We all know people
who are angry with God. Some take issue with
the idea that God does not, in their estimation,
seem to care a bit for his followers. Prayers
are made, good lives are lead, service is
given, but God is silent. It seems that God
is either powerless to give comfort and help,
or he just can’t be bothered. Either
way, it is not the kind of God they wish to
worship. In fact, it is the kind of God they
would like to curse, the kind of Father they
would like to prosecute for being a negligent
parent.
This may seem harsh, but these are not new
complaints. We see the very same rants all
throughout the Old Testament, largely in the
sections that we consider to be great literature.
Ecclesiastes notes that the same sun shines
on the good and the evil, the righteous and
the sinner. Thieves can do quite well for
themselves, and good people still starve.
What is the point, then, of living a holy
life? There are no material rewards, it seems.
God does not play favourites.
The Psalmist goes further, loudly complaining
in places that God has not shown up to protect
his people, contrary to what he had promised.
Is God asleep? Doesn’t he care? How
long will we have to wait for God to do anything?
The book of Job in particular puts the questions
to God. God seems to take a bet with Satan
in the prologue, seeing if Job will continue
to praise him even after all his earthly blessings
have been removed. Job’s life is destroyed,
and God allows it to happen. Job complains
pretty bitterly, and wishes he were dead.
He does not curse God, but he surely wonders
why a good and powerful God would allow this
to happen to a faithful servant.
We see these kinds of difficult questions
surfacing throughout history as well. Every
time a major disaster occurs, voices cry out,
quite understandably, in painful accusation:
'Where was God!?' A group of Jewish prisoners
in a Nazi concentration camp once conducted
a trial for God, arguing that he did not live
up to his promises of taking care of his children.
They ruled that God was guilty. They held
that God had, in fact, forsaken them.
Most damning of all, and most puzzling perhaps,
we see this same forsaken cry coming from
the lips of Jesus. 'My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me?' Not long before this event
Jesus had taught his disciples to pray 'deliver
us from evil.' But when Jesus prayed this
exact thing for himself in the Garden of Gethsemane,
before being arrested, tortured, and killed,
the answer of the Father was: 'No.' The full
measure of the pain and disappointment and
forsakenness of the world was allowed to run
its course on Jesus.
This is not some kind of clichéd theological
statement we’re making. The only true
comfort we can take from it all is that Jesus
understands; he knows what it means to be
forsaken. He alone has suffered true separation
from God while he was on this earth, and if
that is a working definition for Hell, then
Jesus experienced Hell. It doesn’t make
me happy that Jesus suffered this. But it
allows us to know that Jesus is not unfamiliar
with the suffering of the world. In fact,
he identifies with it completely and utterly.
So when we ask the question, 'Where are you
God?' we are asking essentially the same question
that Jesus asked on the cross 2000 years ago.
In the person of Jesus we do see the face
of a God who would risk everything for us,
and who has given us the model of living by
which we can actually show the love of God
to those who are suffering around us.
