|
|
|
|
Father Phil’s Page |
|
Where is God when we face suffering? I suppose I am asked to face this
question once again - prompted in recent weeks by the eighth anniversary of
the inhumanity of September 11th and the onset of global terrorism; the
seventieth anniversary of the start of World War 2; and my own family's
experience (like many other families) in watching a loved one die early of an
incurable illness. This is probably the hardest and most
challenging question asked of Christians and the greatest obstacle for people
believing in God. If God is love how do we explain the belief in God in face
of so much suffering? Well there are certainly no quick-fix
answers to a subject that has been debated by people over the centuries and
certainly not in the brief space allotted to this pastoral letter. But I can
offer one or two thoughts which I hope will be of some comfort. In one sense suffering is a mystery and
not helped by the image that some have of a God as some kind of absentee
landlord at worse or a divine being sitting on a throne somewhere deciding on
who should suffer and when. I do not believe - and would not invite you to
believe - in a God who wills our suffering. Quite the contrary, the
prevailing image in the Bible is of God as a shepherd that cares for his
sheep (Psalm 23); of God that is a rock, a shield and a fortress (Psalm 18).
God is the father of the prodigal son who welcomes him home unconditionally -
full of love, gentleness and compassion despite the youngest son's reckless
and wasteful behaviour. Finally and powerfully God on earth was
revealed in the image of his Son, Jesus, who at the end of his short life
knew and experienced the humiliation, torture and evil of crucifixion. The
Cross of Jesus is a symbol of that suffering experienced by God himself
sharing therefore the suffering of humankind; absorbing that suffering and
relieving that suffering through the resurrection. God does not stand at arms length.
Through his Son, he has experienced real pain, real death but uses both
experiences to change everything. In paying for 'the price of sin', in
absorbing the darkness of evil and triumphing over death, Jesus doesn't take
all the pain away but bears it with us and for us. We meet God, not in spite
of the suffering but within it. I can relate to that when my son died at
the age of twelve. Eventually - and it took the best part of two years - I
came to understand that far from abandoning me at the very lowest moment of
my life, God had been and was with me sharing that grief and pain and holding
me together. The writer and mother, Margaret Spufford wrote of her experiences when her child faced an
early death. ' If we are able to act as a blotting
paper for pain, without handing it on in the form of bitterness or hurt to
others - then somehow in some
incomprehensible miracle of grace, some at least of the darkness may be
turned to light.' May God comfort you and bring you his
peace. . |