Death by a Thousand Cuts: Enduring in the Midst of Suffering
In 2019, pop megastar Taylor Swift co-wrote a song entitled, “Death by a Thousand Cuts”. It’s typical Taylor fare I’m told: the slow breakup of a relationship by increments and incidents. Thus Death by a Thousand Cuts. Taylor’s lyrics talk of drinking to ease the pain. Of reminders in everyday life of a relationship that no longer exists.
Hey, I’m no Swiftie! No bracelets on my wrist to exchange! But Swift touches on a truth we’ve probably all experienced. It’s not always life’s tornadoes that take us down. It’s the little storms that erode away our strength that leave us close to dying inside spiritually and emotionally.
I recently came across the term “functional depression”. It’s depression with all the regular symptoms but with the ability to function on a high level. It’s a depression that builds from the small “cuts” we endure. Somehow some of us can carry on. I’ve been there and maybe so have you. But so many of us suffer in silence. Death by a thousand cuts.
Let’s consider the apostle Paul. He wrestled with a church in Corinth that was fixated on personality and eloquence. He faced the comparison game where he was matched against so-called super-apostles who flaunted their competence and talent. Like Jesus, Paul came from a place of weakness and servanthood when it came to ministry. In fact, in 2 Corinthians 12, he boasted of his weaknesses. On top of all that, he expressed the ongoing hardships and physical sufferings of the life of an apostle in 2 Cor 11:23-29. And how about another incident from Acts 14:19-20 in Lystra:
But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.
I imagine some of us are thinking, “Buy me a one-way ticket home! This is not what I signed up for when I decided to follow Jesus!”
How was Paul able to endure and persevere in all this? How can we? I doubt our hardships approach his but they are nonetheless real. How do we do it?
By remembering though we may be dying inside we are also living inside because the resurrected Jesus brings life from death. We’re sustained in our death experiences by the life-giving resurrection power of God. The death by a thousand cuts can be the basis for real life.
We must remember within our fragile and weak selves resides the life-giving power of God (see 2 Cor 4:7)
Clay vessels held many valuable products in the ancient world. But they were fragile and expendable. Somewhere I read that the ancient city of Rome was so rapaciously materialistic that today you can find mounds of broken clay vessels as junk piles. The product they held was valuable; the vessel that held it was expendable.
For example, I carry my best fly rods in a cheap fly rod and reel case. By cheap, I mean inexpensive. A rod is less likely to be stolen with the name, Cabela’s, on the outside of the case rather than Sage or Orvis. The holder is cheap and easily replaced. The rod, not so much.
That’s not to say that our physical bodies likened to clay vessels are without value. The Bible is saying that for Christ followers there is inside us a message of a Person of infinite value. Even though our bodies are wasting away (2 Cor 4:16), that very weakness allows God’s power to shine through. In 2 Tim 1:14, Paul urges his young pastor to “guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.”
The Holy Spirit resides in every believer. He is our seal and deposit (Eph 1:13-14) signifying the truth of the gospel, the truth about Jesus crucified, buried, raised to life. That’s the treasure we want people to see in us and receive from us.
We are simultaneously both dying and living in the midst of our suffering (see 2 Cor 4:8-11)
The Bible lists four paradoxes (seemly self-contradictory statements that when examined prove to be true) to illustrate the dying and living in Jesus we experience in suffering. We find ourselves in these death situations but resurrection life is working alongside it:
Hard pressed (from the word we get tribulation, to be in a tight spot) but not crushed. No matter how hemmed in we feel, there’s always a way out!
Perplexed (who hasn’t felt bewildered by how or why God works sometimes? We often don’t know what to do; we’re at wit’s end) but not in despair. Despair means no hope; with God there’s always hope. Consider Romans 15:13:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Persecuted (the word signifies being pursued by an enemy; a hunter after his prey) but not abandoned. God never abandons his children even though we feel that way. In Matt 28:20, Jesus says he is with us always. In a compilation of her journal entries entitled Come Be My Light, Mother Teresa of Calcutta felt abandoned by God most of her life. She didn’t feel his presence. Yet the promises of God trump our feelings.
Struck down but not destroyed (a strong word meaning to be ruined, destroyed as Joseph was warned about Herod to flee to Egypt so his child would not be destroyed; knocked down but not knocked out)
We need not be done in by adversity and suffering. We simultaneously live while we’re dying (2 Cor 4:10-11). The Bible uses the word for the process of dying, not the word for its finality. We experience in our lives just a little of what Jesus experienced in his suffering and persecution. But we also have access to the resurrection life of Jesus through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Zoe (Greek word used to describe the kind of life God gives) life, Romans 8:11:
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
We actually impart life to others when we feel the weakest and are suffering the most (see 2 Cor 4:12)
In Eugene Peterson’s The Message, 2 Cor 4:12 reads, “While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best.”
Isn’t it ironic when we feel our weakest or most inadequate that God uses us most powerfully in the lives of others? When I share my struggles and failures others are helped? How ironic and paradoxical!
It doesn’t mean we seek out suffering and hardship, but we can be better Jesus followers having gone through them.
We draw on a resurrection power that is sufficient for whatever life throws at us and greater than the finality of death.
The contemporary Christian group, Casting Crowns, adapted a hymn from 1910 into a beautiful song that fittingly captures the sense of our 2 Corinthians passage:
One day when Heaven was filled with His praises
One day when sin was as black as could be
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin
Dwelt among men, my example is He
Word became flesh and the light shined among us
His glory revealedLiving, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away
Rising, He justified freely forever
One day He's coming
Oh glorious day, oh glorious dayOne day they led Him up Calvary's mountain
One day they nailed Him to die on a tree
Suffering anguish, despised and rejected
Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He
Hands that healed nations, stretched out on a tree
And took the nails for meLiving, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away
Rising, He justified freely forever
One day He's coming
Oh glorious day, oh glorious dayOne day the grave could conceal Him no longer
One day the stone rolled away from the door
Then He arose, over death He had conquered
Now is ascended, my Lord evermore
Death could not hold Him, the grave could not keep Him
From rising againLiving, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away
Rising, He justified freely forever
One day He's coming
Oh glorious day, oh glorious dayOne day the trumpet will sound for His coming
One day the skies with His glories will shine
Wonderful day, my Beloved One bringing
My Savior Jesus is mineLiving, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away
Rising, He justified freely forever
One day He's coming
Oh glorious day, oh glorious day
Glorious day
Oh glorious day
The Christian life need not be death by a thousand cuts. Instead it’s a paradox of living in the midst of dying. But that dying is never final, because Jesus lives.