer; yet on the cross He was able to say that His suffering also
was finished.

Suffering is the reverse side of work. It is the shadow that
accompanies achievement, as his shadow follows a man. It is due to the
resistance offered to the worker by the medium in which he toils.

The life of Jesus was one of great suffering, because He had to do His
work in an extremely resistant medium. His purpose was so beneficent,
and His passion for the good of the world so obvious, that it might
have been expected that He would meet with nothing but encouragement
and furtherance. He was so religious that all the religious forces
might have been expected to second His efforts; He was so patriotic
that it would have been natural if His native country had welcomed Him
with open arms; He was so philanthropic that He ought to have been the
idol of the multitude. But at every step He met with opposition.
Everything that was influential in His age and country turned against
Him. Obstruction became more and more persistent and cruel, till at
length on Calvary it reached its climax, when all the powers of earth
and hell were combined with the one purpose of crushing Him and
thrusting Him out of existence. And they succeeded.

But the mystery of suffering is very insufficiently explained when it
is defined as the reaction of the work on the worker. While a man's
work is what he does with the force of his will, suffering is what is
done to him against his will. It may be done by the will of opponents
and enemies. But this is never the whole explanation. Above this
will, which may be thoroughly evil, there is a will which is good and
means us good by our suffering.

Suffering is the will of God. It is His chief instrument for
fashioning His creatures according to His own plan. While by our work
we ought to be seeking to make a bit of the world such as He would have
it to be, by our suffering He is seeking to make us such as He would
have us to be. He blocks up our pathway by it on this side and on
that, in order that we may be kept in the path which He has appointed.
He prunes our desires and ambitions; He humbles us and makes us meek
and acquiescent. By our work we help to make a well-ordered world, but
by our suffering He makes a sanctified man; and in His eyes this is by
far the greater triumph.

Perhaps this is the most difficult half of life to manage. Whi