Can we trust God with our suffering?

G’day everyone, Dave Deane here, and our question for the week is: Can we trust God with our suffering?

Questions about God and suffering are among the most difficult because they require so much more than just an academic answer.

Over the centuries, philosophers and theologians have often approached questions about human suffering in either one of two ways: 

Either as a theoretical problem (known as theodicy), which typically includes aspects such as:

• The logical problem of suffering: if God is all good and all powerful, why is there evil and suffering?
• The evidential problem of suffering: if God is all good and all powerful, why is there so much evil and such great evil around the world? That’s the quantity and quality of suffering.
• And the scientific problem of suffering: regarding the constants and conditions of the universe being the way they are for permitting life and the kind of suffering that we experience.

Or the other approach is as an existential problem. Where the theoretical approach considers suffering as an object of thought and places it at a distance for reflection and contemplation, the existential approach incorporates emotion and feeling into the problem by taking suffering – not as just this abstract idea – but as a concrete, full embodied reality with all senses engaged.

Now, in my experience, I have found that most people, when they raise questions about God and suffering, they are raising the existential problem. I don’t want to dismiss the theoretical approach – that certainly has its place and can be much more than just an academic exercise insofar as it can be very therapeutic to put certain experiences at an objective distance to in order to process through them with greater clarity – but I think the subjective appropriation of suffering is much more acute. Indeed, often times people hide behind the theoretical problems when in reality what they are dealing with is the existential problem.

We see this distinction – between suffering considered theoretically and suffering considered existentially – very poignantly in the life of C.S. Lewis. 1940 he published a landmark work, The Problem of Pain which is like, the modern classic in dealing with this question of pain and suffering. 21 years later in 1961 after he lost his beloved wife Joy to cancer, Lewis published another book called A Grief Observed…a collection of 4 of his diaries and the contrast between the two could not be greater. In The Problem of Pain suffering was at a distance for Lewis, as an object of thought, and the result is a master piece which brings great clarity to a thorny subject… But in A Grief Observed Lewis has become the subject of it… And it is raw, venting, unvarnished… For example, Lewis writes: “Where is God? … go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and the sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence…”

In fact, so candid is Lewis’ reflection that he originally published the book under a pseudonym “N.W. Clerk” because he wanted to avoid association with it. And ironically, many of his friends came knocking on his door recommending he read the book because of how powerful it was at articulating what they saw he was going through in his grief.

You see, the theoretical approach to suffering only takes you so far. At some point we must deal with the existential reality of it… After all, the difference between studying what happens to your hand when it is exposed to an open flame, and actually exposing your hand to an open flame, is a very painful one.

So what can we say?

First: God suffers with us.

Well, just for a moment – for the rest of this short video – I want to leave consideration of various theodicies to the side. We can look at those in later videos. For now, just walk with me a little.

Granted there is suffering in this world and granted that evil is the flipside of the capacity to do good such that to wish evil out of existence is to wish ourselves out of existence as creatures with the freedom and capacity to choose between good and evil… the question then comes: is there any evidence that we can trust a God with our suffering?

Well, at the heart of Christianity is a cross is a crucified saviour. Jesus is: “A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief…” (Isa 53:3-4)

Let’s just marinate on this for a moment. Whether God exists, whether Jesus is God, whether this guy – David – yappin’ to you should be taken seriously or not – you know, we have our questions, we have our doubts, they are important and they need to be addressed… but just mar… just soak in this for a minute.

If the central claims of Christianity are true… If Jesus Christ is God incarnate who suffered and died on the cross… then whatever else we might want to say about that, this much we have to admit: the Christian God, the God universe, does not stand at a distance from the problem of suffering. Suffering is not a mere object of His thought. The God of Christianity became subject to suffering. He entered into it. Why? “God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son…” (John 3:16).

You know, for all of the farfetched, bizarre and preposterous said by the myriad of worldviews out there, nothing is as radical as that. And I would submit to you: nothing is as relevant as that. Because if the suffering you and I encounter is, at its deepest, an existential, fully embodied, fully sensed problem, then the cross of Jesus Christ tells us that God made it His problem as well………… That’s how much God loves you. I mean, “crucifixion”: the word literally means excruciating, it comes from Latin excruciare, from cruciare – “to crucify”. God is not distant or indifferent to our suffering. Inasmuch as it is personal for you, it is personal for Him.

Second: God suffers for us.

The death of Jesus on the cross is not the beginning nor the end of the Christian message. Death may be personal for God but, so what? The “so what” is answered by the central evidence for the truth of Christianity, namely the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. That opens up a huge possibility for you and for me. Because where the cross shows how God physically and spiritually embodied suffering and death, the empty tomb shows how God physically and spiritually embodies victory over suffering and death in new and eternal life.

You see? Not only does God suffer with us, He suffers for us. God identified with us in His death so that we can identify with Him in His life. God suffered on the cross not to remove our suffering here in this life, but that our suffering might be like His: oriented towards new and eternal life. And this hope isn’t just a future thing… it renovates and reorientates our hearts right here in the moment of trouble. You know, amidst Coronavirus, my wife gave birth to our first child… And hats off to all women everywhere. Birth is unbelievably intense. But it is hope filled. Labour pains are pushing to new life; it’s the hope of that life, it’s the love of that new life, that gives you the energy and the motivation to push push push. That is so… paradoxical its praiseworthy: labour is the way to life; bearing the cross to wearing the crown; the broken heart to the healed heart; my sin, God’s grace; my poverty, His riches; my valley His glory. 

The Christian Gospel – the good news – is one of triumph through trouble. This is such a liberating message.

You know, we all spend so much time and energy and money trying to figure out ways to remove suffering from our lives. We try to medicate it, drug it, institutionalise it, surgically excise it, divorce it… the Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us how to live with it. “Beloved, do not be surprised [when trouble comes upon you…] as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice [not because you are suffering – suffering isn’t the object of your rejoicing – no no no, rejoice] insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings [Jesus is the object of our rejoicing!] that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” (1 Pet. 4:12-13). “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor 4:17).

The resurrection life of Jesus Christ is not only a future reality, it is a present reality. The kingdom of God is not only a future reality, it is inbreaking in the lives of the redeemed today.

In John chapter 11 we see all of this laid out… Two sisters, Mary and Martha, lost their brother Lazarus to an illness. 4 days past and Martha hears Jesus – who was friends with Lazarus – had come to town, so she goes running out to meet him and falls at his feet and asks: ‘where were you Lord?’ if only you had been here my brother would not have died. Jesus said ‘your brother, Lazarus will rise again’ and Martha says ‘I know he will rise again at the end of the age’ Jesus says ‘Martha, I AM the resurrection and the life……… the one who believes in me will never die…’ Notice what Jesus did and did not say. He didn’t say, ‘Martha, look back on the time you had with Lazarus and be thankful’ even though we can learn from the past… He did not even say ‘look forward to the plans I have with you and the good and glorious resurrection at the end of the age’, even though that is a hope and a promise we can cling to… He didn’t say look back, He didn’t say look forward, He said ‘look at me… right here, in the present moment, right now in the midst of your suffering when its hurting the most… look… at… me. Look to Jesus. And what do you see? You see scars… You see the imprints of one who is with us and the one who is for us.

Can we trust God with our suffering? I submit to you that Jesus Christ is the only God worthy of the name because He is the only God with scars on His hands. The evidence of His love for you and for me is not measured by the suffering we’ve experienced or we are experiencing… it’s measured by the cross and resolved by the empty tomb.