God at the crossroads

Since my last post, I've been mulling further about the meaning of suffering in God's plans. As I wrote there, I'm not convinced that identifying some possible good outcomes from a terrible event will ever explain suffering, and that the reasons must be deeper and more important, such as the need for a world of consistent physical laws and real human freedom.

But in this discussion, it's easy to reduce God to a set of propositions and focus on logical deductions. The corrective for me is to instead look at the portrayal of the life of Jesus of Nazareth in the four gospels, and how love, justice, power and redemption intersect there. In the three years of his public ministry, Jesus clearly has a power to change people's bodies and lives. Frequently he uses this in compassionate ways (e.g. many healings), but at the same time his action points to the deeper realities of his identity and God's plan to rescue and transform humanity. Yet not every human need is met, not every sick person is healed. God's love and power can be seen at work, but the relief of physical suffering is not the exclusive goal.

One revealing incident is the death of Lazarus. Jesus cries over the death of his friend, and the sorrow of the family, then brings Lazarus back from death. The reprieve must only be temporary, for Lazarus dies again. What then is the purpose, other than the immediate transformation of grief into joy? If it was Jen we would have been so grateful for some more weeks or months or years, and yet finally it would be repeated - one of us sitting by the other's bedside, waiting for the end. With Lazarus, Jesus is pointing to the deep and lasting goal of his mission: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die".

One of the great comforts of the incarnation, of God being uniquely present in Jesus, is that he shared the griefs and sorrows of being human. God knows my suffering from the inside. From what one could surmise about life expectancy, infant mortality and illness in the ancient world (not to mention the brutalities of military occupation), I imagine Jesus wept buckets of tears in his lifetime. Then in the events of his last week we see betrayal, rejection, mockery, torture, grief and slow death. Even more surprising is that he has power that he does not use in this situation i.e. he voluntarily accepts a death he could avoid. Suffering is not the final destination, and the events that follow show the triumph over death, and the redemption of suffering.


I don't know why Jen died of an aggressive cancer, and even if the reason existed I doubt it would be much comfort. Yet through that last ten months she held onto her confidence in God. Suffering presents a choice: you have to die, but you don't have to give up. Her trust was in a God who redeems and transforms. We are left without her, and our loss continues and ramifies. We too have a choice to keep putting our trust in the one who redeems. Jen's death is an immense loss for us - all the years that we will never get back - but in the grace of God it's not the end. I want to follow Jen's example as she followed that of Jesus in enduring suffering while looking ahead. She has now 'seen his face' and received the reward for her perseverance. May we do the same.