This is part three in my “Under the Sun” series, in which I am exploring the theme of “suffering” in the New Testament. If you would like, you can find the previous posts here:

Part 1: This is Normal

Part 2: Christ’s Birth in the Wounds of Others

Matthew 3-4:11 // Mark 1:9-13 // Luke 3:21-4:13

As we continue to look for the theme of suffering in the New Testament, Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan might seem an odd place to go searching. However, this scene sets the stage for what we are calling “the path of descent”, traversed by Jesus and his followers. Through a close reading of these short narratives, we see Jesus revealed as the one who is present in and with those who are suffering.

Already in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is identified as the Emmanuel (“God with us”) of Isaiah 7:14 and, in both Matthew and Luke’s birth narratives, is given the name Yeshua (more precisely transliterated as “Joshua”), meaning “YHWH saves”.

These names carried significant weight for the Gospel writers’ Jewish audiences, whose imaginations were formed by Israel’s scriptures.1 Each stirring ancient memories of YHWH, the God who freed Israel’s ancestors from a life of slavery in Egypt; of Moses, who faithfully led the people in the wilderness; of Joshua, Israel’s next leader, who brought them safely from the desert, through the Jordan River, and into the land promised to them; and of Isaiah’s prophetic hope for Israel—a nation sprinting away from her covenant with the God who rescued her.

And just as Moses and Israel passed through the waters and were led into the wilderness, so too is Jesus. We read that immediately following Jesus’ baptism and upon receiving affirmation of sonship from the Father, the Spirit sends him into the wilderness to be tested. It would seem reasonable to assume that upon experiencing this high point of divine approval, we would see Jesus launched into his public ministry rather than thrust into the desert to battle hunger, loneliness, wild beasts, and Satan. However, the three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark & Luke) agree that it is a path of trial and testing that Christ follows.2

This movement from affirmation to wilderness might feel odd to us, but it wouldn’t have been for Jesus, whose imagination was populated by the stories of Scripture. The story of the Exodus echoes loudly in the text as Jesus, the new Moses and faithful Israel, passes through the waters and into the wilderness for forty days to be tested.

In his baptism, however, Jesus is not only identified with Moses and Israel. As he is overwhelmed and drowned in the waters, he also places himself with Pharaoh and the Egyptian armies.3 In this act, Jesus becomes both the oppressed and the oppressor and, in doing so, provides rescue for both.

In entering the waters, Jesus fills them with his own life, so that what he undergoes becomes a reality others may participate in.

As Jesus emerges from the waters, Mark’s account is the only one to use the term ‘ripped apart’ (σχίζω) to describe the heavens being opened. This phrase, used by Mark, is an allusion to Isaiah 64:1 – a prophetic cry for deliverance from the suffering Israel has endured at the hands of their oppressors, hands they have been under due to Israel’s disobedience. New Testament scholar Richard Hays remarks that this “echo” of the Jewish Scriptures is what sets the stage for Mark’s Gospel: the revelation that in Jesus, “God’s eschatological work is beginning.”4

Baptism, for Jesus, names the reality he is moving toward—the suffering and death he is to endure (Mark 10:38-39). When James and John ask to reign in power with Jesus when he enters his “glory”, Jesus states that they will indeed undergo the same baptism, though they don’t know what they are truly asking for. To enter into glory with Christ is to be baptised not into power and prestige, but into a path of descent – following the path of Christ, even into suffering and death.5

As my friend and New Testament scholar, Dr Robby Waddell, says, Jesus’ life doesn’t offer us a way of escaping suffering; instead, it shows us how to suffer.

After the baptism, Matthew and Luke both state that the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness, but Mark is explicit. The Spirit in Mark expels him there (Mark 1:12). This term (Greek: ekballō), used by Mark, is most often used in the Gospels to describe the casting out of demons.

Following his rapturous experience in baptism, Jesus is immediately placed in solidarity with the suffering of the world – those without basic sustenance and community and those suffering under the oppression of Satanic forces.

These narratives establish, at the outset, a christological pattern that will govern the entire Gospel witness: the movement of divine life takes the form of descent. Baptism is more than an act of identification; it marks the beginning of a vocation that leads into the wilderness and, ultimately, toward the cross.

The Spirit’s activity is seen in this movement—drawing the Son into the very conditions in which human suffering is most acutely felt. Hunger, isolation, and confrontation with the powers that distort creation become the terrain in which the life of God is revealed.

Within this frame, salvation takes on a participatory shape. This participation is not abstract—it is given and received, beginning in the waters where Christ meets us and draws us into his own life. God’s redemptive work unfolds from within the depths of human experience, as Christ enters fully into the realities of suffering and carries them toward transformation.

As we begin this series of reflections on suffering as seen in the New Testament, I’m moved by the vulnerability of Fr. Rohr’s above sentiment. He goes on to name the actions of this seeming topsy-turvy God as “a mystery”—a mystery for himself and a mystery for us (at least those of us honest enough to admit it.)2

Perhaps God’s greatest surprise is God’s constant disguise: making himself known to us in ways and places we would never expect. This “disguise” is at play here in our first episode, the story of Christ’s birth.

Interestingly, Mark’s Gospel doesn’t seem too interested in the early days of Jesus. As a pastor friend of mine says, Mark’s Jesus shows up fully grown: hairy-chested, with a beard, getting baptised.3 Neither does the final Gospel give us a narrative of Jesus’ beginnings. Instead, John reveals Christ—the Logos of creation—at the beginning of everything, the One through whom all things came into being (John 1:1-4).

Only Matthew and Luke choose to tell us how Jesus arrives.

And their choice matters.

Birth stories in the ancient Near East were rarely neutral. They told not only that someone had come, but how they came — and therefore what kind of world they were entering, and what kind of life one might expect them to live.4

A careful reading of Jesus’ birth should strike us with that sense of topsy-turvy mystery.

But perhaps, as Stanley Hauerwas remarked, “we are too familiar with the story…of the birth of Jesus to recognise how that story is meant to turn our world upside down.”5 Too familiar to notice just how disruptive it is meant to be. We’ve grown accustomed to rounding off the edges of stories in scripture: gentle animals, glowing halos, sentimental carols.

But this story is not sentimental. It is fragile, dangerous, and filled with a dis-ease. Nothing about this story is comfortable, easy, or simple.

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An often overlooked aspect of this story is the unlikely cast of characters. Leon Morris, a well-known New Testament scholar, notes that Luke’s Gospel pays special attention to women, children, the poor, and the disreputable.6 Each of these groups is represented here at the beginning of his Gospel. While these people were of the lowest importance in first-century Palestine, they are the ones to whom God came first.

And it’s not just that Jesus was born into a low-status family, surrounded by low-status shepherds, as a member of a low-status and oppressed people. Jesus was also born into an incredibly vulnerable position—to an unwed mother, forced away from the security of home, and far removed from a life of power or privilege.

In Luke’s account, Caesar, the Roman Emperor, decreed that “all the world should be registered” (Luke 2:1). This decree forced Jesus’ family from their home in Nazareth to the city of Bethlehem. In Matthew’s narrative, Herod’s paranoia of losing power and control drove Jesus and his family into the deserts of Egypt (Matt. 2:13-18).

Before Jesus inhales his first breath or takes his first steps, he is already a child of suffering, on the run—carried across borders by anxious parents, dependent on the cover of night and the mercy of others to survive. Jesus, the God-man, the saviour of creation, was born into the world as a poor, homeless refugee at the mercy of others’ fear, power, and control.

Christianity, from its very beginnings, is entangled with trauma. It sure seems like God is some kind of trickster…

The fact that God chose to enter the world in this way matters for how we think about suffering.

Is it strange then that the birth of Christ is primarily known as a season of joy?

Too often, joy and suffering are treated as fundamentally opposed. Other times, we are led to believe that we need to find some way to hold them in tension, balancing them out like a tag-team wrestling duo: Suffering comes out and takes centre stage, but after a while, it tags out, and joy enters the ring again. But neither of these are faithful to how the NT writers talk about suffering or joy.

How then does joy enter our lives? To quote theologian Chris EW Green, “Joy comes the way God comes.”7

What exactly does this mean?

Mary’s song, The Magnificat, teaches us something profound: joy doesn’t arise by standing at a distance from the complexity and suffering of life, but in proximity with it.

Listen to the opening lines of Mary’s song:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God

my Saviour,

for he has looked on the humble

estate of his servant.

For behold, from now on all

generations will call me

blessed;

for he who is mighty has done

great things for me,

and holy is his name.”

That a young girl could respond with these words in her shocking and (honestly) terrifying situation is astounding. The phrase “humble estate” in Greek literally means “humiliation” or “afflicted state”. This phrase was often used by women in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) who struggled with God for a child, such as Leah (Gen 29:32) and Hannah (1 Sam 1:11), and even metaphorically for the suffering of Israel as a whole (Deut 26:7).

As Mary sings, she attaches herself to the countless heartaches, tears, shame, and prayers of women, men, and children throughout her people’s history. But more than that, she knows the One growing within her is the One who will bring hope, mercy, and salvation to “all generations”—to every wounded heart across time, past and future, including yours and mine.

This is why the birth narratives matter so much. Christ does not arrive among the secure, the settled, or the protected. He is born among the poor, the displaced, the anxious, and the afraid—and it is in those very conditions that God chooses to be recognised. We’ll see this more in future weeks as we look at the Beatitudes, as Jesus shockingly announces, “Fortunate are you” to those no one else would consider fortunate. Fortunate, not because of their circumstances, but because God has come close to them.

“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted,” the psalmist says (Psalm 34:18).

This nearness changes everything. Caesar brought news to “all the world” (Luke 2:1), but so did Jesus. Luke contrasts Caesar’s decree with the angels’ announcement to the lowly shepherds: “news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10). The coming of Caesar was an egoic grasp for power and control, ownership and oppression. But the coming of Christ—not just that he came, but how and to whom he came—creates overflowing joy, hope, and comfort for all who mourn.

So, how do we live from this great joy? Green again offers us insight: “[We] will never be able to get in touch with the joy that is already in us until we learn to live with touch to the people in need around us.”8

In other words, we do not encounter the joy of Christ by hovering above or bypassing the woundedness of the world, but by drawing near to it with compassion and gentleness. When we become present to those whose lives echo his beginnings—the poor, the suffering, the displaced, the vulnerable—Christ and the joy of his coming are born anew.

Please understand—I have no intention of romanticising suffering or suggesting that God is pleased when we suffer or are in pain. But I am recognising from this story that it is in the places of weakness and vulnerability that God has chosen to be found, where he chose to begin his life on earth. The birth of Christ teaches us that God enters the world not through dominance or control, but through powerlessness. As those in recovery have realised, powerlessness is always where our real spiritual journey begins.9

As we grow in faith, then, we should not be surprised to find that Christ being born in us is not a path of upward growth, but one that asks us to grow down—a path of descent into a deeper childlikeness, a deeper dependence, a deeper willingness to be with those who cannot hide their need. And when we find ourselves in a season of suffering, or as we walk, listen, and cry alongside those in our lives who are suffering, the mystery of the incarnation of Christ is born again. God is not absent from our sufferings. God is arriving within them.

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I spent the last few days holidaying on the Sunshine Coast with my family to bid farewell to dear old 2025. It’s been a tough one, and I am not yet much teary-eyed to see it in the rearview. We love the Sunny Coast, and as I’ve mentioned previously, any trip up to Mooloolaba gives me the chance to patronise my most-favourite-of-all-times coffee shop, The Columbian.

While Suz and I were there one morning, we ran into some family friends, and we all stood chatting while awaiting our cups of perfection to pour. These friends have had a lot of what could easily be seen as “success” during their lifetime. Strong businesses built and plenty of money made — allowing for many epic adventures, taking them all over the world. Still, in the midst of all the ups, life has dealt their family some really horrific and tragic blows. Tragic enough, in fact, to keep them at odds with any form of god or any faith system that would attach itself to such a being who would permit these unspeakable evils of suffering to exist. They are not alone.

Suffering has proven to be one of the most universal and unavoidable aspects of life here “under the sun,” as the Teacher of Ecclesiastes calls this shared existence outside the realities of Eden. Suffering is also one of the most difficult themes to engage with theologically. Whether within or without the Christian life, suffering raises nagging questions about God - his presence, power, and goodness - questions not easily or quickly (if ever) resolved.

My own experience of thinking about suffering is varied. I grew up and was formed amidst several different ecclesial traditions, each of which sought to make sense of suffering in unique ways — some offering complex answers attempting to theologise, philosophise, or apologise the ‘problem of evil’. In a way, these seemed to hold suffering at a distance - as an idea “out there” that could be solved if the right theological ingredients were applied in just the right order.

In other circles, I saw a kind of spiritual bypassing or triumphalism at work. At best, these traditions cited well-known biblical phrases in hopes of offering reassurance — “All things work together for good…”, “God is in control…”, “Just hold on until Jesus comes back”…

At worst, they developed a theology that treated suffering as something already fully dealt with at the cross: “Jesus suffered so you don’t have to,” and therefore, any kind of sickness, suffering, or deprivation was evidence of a deficient faith and should be quickly “overcome.”

Sadly, I saw firsthand how this kind of bypassing kept those who were suffering on the outskirts of the community. Whether these ideas were expressed explicitly or implicitly, if someone struggled in their health, finances, relationships, or spiritually, the problem rested with them — a more faith-filled life was all that was needed to right these obvious “wrongs”. More than a few times, I saw these theological frameworks play out to tragic ends.

While I am no longer in a tradition espousing those views, as a spiritual director, I still regularly sit across from beloved Christians who carry their suffering as though it signals sin or deficiency in their life of faith.

There remains a sense that suffering is an aberration in the Christian life, which is too commonplace to go unnoticed.

I have several thoughts as to why this way of thinking exists and what drives it, but that is not my purpose for this series. Instead, the deeper I enter into Scripture, the more apparent it becomes that its writers take neither of the paths I’ve experienced, but offer a sharp contrast. Scripture doesn’t attempt to resolve suffering through explanatory apologetics, nor does it deny or diminish suffering’s reality through bypass strategies or triumphalist claims. Instead, through complex narratives and songs, lament and paradox, letters of pastoral encouragement and eschatological hope, the pages of Scripture consistently locate suffering within the life of Jesus himself, and therefore at the very heart of the life of his people—the Church—and its shared life together.

Throughout this series (of I’m not sure how many posts), we’re going to explore the theme of suffering through a close reading of some New Testament texts beginning in the Gospels and Acts, and then move through the Pauline literature, General Epistles and Revelation to hear how the New Testament actually speaks of suffering — not by explaining it away, but reframing it as cruciform participation in Christ that is sustained by hope and ultimately oriented toward God’s redemptive future.

I hope you are as challenged and encouraged by this series as I have been while working on it.

Appropriate to the season, as we are in the final day of Christmas, we will begin with the birth of Christ — the first narrative in the New Testament of the God who enters the world in vulnerability, poverty, and risk.2

The first post will be available later this week.

peace and JOY!

-Phil

If you’d like to support my work but don’t want to commit to a subscription, consider a one-time gift by “buying me a book”. Also, I am running a January special for Annual Plan memberships. Thanks for your support! It means the world.

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