Cultivating Hope for Patients with Chronic Pain: A Look into Pauline and Early Christian Teachings (on Suffering with Christ)
Helen Rhee, PhD, MDiv, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA
Hope is a nebulous concept for many patients with chronic pain since, by definition, chronic pain, which is the pain that persists longer than three to six months, has no end in sight in terms of its duration. According to the most recent CDC study of 2021, 20.9% of US adults (51.6 million) experience chronic pain; and 6.9% (17.1 million) experience high-impact chronic pain, which “results in substantial restrictions to daily activities” (CDC, MMWR, 2021). This number has likely gone up by now and will continue to climb up; chronic pain has become one of the most difficult medical conditions that challenges Western biomedicine’s confidence and efficacy.
In this paper, I, as a chronic pain patient myself, explore the question of how an early Christian tradition might offer a helpful perspective on cultivating hope for patients with chronic pain. At the foundational theological level, I draw on the New Testament scholar Morna Hooker’s understanding of Pauline atonement as representation (interchange) rather than substitution (exchange). Hooker argues that according to Paul, Christ identified himself with humanity, suffered, and died not that his followers wouldn’t have to (a substitution model) but that they would indeed share his suffering and death in and with him (a representation model) so as to share his resurrection and glory (From Adam to Christ, ch. 3). For believers, without sharing of Christ’s suffering and death, there’s no sharing of his resurrection and glory; therefore, the suffering of believers in imitation of Christ is critical to their experience of (future) glory. This understanding of Paul’s atonement (i.e., experiencing life through “death”) opens up an understanding of suffering that is embedded in Christian life. In fact, Jesus himself said in the Synoptic Gospels that his followers should share his suffering (e.g., Lk. 9.20-23). Therefore, Christ’s sufferings are no substitutes for our sufferings; but they are “a pattern to which we need to be conformed” to him (54). In this model, then, all suffering of believers, including suffering from chronic pain, has been baptized into Christ and thus can be transformed in Christ (cf. 52).
It is this transformability and meaningfulness of all suffering as believers (not just suffering from persecutions or martyrdom), including suffering from chronic pain, that opens up a possibility of bearing chronic pain with hope. Here hope is not so much biomedical cure or relief from pain as yearning for and experience of the power of Christ’s resurrection and glory in the midst of our pain. To be clear, I’m not referring to any voluntarily induced pain such as the ones by early Christian ascetics or medieval mystics; nor do I mean that the patients with chronic pain simply give up biomedical help in moderating their pain. Rather, even through chronic pain (in its various forms), we can experience life of Christ just as Paul has experienced the power of Christ’s life and resurrection through his manifold suffering, including his “thorn in the flesh.” Augustine of Hippo follows this line of interpreting Paul in that the suffering of Christ (his incarnation, suffering, and death) is the model of our pain in our mimetic identification with Christ. We are united with Christ in our suffering in and with Christ; and Christ’s complete solidarity with our pain and suffering is the foundation of our hope for Augustine. If patients of chronic pain (and Christians experiencing any pain and suffering) can apply this Pauline and Augustinian perspective to their contexts, we have not only a sure foundation but also a compelling reason to nurture and live in hope, that is, to yearn and experience Christ’s power of resurrection and glory in and through our chronic pain now not just in future, because of our union with Christ. This hope is a capacity to recognize that God’s grace is indeed sufficient for us, for [God’s] power is made perfect in weakness as Paul says in 2 Cor. 12.9. Because of this hope, patients with chronic pain can find meaningfulness in their pain not only in relation to Christ but also in relation to their local body of Christ.
In this paper, I, as a chronic pain patient myself, explore the question of how an early Christian tradition might offer a helpful perspective on cultivating hope for patients with chronic pain. At the foundational theological level, I draw on the New Testament scholar Morna Hooker’s understanding of Pauline atonement as representation (interchange) rather than substitution (exchange). Hooker argues that according to Paul, Christ identified himself with humanity, suffered, and died not that his followers wouldn’t have to (a substitution model) but that they would indeed share his suffering and death in and with him (a representation model) so as to share his resurrection and glory (From Adam to Christ, ch. 3). For believers, without sharing of Christ’s suffering and death, there’s no sharing of his resurrection and glory; therefore, the suffering of believers in imitation of Christ is critical to their experience of (future) glory. This understanding of Paul’s atonement (i.e., experiencing life through “death”) opens up an understanding of suffering that is embedded in Christian life. In fact, Jesus himself said in the Synoptic Gospels that his followers should share his suffering (e.g., Lk. 9.20-23). Therefore, Christ’s sufferings are no substitutes for our sufferings; but they are “a pattern to which we need to be conformed” to him (54). In this model, then, all suffering of believers, including suffering from chronic pain, has been baptized into Christ and thus can be transformed in Christ (cf. 52).
It is this transformability and meaningfulness of all suffering as believers (not just suffering from persecutions or martyrdom), including suffering from chronic pain, that opens up a possibility of bearing chronic pain with hope. Here hope is not so much biomedical cure or relief from pain as yearning for and experience of the power of Christ’s resurrection and glory in the midst of our pain. To be clear, I’m not referring to any voluntarily induced pain such as the ones by early Christian ascetics or medieval mystics; nor do I mean that the patients with chronic pain simply give up biomedical help in moderating their pain. Rather, even through chronic pain (in its various forms), we can experience life of Christ just as Paul has experienced the power of Christ’s life and resurrection through his manifold suffering, including his “thorn in the flesh.” Augustine of Hippo follows this line of interpreting Paul in that the suffering of Christ (his incarnation, suffering, and death) is the model of our pain in our mimetic identification with Christ. We are united with Christ in our suffering in and with Christ; and Christ’s complete solidarity with our pain and suffering is the foundation of our hope for Augustine. If patients of chronic pain (and Christians experiencing any pain and suffering) can apply this Pauline and Augustinian perspective to their contexts, we have not only a sure foundation but also a compelling reason to nurture and live in hope, that is, to yearn and experience Christ’s power of resurrection and glory in and through our chronic pain now not just in future, because of our union with Christ. This hope is a capacity to recognize that God’s grace is indeed sufficient for us, for [God’s] power is made perfect in weakness as Paul says in 2 Cor. 12.9. Because of this hope, patients with chronic pain can find meaningfulness in their pain not only in relation to Christ but also in relation to their local body of Christ.