Suffering Love!

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Is 40:25-31; Mt 11: 28-30

Today’s Gospel presents Jesus as the load bearer whose life exemplifies love that suffers.  

There is an insightful and moving story behind the statue of Jesus’ ‘Come unto me, all you who labor and are burdened.’

Karl Albert ‘Bertel’ Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), the famous Danish sculptor, made the form of Christ in clay with arms outstretched, raised high in gesturing command, and his head held high in triumph. He left the figure to harden for a few days, and when he went back to finish his work, he couldn’t believe what he saw. Because of a heavy rainstorm, the dampness had invaded his studio, and the figure had changed entirely. Instead of the head held high, it had bent downwards, and the arms had fallen low. Thorvaldsen felt his statue of Christ was beyond repair. He grabbed a hammer and was about to demolish the statue, but he just couldn’t do it. With a pang of remorse, he fled from the room.

For some time, he couldn’t go near the room where the statue stood, but he finally went back to the studio accompanied by a friend. When they opened the door, they stood in awe. Bathed in light, the lowered arms no longer depicted defeat. Rather, they saw in them the truth of God’s compassion, whose sympathetic arms encircle the sorrowful and needy. The head was now bowed with a contrite countenance as if to say, ‘I understand your travail.’ Some greater power had breathed meaning into the artist’s ruined statue. This was no defeated Christ; this was a compassionate Savior.

Going by the inspiration of the story, we understand that our Jesus is a compassionate savior who uses words like ‘I, me, my’ seven times in the sense of accepting and receiving others to give them rest and consolation. 

Only the compassionate Lord could be self-referential when he embraced those who were burdened. 

Jesus presents himself to be the load bearer when he accepts others, along with their troubles and burdens. 

The kind of love that Jesus exemplifies is the ‘love that suffers.’

At Christmas, we celebrate God’s love that comes into the world in the form of a human for the sole purpose of suffering out of his love for the world. 

Let us pray for the grace and courage to imitate Jesus’ suffering love so that others may experience rest and consolation from us. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar