Possibly the greatest hurdle for people to embrace Christianity is the fact that in the face of the terrible suffering we see in the world, we still preach a God who is both supremely good, and supremely powerful. And these two things seem totally incompatible. If God were all-powerful, he could eliminate the suffering. If he were supremely good, he would want to. Therefore, since there is suffering, God either is not powerful, or he is not good, or he simply is not real and Christians are just plain wrong.
On a macro-level, we live in a world of war, famine, AIDS, oppression, terrorism and so on. Suffering also strikes us individually: car accidents, rape, cancer, abuse, robbery and so on..
So God is good? If so, why does suffering not only exist, but why is it so very widespread, and so extreme?
It is a very good question, and legitimate seekers have found this to be a huge hurdle in their acceptance of Christianity.
Consider it this way: suppose I saw a little child in danger, about to be run over by a car. I could easily step in and save the child, with no risk to myself. But I don’t. And the child dies. Doesn’t that make me a terrible person? Well, God does that all the time. He sees the suffering, he could prevent it, but he does not. Instead he stands by and watches it happen.
Let me give you just a sampling, a brief litany of what we’ve seen in our world, things that God apparently stood by and watched happen: a war between Ukraine and Russia, school shooting in Kentucky, tensions between Israel and Palestines, 5 billion of drugs found in a sweep of Latin America, fentanyl, deadly landslides in Pakistan, significant persecutions of Christians in North Korea and Somalia and Libra and a host of other countries…
Many of you have experienced significant suffering yourself: cancer, loss of a loved one, divorce, imprisonment, war, poverty, abuse, abandonment by a parent, depression, drugs, addictions….
I hope this is not overkill. ‘Okay, we get it!’ I mention all these things not to be depressing, but to be real. This is the world we find ourselves in, and it is to this world that Christians have the gall to say, ‘God is love!’. When people question Christianity because of the suffering they see in the world, they see it (appropriately) as a legitimate issue and so it deserves to be treated as such. We will attempt that today.
There are two approaches to this question: to your heads, and to your hearts. The question of suffering is usually a heart question, an emotional or visceral response to suffering. It is especially so when it is you yourself who is suffering, or someone you love. It ceases to be an academic question as soon as your own chemo-therapy sessions begin, or it is your daughter who is killed, or a fire tears your home. Then it is the heart that cries out ‘Why? How could a loving God do this?’
But we do need to speak to the mind, too. Because there are things that are helpful to understand, some clarity and perspective that will, I trust, help our hearts.
I’d like to start by asking the question, ‘Why is there suffering at all?’ This is a necessary question to ask before we can even begin to explore the relationship between God and suffering.
I think we have a tendency to lump all suffering together. That is, when we ask the question – ‘if God is love why is there suffering?’ – we don’t make any distinctions in terms of what we mean by suffering. There are some distinctions that do need to be made, however. For example, there are at least five reasons why people suffer.
First, sometimes we suffer because of our own choices. If I stick my hand on a hot stove, I will suffer. And some of our suffering is a direct or indirect consequence of the choices we make:
- I’m injured in a car accident because I drove too fast or was impaired.
- My marriage breaks down because I’m bad-tempered or jealous.
- I have cancer because I smoked for twenty years.
- I have other health issues because my eating and exercise habits are poor.
- I lose my job because I don’t put in a good effort at work, or my personality breeds conflict with co-workers or management.
- I lost my house because of years of poor financial responsibility.
In these and a host of other ways we suffer because of the choices we make.
Then, secondly, we also suffer as a consequence of the choices other people make.
The victims of the Ukraine/Russian war suffered directly because of the choices of violent men or terrorists. Victims of abuse suffer because of the choices of the abuser. Even many so-called ‘natural disasters’ have this element to them. For example, we know that famine conditions in Africa are worsened considerably by the realities of war and, at best, inefficient and, at worst, corrupt government.
A former co-worker of my wife came to Canada from Ethiopia, many years ago. And he said that the famine conditions there were entirely the fault of war and government. People in some African countries would farm, but they can’t because they are conscripted for war, or their land is appropriated by the government, or they are forced to move because of the unrest.
On August 17, 1999, an earthquake registering 7.8 on the Richter scale struck Izmit, Turkey, leaving well over ten thousand dead, and some 200,000 homeless. Yet, it was soon apparent that much of the damage was a result of poor building practices and structural deficiencies.
The seed of the global AIDS crisis lies in human sexual activity, some cancer comes from the reality of living in a world we have polluted, wars and genocide are the results of human choices.
Victims of murder, robbery, abuse, assault, rape suffer because of the choices that other people make.
Catholic writer Peter Kreeft says, ‘The overwhelming majority of the pain in the world is caused by our choices to kill, to slander, to be selfish, to stray sexually, to break our promises and to be reckless.‘
So we often suffer, and people suffer, as a consequence of the choices we make, and the choices others make.
Now, God could prevent this suffering, certainly, but only by either overruling our ability to make decisions for my own life, or else by arranging that our choices become consequence-free. Let us be careful of shifting the responsibility away from humanity and onto God’s shoulders. The question then becomes not so much, ‘Why is God so unloving’, but ‘How can we people be so unloving?’
While the human dimension accounts for a great deal of suffering in the world, it does not account for all of it.
A third reason we suffer, related but distinct, is because we live in a creation suffering the effects of sin. The Bible teaches us that when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve it was not just humanity’s nature that was affected by it. There were ripple effects throughout all of creation. So animals, too, get sick and die. Animals attack and kill people. Tornadoes and tsunamis happen, and people die because of it. Floods happen.
People get Alzheimers’, and pneumonia, and Hodgkins’ disease. Even though these are not the direct results of choices we or others make these days, the Bible says that in this era where sin is a reality, all of creation is groaning, and longs for redemption. And until that day, we simply live in a world where people get sick, where natural disasters happen, and so there is suffering.
A fourth reason we suffer is because of Satan and his demons, the evil spiritual forces who are at work.
In Luke 13:12 Jesus heals a woman with a physical infirmity, and he says an interesting thing in verse 16: that it was Satan who had kept her bound for eighteen years. The well-known story of Job in the Old Testament sees Job suffering intensely because of the specific activity of Satan in his life. We Christians believe in the spiritual realm, and that there are demonic forces that also work to cause pain and suffering. Certainly in most instances they do this through human agency, and so the dynamic of human responsibility is there again. But sometimes it is just the demonic forces themselves who cause suffering. Some depression, or spiritual attack, or some physical illness is demonic in origin.
Now why doesn’t God intervene in these instances. In fact, in the book of Job, God explicitly gives Satan permission to attack Job. Why does God allow that?
Well, that brings us to the fifth reason for suffering: sometimes it is because God is at work. In the book of Job, God was allowing this because he was using the experience to do something in Job’s life.
The Great Flood of Noah, the ten plagues in Egypt in the days of Moses, the wars when Israel conquered the Promised Land, these were occasions when God was bringing judgment for sin, and the suffering of those events was a deliberate act of God in response to the prevalent wickedness of people.
Even there I’m hesitant to make that God’s responsibility, for God’s judgment in Scripture always comes when peoples’ choices have become so wicked and depraved that there is no possibility of a turn-around. God graciously waits till the last possible second until his intervening wrath becomes a necessity. But it is, after all, his wrath.
(We must be careful, of course, never to assume that suffering is God’s judgment. When the AIDS crisis first hit in the 1980’s many Christians proclaimed it as God’s judgment against homosexuality. We need to be careful with attributing things to God when we just don’t know.)
So five reasons why there is suffering: a) our choices, b) the choices of others, c) the reality of a broken creation, d) spiritual forces, e) and God at work.
Remember, all of this has to do with the important question ‘Why is there suffering?’
Before exploring the relationship between God and suffering, there is another element I would like to have us consider, and that is the question of whether suffering and pain are bad things that should be removed. There is a sense, of course, in which suffering and pain are out of place, not how things should be. God in fact promises that he will do away with all suffering and pain in eternity, and we’ll come to that in a moment.
But in our present existence, would it be a good thing to eradicate pain and suffering? I think not.
The pain of a toothache is a good thing in that it lets me know it’s time to go to the dentist, lest all my teeth rot and fall out. All of our growth in character and mind comes through a sort of suffering, when we push ourselves beyond what feels good and is easy, and break through to a new level in our development.
And sometimes the more profound the suffering, the greater the benefit for us.
Sometimes it is through pain and suffering, through crisis that we get in touch with our need for God and for other people. And without the reality of pain in our lives we remain stunted in development: mental, social, spiritual midgets.
Consider this analogy (I think from C.S. Lewis) – an animal has its leg caught in a trap. To free it, a person has to force the leg further in and cause more pain in order to spring the release. The animal thinks the person is an enemy because he is inflicting pain, but in fact the pain is necessary for the animal’s good. Maybe God allows or even causes pain in order for us to move into new health and growth.
Maybe you think it unfair to think of such grand scale suffering as war and famine in that category, but in truth, we just don’t know. The Bible does seem to indicate that even the groaning of the created order is part of God’s allowance through which he will accomplish a greater good not just for us, but for the good and the redemption of all creation.
Even though I don’t understand it all, these things help me to trust God for what I do not know.
Now, everything I have said so far has been directed to the head. I have tried to give facts, to help with understanding, and to clarify the picture a little. And I hope it has been helpful.
But still the reality is that the question of God and suffering really is a heart question. Even if you can say today, ‘Yeah, I guess that makes some sense’, the next time we are faced with real, horrific pain, either in a global tragedy or something hits you where you live, your heart will still wrench, and you will find yourself again ‘How can God allow this? Where is God in this? Can God be loving?’
And this is where the God of Christianity really shines. Because we do not want a God who will remove my choice. We do not want a God who will arrange things so that my choices and your choices have no consequences and therefore do not matter. Nor do we want a God who will remove all hardship from our lives or all suffering from the human experience. Such a God would seem unemotional, impersonal, a little mechanical.
No, what we really want is a God who is present in suffering, to give strength and comfort. We need a God who knows and understands suffering. And we need a God who can redeem suffering. That is the God who is.
God is present in suffering. The Bible says that when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we need fear no evil for God is with us.
Some of you have experienced that it was in the midst of suffering (after the funeral, or at the hospital bedside, or in your grieving heart) that God was most near to you, that God’s love was most real.
Isn’t that what we most want? A friend is not someone who steps in to your rescue, to fix every situation and make life easy. A friend is someone who holds your hand, walks with you, and cries with you when life is hard. That is when the depth of relationship is forged. That is when you know what it means to be loved and cared for. God is that kind of friend.
Isaiah 41:13 For I am the LORD your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear; I will help you’.
Isaiah 54:10 ‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my love for you will not be shaken, nor my covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
These verses are true for us. God does not phone or send a card or yell from the sidelines, ‘Hang in there!’ God is present in suffering, to sustain and strengthen and carry us through. We may not even know it. Sometimes we are blind to his presence because of the acuteness of our grief and pain. But even then, it is his strength that carries us. God is present in suffering..
God redeems suffering. We do not need a God who will remove all suffering but we do need to know that God is greater than our suffering, and that suffering does not win. It is precisely God’s power and love that ensures the redemption of our suffering.
It is often redeemed in this life.
A man who leads an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, his own experience as an addict gives him a platform to minister with credibility to other alcoholics.
When one of the local missionaries was in the hospital a couple years ago he had a very significant conversation about Jesus and about real life matters. That conversation could not have happened had he not had that accident that sent him into the hospital in the first place.
The ultimate evidence of this, of course, is the crucifixion of Jesus, by whose suffering God effected our salvation.
God is always on the move taking pain and redeeming it, bringing good from it, forming our faith and character from it. In fact, James chapter 1 says that trials and testing develop perseverance, and perseverance is necessary to bring us to maturity. Like fire refines gold, so suffering refines our character, strengthens our faith, and so on.
God has also promised that he will work out everything for our good: your grief, your back pain, your job loss, your cancer, the accident, or the stroke. Everything works for our good. At the end of it all, we will see that even those dark threads are a necessary part of the beautiful tapestry that God is weaving of our lives.
God also redeems suffering in eternity. For all the suffering his people experience in this life, the glory that awaits will far outweigh it. Those who endure hardship here will receive a reward infinitely greater. God’s guarantee is that for his children, no matter the extent of suffering experienced here, it is but a blip on the screen compared to the joy of eternity.
God is present in suffering. He redeems suffering.
Finally, God knows what it means to suffer. The God of Christianity is a suffering God. He knows the pain of losing an only son. He knows the pain of rejection, scorn, and mocking. The marriage relationship is a picture of the relationship God wants with his people, but the Old Testament books of Hosea and Jeremiah reveal God as the betrayed spouse of an unfaithful partner. God knows the suffering of a wounded heart.
Jesus knows suffering.
The play The Long Silence, includes this story:
At the end of time, billions of people were scattered on a great
plain before God’s throne. Most shrank back from the brilliant
light before them. But some groups near the front talked
heatedly—not with cringing shame, but with belligerence. “Can
God judge us? How can he know about suffering?” snapped a
young woman. She ripped open a sleeve to reveal a tattooed
number from a concentration camp. “We endured
terror…beatings… torture… death!”
In another group a young man lowered his collar. “What about
this?” he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn.
“Lynched…for no crime but being black!”
In another crowd, a pregnant schoolgirl with sullen eyes murmured,
“Why should I suffer? It wasn’t my fault.”
Far out across the plain there were hundreds of such groups.
Each had a complaint against God for the evil and suffering he
permitted in his world. How lucky God was to live in heaven
where all was sweetness and light, where there was no weeping
or fear, no hunger or hatred.
What did God know of all that man
had been forced to endure in this world? For God leads a pretty
sheltered life, they said.
So each of these groups sent forth their leader, chosen because
he had suffered the most: a Jew, a young black man, a person
from Hiroshima, a horribly deformed arthritic. In the center of the plain they consulted with each other.
At last they were ready to present their case. It was rather
clever.
Before God could be qualified to be their judge, he must endure
what they had endured. Their decision was that God should be
sentenced to live on earth as a man!
Let him be born a Jew. Let the legitimacy of his birth be
doubted. Give him a work so difficult that even his family will
think him out of his mind when he tries to do it. Let him be
betrayed by his closest friends. Let him face false charges, be
tried by a prejudiced jury and convicted by a cowardly judge.
Let him be tortured. “At the last, let him see what it means to
be terribly alone. Then let him die. Let him die so that there can
be no doubt that he died. Let there be a great host of witnesses
to verify it.”
As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud
murmurs of approval went up from the throng of people
assembled.
And when the last had finished pronouncing sentence, there was
a long silence. No one uttered another word. No one moved.
For suddenly all knew that God had already served his sentence.
How do we reconcile the reality of suffering with a god who we claim is both powerful and good? There is only one place to do that, and that is at the cross, where God entered into the reality of sin and suffering, to not only take it upon himself, but to redeem it. It is the cross that is the proof of God’s love, for Jesus gave his life for our sins, and to give us life and heaven. The cross is the demonstration of God’s power, in that it is by his death that the backs of sin and the forces of evil were broken.
It is because of the death of Jesus that we have God’s guarantee of glory for us and the end of mourning and crying and pain and death.
To the question of suffering, in light of the power and love of God, Christians have always pointed to the cross of Jesus and said, ‘The answer is here.’
Amen.