Suffering

Once, a friend looked at me with suspicion because he saw that my internet home page is Fox News. My argument was that I like to keep up with the things that are happening in the world -- through a "balanced, non-biased" news source (ha, as if). But honestly, more often than not, I glance at the first page full of stories about school shootings and negligent parents and I quickly navigate to my g-mail. Even that quick glance can make my heart burn with sadness and sometimes anger.

Where is God in the midst of suffering? It seems to be a hot topic relevant to every century and generation.

Craig Brown, my pastor, quoted three different people last week in his sermon on Genesis 50, and I found the words to be very enlightening. As a little background, this passage in Genesis documents a ridiculously hard-to-believe story about Joseph (you know, the guy with the coat of many colors) who is faced with the option of forgiving his brothers for the intense suffering they put him through, or punishing them. He says, "Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good..." So Joseph takes himself out of the picture and points to the character of God.

Joseph's response is counter-intuitive; and the picture of God that the story illustrates is as Craig says, a "non sequitur." It's supernatural. Perhaps it illustrates the idea of justice well, but it also illustrates God's goodness. God used the very elements of the brothers' evil to bring eternal redemption to the world. This is goodness, right? But a goodness that's hard to wrap our minds around.

If we are honest with ourselves, it's hard to escape that question that has been around forever -- "If God is both powerful and good, then where is he in the midst of suffering? Where was He when 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust? Where is He in Africa right now as millions suffer through the AIDS epidemic? Where was He during 9/11?"

One man, Epicurus (Greek philosopher, 341 BC), put it this way:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”

Tim Keller, an active pastor in New York (who I heard preach last year and he's great), says in his New York Times Best Seller Reasons for God (which I haven't but intend to read!):

"If you have a god great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn't stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have a god great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can't know."

And Bill Lane, a New Testament scholar, says:

"Jesus came to be with the Father for an interlude right before his betrayal, but he found hell rather than heaven open to him, and he staggered."

Despite what we think about how much God cares about our present suffering, at least we know that God is deeply in touch with our suffering because he experienced it to its fullest.