If you've lived long enough, you've probably experienced a significant amount of pain in your life. It seems to come with living. There is physical pain of illness and injury, and that can be awful. When I was in high school, I ruptured a kidney and the pain was so overwhelming I thought I would die.

There is also emotional pain --- when a loved one is sick or suffering it is sometimes worse than any physical pain. I know when my children have been seriously ill I would far prefer a ruptured kidney than see them suffer.

And there is the emotional pain of rejection or betrayal by a trusted friend, spouse or relative. This too can seem unbearable. The loss of love can bring us to the brink of despair. At least it can do so to me.

On Passion Sunday we see Jesus experience all of these types of pain. He is physically assaulted and tortured. He sees the suffering of his mother. He is rejected and betrayed by his closest friends. He is publicly humiliated. He is, it seems, even separated from the love of God. Jesus endures every type of suffering imaginable.

When I suffer, I tend to do one of two things. I complain --- or I beg for relief. Or I do both. In some cases I feel that I should be exempt from suffering. For some reason, even though I know in my head that suffering is part of life, and certainly is part of life as a Christian, when I feel pain it doesn't seem fair. Or else I just want it to go away and will beg a doctor, therapist, God or anyone else to take it away.

Jesus, of course, did none of these things. He accepted suffering without complaint and made no request to have it removed. It has been said many times that it was not the nails that held Jesus to the cross, but love. It was God's love for humanity that empowered Jesus to suffer unimaginable horror for our sakes.

As I reflect on the Passion of Christ this year, my own suffering seems so trivial compared to that of Jesus. That's not to say my pain is not real. It is real and it really hurts. When I pray for relief, however, and look to the cross, sometimes I hear a voice in my head saying that suffering is part of redemption. It is part of following Jesus Christ, whether it's a broken arm or a broken relationship.

The good news of the Gospel is that the cross is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of a new story.

Those of us who are suffering must pray that Lent marks for us the beginning of a new story as well. Even though he predicted it, no one expected the Passion to culminate in the glory of Easter Sunday. Let us pray that our wounds and our pain today are a doorway to some kind of future redemption --- something wondrous that we cannot even imagine yet.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.