Why are we, too, supposed to accept suffering in our lives and thus "take up our cross" and thereby follow Jesus?
Christians should not seek suffering, but when they are confronted with unavoidable suffering, it can become meaningful for them if they unite their sufferings with the sufferings of Christ: "Christ ... suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps" (1 Pet 2:21).
Jesus said, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Mk 8:34). Christians have the task of alleviating suffering in the world. Nevertheless, there will still be suffering. In faith we can accept our own suffering and share the suffering of others. In this way human suffering becomes united with the redeeming love of Christ and thus part of the divine power that changes the world for the better.
Was Jesus really dead? Maybe he was able to rise again because he only appeared to have suffered death.
Jesus really died on the Cross; his body was buried. All the sources testify to this.
In John 19:33ff., the soldiers even make an explicit determination of death: They open the side of Jesus' dead body with a lance and see blood and water come out. Furthermore, it says that the legs of the men crucified with him were broken - a step that hastened the dying process; this was not required in Jesus' case since his death had already occurred. (YOUCAT questions 102-103)
Dig Deeper: CCC section (618-630) and other references here.
Part 1: The Profession of Faith (26 - 1065)
Section 2: The Profession of the Christian Faith (185 - 1065)
Chapter 2: I Believe in Jesus Christ, the Only Son of God (422 - 682)
Article 4: "Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried" (571 - 630)
Paragraph 2: Jesus Died Crucified (595 - 623)
III. CHRIST OFFERED HIMSELF TO HIS FATHER FOR OUR SINS ⇡
Our participation in Christ's sacrifice ⇡
The cross is the unique sacrifice of Christ, the "one mediator between God and men".452 But because in his incarnate divine person he has in some way united himself to every man, "the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery" is offered to all men.453 He calls his disciples to "take up [their] cross and follow [him]",454 for "Christ also suffered for [us], leaving [us] an example so that [we] should follow in his steps."455 In fact Jesus desires to associate with his redeeming sacrifice those who were to be its first beneficiaries.456 This is achieved supremely in the case of his mother, who was associated more intimately than any other person in the mystery of his redemptive suffering.457 Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.458
452.
453.
GS 22 § 5; cf. § 2.
454.
455.
456.
Cf Mk 10:39; Jn 21:18-19; Col 1:24.
457.
Cf. Lk 2:35.
458.
St. Rose of Lima, cf. P. Hansen, Vita mirabilis (Louvain, 1668).
IN BRIEF ⇡
"Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures" (1 Cor 15:3).
Our salvation flows from God's initiative of love for us, because "he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins" (1 Jn 4:10). "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor 5:19).
Jesus freely offered himself for our salvation. Beforehand, during the Last Supper, he both symbolized this offering and made it really present: "This is my body which is given for you" (Lk 22:19).
The redemption won by Christ consists in this, that he came "to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mt 20:28), that is, he "loved [his own] to the end" (Jn 13:1), so that they might be "ransomed from the futile ways inherited from [their] fathers" (1 Pet 1:18).
By his loving obedience to the Father, "unto death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8), Jesus fulfills the atoning mission (cf. Is 53:10) of the suffering Servant, who will "make many righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities" (Is 53:11; cf. Rom 5:19).
Paragraph 3: Jesus Christ Was Buried (624 - 630)
"By the grace of God" Jesus tasted death "for every one".459 In his plan of salvation, God ordained that his Son should not only "die for our sins"460 but should also "taste death", experience the condition of death, the separation of his soul from his body, between the time he expired on the cross and the time he was raised from the dead. The state of the dead Christ is the mystery of the tomb and the descent into hell. It is the mystery of Holy Saturday, when Christ, lying in the tomb,461 reveals God's great sabbath rest462 after the fulfillment463 of man's salvation, which brings peace to the whole universe.464
459.
460.
461.
Cf. Jn 19:42.
462.
Cf. Heb 4:7-9.
463.
Cf. Jn 19:30.
464.
Cf Col 1:18-20.
Christ in the tomb in his body ⇡
Christ's stay in the tomb constitutes the real link between his passible state before Easter and his glorious and risen state today. The same person of the "Living One" can say, "I died, and behold I am alive for evermore":465 God [the Son] did not impede death from separating his soul from his body according to the necessary order of nature, but has reunited them to one another in the Resurrection, so that he himself might be, in his person, the meeting point for death and life, by arresting in himself the decomposition of nature produced by death and so becoming the source of reunion for the separated parts.466
465.
466.
St. Gregory of Nyssa, Orat. catech. 16: PG 45, 52D.
Since the "Author of life" who was killed467 is the same "living one [who has] risen",468 the divine person of the Son of God necessarily continued to possess his human soul and body, separated from each other by death: By the fact that at Christ's death his soul was separated from his flesh, his one person is not itself divided into two persons; for the human body and soul of Christ have existed in the same way from the beginning of his earthly existence, in the divine person of the Word; and in death, although separated from each other, both remained with one and the same person of the Word.469
467.
468.
469.
St. John Damascene, De fide orth. 3, 27: PG 94, 1098A.
"You will not let your Holy One see corruption" ⇡
Christ's death was a real death in that it put an end to his earthly human existence. But because of the union which the person of the Son retained with his body, his was not a mortal corpse like others, for "it was not possible for death to hold him"470 and therefore "divine power preserved Christ's body from corruption."471 Both of these statements can be said of Christ: "He was cut off out of the land of the living",472 and "My flesh will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption."473 Jesus' Resurrection "on the third day" was the sign of this, also because bodily decay was held to begin on the fourth day after death.474
470.
471.
St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 51, 3.
472.
473.
Acts 2:26-27; cf. Ps 16:9-10.
474.
Cf. 1 Cor 15:4; Lk 24:46; Mt 12:40; Jon 2:1; Hos 6:2; cf. Jn 11:39.
"Buried with Christ..." ⇡
Baptism, the original and full sign of which is immersion, efficaciously signifies the descent into the tomb by the Christian who dies to sin with Christ in order to live a new life. "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."475
475.
Rom 6:4; cf. Col 2:12; Eph 5:26.
IN BRIEF ⇡
To the benefit of every man, Jesus Christ tasted death (cf. Heb 2:9). It is truly the Son of God made man who died and was buried.
During Christ's period in the tomb, his divine person continued to assume both his soul and his body, although they were separated from each other by death. For this reason the dead Christ's body "saw no corruption" (Acts 13:37).