Lent: Day 4 Where is God in Suffering?
The Wood Between the Worlds (By Brian Zahnd)
Chapter 4: God On the Gallows
As we get started it would be appropriate to define the word omnipotence. It means “the quality of having unlimited or very great power.”
“A God who is only omnipotent is in himself and incomplete being, for he cannot experience helplessness and powerlessness. Omnipotence can indeed be longed for and worshiped by helpless men, but omnipotence is never loved; it is only feared. What sort of being, then, would be a God who was only ‘almighty”? He would be a being without experience, a being without destiny and a being who is loved by no one. A man who experiences helplessness, a man who suffers because he loves, a man who can die, is therefore a richer being than an omnipotent God who cannot suffer, cannot love and cannot die.” (Jurgen Moltmann, shared by Zahnd, p. 42)
Zahnd begins the chapter by talking about one of the most, if not THE most formidable challenge to the idea of a God who is all-loving and all-powerful at the same time.
The question often goes, “If God is all-loving and all-powerful why doesn’t he stop people from being murdered, children from starving to death, or masses of people from being wiped out from natural disasters, wars, famines, disease?”
This is the question that is probably most responsible for keeping many people from believing in God, and I hope you can understand why. We shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss concerns and questions from people around us.
During Bible college (2004-2009) one of my assigned textbooks was “Satan and the Problem of Evil” by Greg Boyd. I had to read it and write a book report on it. It may have been the largest and most robust theological book I had ever read up to that point. In it, Greg addresses the problem at hand. How can God be all-loving and all-powerful and there still be human suffering in the world?
Greg suggests that in order for true love to exist, humans must have free will. If we were only robots, whose every choice was pre-planned and pre-determined, would we be capable of experiencing true love - for God and one another? If God determined everything before hand, including those who worship him, and those who reject him, could we say that those who worship him, truly love him if they don’t have a choice?
If your spouse were programmed to love you, would it be true love? Would you be satisfied with that kind of love? No, because it would be like a Roomba just doing what it is programmed and told to do. It isn’t cleaning your house because it loves you. Boyd suggests that true love requires risk - the risk of being rejected. If the risk of rejection is not present, we are talking about something other than love.
God created a world where human beings have the freewill to choose God’s good way or their own - which is the cause of most human suffering. Love is not possible without the risk of rejection and rebellion.
To me, this best explains how suffering exists in a world created by a God who is all-loving and all-powerful.
But this doesn’t answer the question of where God is when we suffer. Is he far off, is he close by, is he watching, and does he notice?
Again, there are many who have rejected faith in God because they would say if God exists, he must not be good if he is nowhere to be found when people suffer.
Zahnd shares a powerful story of a Holocaust survivor named Elie Wiesel. He was the only one from his family who survived. His father died in the bunk above him after taking a horrific beating. Wiesel shares this story in a book that he wrote, titled “Night”. He writes, “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.”
Wiesel talks about all the prisoners being forced to walk by the gallows to look at the victims as they were dying. On one particular occasion, there were three victims - two adults who had already died, and one young boy was fighting for his life for thirty minutes.
Wiesel writes, “He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed. Behind me, I heard the same man asking: ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? Here He is - He is hanging there on this gallows.”
Where is God in suffering? Take a look at the cross, and you will find him. On the cross, Jesus not only suffered for our sins, but suffered with every person who will ever suffer in this life.
In response to what Moltmann writes about a God who is only omnipotent, Zahnd writes…
“Such is not the Christian God - for our God loves and suffers and is only fully known as God in the crucified Son of Man. In the crucified one we find the suffering God who helps us endure our own suffering and to find meaning in what threatens to be meaningless suffering…Christian faith confesses that somehow the boy with the face of a sad angel hung upon Nazi gallows is taken up into the suffering of Christ and healed. The boy is not abandoned, he is not left alone, he is not left unhealed.” (Zahnd, p. 42)
While living in a world where suffering is prevalent, here is the great Christian hope:
“Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.’” (Mt. 19:28-30)
I love Jesus words, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things…”
The Greek word for “renewal of all things” is “palingenesia” which in essence means Genesis again, a return to the beginning, paradise again, paradise reborn.
At the end of this age, Jesus will come back to make all things new (Rev. 21:5). Heaven and earth will be united. All the wrongs will be righted. Justice will be served once, and for all, and Jesus will be all in all. (1 Cor. 15:28).
At the coming of Jesus, all who were last, will be first. All who were trampled on will be picked up. All who were abused will be treated with honor. All orphans will be brought home. All the hungry will have a seat at God’s table. All who were taken advantage of will receive back what they lost a hundred times over.
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:16-17).
Zahnd writes…
“When we see Christ in agony upon the cross, we see a suffering God who refuses to allow his beloved creatures to suffer alone…As Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously wrote, prior to himself being hanged upon Nazi gallows, ‘Only the suffering God can help.’” (P. 41)
Take heart beloved, God is near.
Amen.