Would Christ go to the Republican National Convention? Would He partake in the march against homosexual marriage? Would Jesus really Occupy Wall Street? Would He mock the Republican candidates, or call Obama a Nazi? If we easily see Christ doing any of these things, we must ask ourselves if we are worshiping a Christ of our own invention; if we cannot see Christ doing these things, we must ask why we choose to do so in His stead.

God is omnipotent and powerful, there is no denying that; but out of His love to us He is weak. It is in this weakness that He is ultimately, eternally, and infinitely strong. Love makes one weak because by its very nature it requires sacrifice and self-giving. In the mere act of creation we see God’s weakness displaying His strength. With the mere mention of creation, He brings it about, yet the act itself is one of sacrifice. Here we see His strength in creation, but His weakness in sacrifice.

On the cross we see the strength of God crushing sin of death, but this strength is only seen due to the weakness of His love, His willingness to die on our behalf that He might remove death from our nature.

I am not trying to say that God is not omnipotent – far from it – but instead drawing light to the fact that within the bounds of love the world could turn upside down; what is strong could be weak and what is weak could be strong. In a strong world, in the world of the Übermensch (Nietzsche’s “Superman”), the one who is able to enforce his will on others is the strong one. In a weak world, the one Christ displayed to us, the greater the servant, the more power he has. This is quite the paradox, that the weaker we act, the stronger we really are. Such is the mystery of God’s love.

Where does this leave us Christians in the 21^st century? Should we continue to make power plays for political offices? Should we continue to push “our guy” to take charge of the nation? Should we pray for the day that we control the schools, the government, and make this a “Christian nation” once again (or for the first time)? Is this really what the strengthening weakness of love looks like?

Perhaps we as Christians need to reconsider what it is to have strength. Perhaps we need to realize that strength is found in weakness. Hope is not found in acquiring a political goal, but in the self-emptying act of service towards those who cannot repay us.

The love of God is weak enough to cause God to stoop down to become a man. It is weak enough to grab that girl who suffers from life. It is weak enough to cause our all-powerful God to serve humans (for what is love if not service?). The love of God is weak enough to look at the young man intent on a life of self-destruction and long for the young man to turn around to his original purpose, which is Christ. The love of God is weak enough to wander through the hospital wards soothing the broken bodies, sacrificing for the sick, and giving grace to those who can no longer continue.

The love of God is weak enough to take the almighty Eternal and place Him within the womb of the Theotokos. The love of God is weak enough to cause the Eternal to walk where we walk, to experience the pain that numerous victims worldwide have experienced. The love of God is weak enough to cause Christ to give His life that we might have life. But the love of God is strong enough to ensure that all of this has an actual, eternal effect.

The love of God is strong enough to grab the girl who suffers from life and give her a new life. It is strong enough to draw humans to love God as well and serve Him (for what is love if not service?). The love of God is strong enough to look at the vapid young man and convict him of his ways; it is strong enough to turn the young man from death to life. The love of God is strong enough to wander through hospital wards proclaiming that He is the ultimate healer, that in His love all will be made whole someday.

The love of God is strong enough to shape and save our nature through His glorious Incarnation.  The love of God is strong enough to cause us to walk where the Eternal has walked and is walking. The love of God is strong enough to cause Christ to raise from the dead that we might have life.

If God’s love displays His eternal strength through weakness, then what should this say of us mere Christians? Shall we continue to pursue the power on display in the world? Certainly there is nothing wrong with standing up for justice in the public square, but should this be our primary vehicle for displaying God’s love?

Christ came down as a king, but never claimed the seat of Rome. He came down as a ruler, but to a kingdom without a border. Christ came down as the Lawgiver, yet made no declarations or decrees for the nations to follow. If we become a people who seek after kingships, after controlling borders, after laws then we have forgotten what Christ accomplished.

The millions of humans who are abducted into slavery every day don’t need another Christian song or another tract; they desperately need the love of God to rescue them from their plight and restore their humanity. The millions of homeless people don’t need another sermon on how they’re worthless or how trusting in God will make things better; they need food, they need shelter, they need help (even if they’re crazy, this doesn’t make them not human; all are fallen from God, so all are crazy in degrees, the man who mumbles to himself is only slightly crazier than you). Those who are hurting, lost, in despair, wondering about the next paycheck, suffering from abuse, don’t need another law, another rally, another city to occupy, another mega-church, another politician to save us all; they need only Christ, they need His love, they need His followers to cease seeking after the worldly idea of power and instead become weak that they might truly become strong.

In short, the world doesn’t need more Christians attempting to live up to the standards of their culture; it needs more Christians attempting to live up to the standards of Christ. The world needs people who display their strength in their weakness, and this is only possible through Divine love.

Pain in the Offering

Pride lies at the heart of nearly all of the devisions we find in the Church.  We Christians are often too quick to judge those who differ from us and place far to much stock in our own vain opinions.  We blatantly ignore the One who binds us together as one body, the creator and savior of the universe, our Lord, who commands us to be humble, and opt, instead, to cast a critical and unrelenting eye on anyone we meet whose theology deviates from our own in only the slightest degree.  Quite frankly, we Christians tend to think far more of ourselves, and of our own private interpretations and opinions, than we should.  We suffer from a deplorable, and often vehement, lack of humility.

Before you think too highly of yourself, It is not just the fundamentalists or evangelicals who suffer from this ailment; some of the deepest and most spiteful critics of other Christians come from within movements which emphasize good works or social justice.  So, the lack of humility rampant among believers is not just between those who dwell upon obscure theological disputations.  For there are those in certain movements who harshly judge fellow Christians; chastising anyone who is not engaged (or so they believe) in the same amount of “good works” as they are and even considering them somehow inferior.  This hatred, fueled by an incredible amount of pride, spills out into every book that is written against their “enemies.”

In light of this, I invite you to mediate on the profound words of Thomas A Kempis in the eighth chapter of his master work The Imitation of Christ:

“Do not consider yourself better than others, for you may be worse in God’s sight.  Do not be proud of your good works, for often what pleases us displeases God, Whose judgments differ from the judgment of humans.  Whatever goodness or virtue is in you, believe that your neighbor has better qualities; in this way you will preserve humility.

It will not hurt you to consider yourself worse than others, even if this is not really so; bu it will hurt greatly if you prefer yourself above another, although that person might be a great sinner.  A humble person is a peaceful person; but the hearts of the proud are full of envy and resentment.”

Today I wanted to pass on this beautiful prayer that my wife shared with me.  She read it in a devotional book by Molly Sabourin entitled Close to Home which I highly recommend.  It is the prayer of Metropolitan Philaret of the Orthodox Church.  Please read it carefully, meditate on its content, and make it the cry of your heart.

My Lord, I know not what I ought to ask of Thee.  Thou and Thou alone knowest my needs.  Thou lovest me more than I am able to love Thee.  O Father, grant unto me, Thy servant, all which I cannot ask.  For a cross I dare not ask, nor for consolation; I dare only to stand in Thy presence.  My heart is open to Thee.  Thou seest my needs of which I myself am unaware.  Behold and lift me up!  In Thy presence I stand, awed and silenced by Thy will and Thy judgments, into which my mind cannot penetrate.  To Thee I offer myself as a sacrifice.  No other desire is mine but to fulfill Thy will.  Teach me how to pray.  Do Thyself pray within me.  Amen.

“For they [the ungodly or atheists] reasoned unsoundly saying to themselves, ‘Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end, and no one has been known to return from Hades [i.e. death].  Because we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been; because the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts.  When it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.  Our name will be forgotten in time, and no one will remember our works; our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud, and be scattered like mist that is chased by the rays of the sun and overcome by its heat.  For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow, and there is no return from our death, because it is sealed up and no one turns back.

‘Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist, and make use of the creation to the full as in youth.  Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no flower of spring pass by us.  Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.  Let none of us fail to share in our revelry, everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment, because this is our portion, and this is our lot.  Let us oppress the righteous poor man; let us not spare the widow nor regard the gray hairs of the aged.  But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless.” – Wisdom of Solomon 2:1-11

From On Apostolic Preaching:

St. Irenaeus of Lyons

“Therefore, lest we suffer any such thing, we must keep the rule of faith unswervingly, and perform the commandments of God, believing in God and fearing Him, for He is Lord, and loving Him, for He is Father. Action, then, comes by faith, as ‘if you do not believe,’ Isaias says, ‘you will not understand’; and truth brings about faith, for faith is established upon things truly real, that we may believe what really is, as it is, and believing what really is, as it is, we may always keep our conviction of it firm. Since, then, the conserver of our salvation is faith, it is necessary to take great care of it, that we may have a true comprehension of what is.”

It seems that one of the central debates for Christians today is whether we should believe like Christians or live like Christians. One side is adamant that our beliefs are what save us while the other side argues that our works save us, while beliefs don’t really matter (or at least don’t hold that much importance).

For early Christians the distinction between believing and actions simply didn’t exist. To have “faith” meant that we believed what had been handed down to us and then lived according to those beliefs. As Irenaeus elucidates, action comes from faith and faith is established on things that are real. Our faith is in God, who is real, so then we should act on this belief.

We shouldn’t have a dichotomy between how we live and what we believe. Turning to the highly respected 20th century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, we read,

“And when we exalt orthopraxy, right action, which is demanded clearly enough by Jesus himself…do we have to lose all sense of what the New Testament equally emphatically calls right belief, orthodoxy?” (Truth is Symphonic: Aspects of Christian Pluralism, 13)

It certainly seems like von Balthasar is simply echoing the sentiments of Irenaeus, both of whom seem to point back to St. James (the Less or the Great, depending on who you believe), who wrote,

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

It would appear that even James faced this dichotomy where people were more concerned about works or about belief. To James, there is no difference. If you believe then it will show in your works, and your works will aid in your belief. Thus, faith is both a belief based upon reality, or Ultimate Reality, but because this is the case, faith requires us to act.

One can think of God’s Word, who is Truth (John 14:6) coming down and dying for His creation. Certainly He believed that He loved us, certainly Christ has beliefs about Himself. But He acted on those beliefs. The same God who baffles the greatest theologians and makes them less than children in knowledge came down to lift up the broken of this world so they might not only hear about His love, but experience His love. God cannot be divided, so while He is Truth, He is also action; we cannot merely believe in Him as a purely intellectual object to be studied, because when we gain true knowledge of Him we are moved to action.

This is part of the mysticism of Christianity, that it is a belief, it has propositional truths, it is rational, but it extends beyond these things. It has good actions, it is concerned with the poor, it serves the widows and orphans, but all of these actions are based upon its beliefs. Faith, true faith, is a faith based on reality and one that changes the whole of man.

In both liberal and conservative sects, the more we eradicate mystery, the more rigid we tend to become. For conservatives it’s the eradication and elimination of drinking, smoking, women wearing pants, and so on. For liberals it’s the eradication and elimination of the belief in any miracles, in using Scripture for spiritual purposes, and so on. So I would contend that fundamentalism comes in both variations; one is remaining fundamental to conservative ideals with the other is pointing to the fundamentals of liberal ideals.

Where I would disagree is in pointing out that today’s world isn’t any less confusing or less mysterious than the world of yesterday. Think of the people who were experiencing the collapse of the Roman Republic. Certainly that was a confusing time when the Senate seemed to be impotent and the Emperors began to rise. With this change also came a dynamic change in Roman culture. Or what about the rise of Christendom, which also would have confused the masses. We could turn to the collapse of the Roman Empire, the rise of Islam in the East, the power vacuum of Europe shortly after the collapse of the Roman Empire, the collapse of Constantinople, the Protestant Reformation, the discovery of a New World, and the list goes on and on. The point being, our world has seemingly always been in a time of upheaval and that today would be no different from any of those times.

What has remained consistent during this times, however, is that the fundamentals of the Christian faith have stayed constant. Christians today who claim orthodoxy would differ very little in their central beliefs from Christians two thousand years ago, even though we are separated by time, culture, and language. The reason for this is that though Christianity has fundamentals to follow, it is ultimately based on a mystery. Being based on a mystery means that nothing can overcome it, nothing can overpower it, and as confusing as our world is, it’ll never be more mysterious than God.

It is in uncertain times when we need to embrace the stable mystery of Christ, lest we be swept away by the turbulent seas of uncertainty.

I’ve been reading about the problem of evil lately and as one might suspect, it’s quite easy to lose faith in humanity during such an endeavor. After all, we see evil on a daily basis and commit evil as well. In fact, some people can begin to grow a hatred for this world and this life because of evil.

This is especially predominant among evangelical Christians. In their zealousness for God’s truth they see heresy under every rock, Hell around every corner, and await the end of it all when the earth will be burned up in a fiery blaze. Some people think these types of evangelicals simply thrive off controversy, but the truth is many of them hate controversy. I know many of these people (at times I am one of these people), and such lives are full of depression and angst. It’s full of never being happy and in moments of happiness feeling guilt because you know there’s so much out there you need to do.

But on the other side of things are people who see love on a daily basis. In their zealousness for God’s love, they never see heresy, they see Heaven behind every person, and await an end that may or may not come, but it doesn’t matter because there’s work to be done now. Some people think these types of evangelicals thrive of feeling good and avoiding controversy, but the truth is many of them genuinely love people and want to do everything they can to help them and find the good in them. I know many of these people (at times I am one of these people), and such lives are full of happiness, but lots and lots of doubt. It’s easy to be happy when you see someone doing a good thing, that’s when it’s easy to believe humans are basically good; but when you hear about a child being abducted and murdered or a husband cheating on his wife, what then? Where’s the good in those actions?

Within the evangelical community these two groups fight and fight and move towards polar opposites. The emergent evangelicals, in their quest for love, ironically begin to hate the more reformed evangelicals. Now, the emergent evangelicals may not recognize it, but it’s true; they hate these reformed individuals. They will use the reformed as a negative example in Christianity every single time, they’ll mock John Piper, they won’t even mention Mark Driscoll, and then they’ll create sites mocking and satirizing their reformed brethren. The irony is that for emergent evangelicals who teach that we’ll all eventually make it to Heaven, that we’re all brothers and sisters in Christ regardless of our creeds, their actions speak differently.

Now I know all the excuses that will be put forth on this one. “Jesus was harsh with the Pharisees.” So you’re automatically assuming that you’re not a Pharisee, but they are? You don’t see the arrogance in this? “Well they do it too!” Did not Christ tell us to turn the other cheek? “Well I still love them, I’m just harsh with them because they do more harm than good.” Aren’t we told to love our enemies and isn’t love an action as well as a state of being? At the end of the day if we’re following the Christian message, we’re left with no good reason to treat reformed believers the way we do.

Alternatively, the reformed are not without their share of guilt. In their quest for theological purity they have committed a heresy in their actions. Now, the reformed evangelicals may not recognize it, but it’s true; they hate emergent evangelicals. They will always view the emergent movement as pure, 100%, imported from Hell heresy. They’ll never see the good in it, or the good is always mentioned as an aside. They’ll blast Rob Bell (who says he’s not emergent, but, c’mon), they’ve already erased Brian McLaren’s name out of the Book of Life, and the only reason they won’t outright declare Peter Rollins the Antichrist is that he’s too short and too Irish to command the attention of the masses.

Now I know all the excuses that will be put forth on this one. “Paul was harsh with the false teachers.” So you’re saying you know they’re false teachers and you’re not? Obviously I’m going to agree that false teachers exist (I’ll get to that), but shouldn’t we also examine ourselves? “They’ll lead thousands away from Christ!” To paraphrase a line from The Big Lebowski, “Who’s the flippin’ Calvinist here?!” Don’t you believe that God has chosen His elect and that among those elect none shall perish?

To out myself on this issue, I certainly don’t fall in with the emergent crowd, but I also don’t fall in with the reformed crowd either. I’m one of those dinosaurs who’s dying out (at least in America) that doesn’t fit into either category, yet fits into both categories. Being that way, I will say that I do see many emergent teachings as false and I do think some of the teachings by some individuals are heretical (but I won’t apply this to block their salvation, because there’s no way I can know). But this doesn’t mean I’m ready to get a fire going or sharpen my axe. Likewise, I disagree quite a bit with reformed theology, particularly Calvinism. But this doesn’t mean I’m ready to become a modern-day Jesuit and hunt them down eradicating their teachings.

This is where I get to the importance of paradox in how we live. Could it be that we can look upon this world and recognize that it is evil and that people are evil, but at the same time it’s good and people are good? These are not necessarily contradictory, because we’re not saying that everything is pure evil or wholly evil, nor are we saying it’s pure good or wholly good. We’re simply saying it has both and that people have both. Some people are more evil (which means they lack goodness) and others are good, all by choice. Could it be that we do need to pay attention to what we believe and avoid heresy, but because this also helps us avoid heresy in how we live?

Most importantly, can we love someone and be with him while also disagreeing? Certainly this does have its limits, for how can I attend a church where the pastor denies the historical resurrection of Christ or denies His divinity? Or how can I attend a church where a rich member refuses to give to the poor and instead exploits them, but the pastor never says a thing to this member who is living in unrepentant sin? So there are standards (much to the chagrin of emergent believers), but we don’t use these standards to strangle those who disagree with us (much to the chagrin of reformed believers).

So yes, false teachers do exist and we should do our best to counteract it – but can’t we be civil in the meantime? While some may want to argue that I’m being soft, I would contend that I’m simply looking at how Jesus lived. He was harsh, yes, but He was loving as well. He was willing to call Peter the Satan, but He was also willing to wash his feet. He washed the feet of all His disciples knowing they would reject Him in His moment of need, and what greater heresy is there than that? Yet Jesus served them, died for them, and then appeared to them after they had rejected Him. While we must sometimes be stern in our words, we should never be stern in our actions.

I am not perfect at this at all. I sometimes cross beyond the paradox of life and choose to be purely stern or purely loving, most of the time stern. Too often I become a heresy hunter, pointing out why everyone is wrong rather than taking the time to explain my own beliefs and why I think those are right. So I fully understand that everything I’m saying makes me a hypocrite, but that doesn’t invalidate anything I’m saying (it simply invalidates me as an individual).

In the end, we must point out where we think someone is wrong, we must point out heresy, and this will impact how we attend church and our church leadership. But we must love in all that we do. While we must be willing to say, “John is wrong in what he believes,” we must also be willing to serve John in our full capacity should the need arise. We must recognize that while John is committing an act of evil (whether in his teaching or his living), he is still in the image of God and therefore still good. Such a paradox.

When He first started teaching, He would teach the Beatitudes to modern people. The news would cover it, with commentators on Fox wondering if Jesus was attempting to subvert Capitalism. Glenn Beck would somehow link Jesus to Obama in a vast socialist conspiracy. Those over at MSNBC would blast Jesus for talking about “spiritual” goods and not addressing social ills. Rachel Maddow would rhetorically ask why Jesus was concerned about self-holiness rather than worrying about the oppressed. One side would accuse Him of being too much of a socialist, while the other would blast Him for not being socialist enough, for telling the poor to be content because their riches were in Heaven, rather than telling them to overthrow the Bourgeoisie.

Assuming churches somehow existed, He would walk into the most conservative churches and trash their bookstores and coffee shops. He’d ask why they hadn’t spent a dime on the poor. He’d ridicule them for their giant palaces to themselves. He would then walk into the dying mainline churches during a funeral and raise someone from the dead, at which point He’d be promptly ridiculed for performing an illusion (for we all know miracles can’t really exist) and for not seeking permission from the administrative board prior to performing such an illusion. He’d be too natural for the conservatives, too earthy for them to deal with. But He’d be too supernatural for the liberals, too Heavenly for them to take Him seriously.

Many social conservative Christians would show shock and revolt when Jesus chose to be around the homeless, the prostitutes, the homosexuals, the abject poor, and many others. The line would be crossed when He would go to dinner with a known homosexual and a known prostitute. But those who believe in “free-love” would applaud His actions, but quickly turn around and accuse Him of being part of the Capitalistic system when He went to visit Bernie Madoff in prison. They would be disgusted when He spent time with multiple banks CEOs and attended the dinner parties of the elite on Wall Street. To one group He would wreak of the poor while to another He would wreak of the rich.

Many preachers and theologians would accuse Him of preaching a “feel good” message, saying that the Kingdom of God is for sinners. They would say, “Yes, yes, for sinners and all, but only if they do x, y, and z. Only if they follow the rules.” But many pop psychologist would ardently disagree with the preachers and argue that Christ was too down on human nature, that He didn’t promote a message of self-esteem. The preachers would miss the point of grace, that it transforms us in a process, that we do not take steps towards grace, but that grace takes us over. The psychologists would miss the point that in reality, the low self-esteem of the human race is really just good common sense.

The NRA would hate Him for telling us to turn the other cheek. The Capitalists would hate Him for telling them to sell all their possessions and give them to the poor. The skeptics of metaphysics would mock Him for consistently speak of Heaven and Hell. The liberals would be scandalized by His insistence on personal responsibility. Jesus would be hated, ridiculed, mocked, and most likely eventually killed (though not by a government). He would be called a universalist by one side and a close-minded exclusivist by the other.

If you think you wouldn’t be part of the crowd mocking Him, then you either worship an idol of Christ or you think too highly of yourself. Were Jesus walking the earth today as He did 2,000 years ago, He would offend you in some way; if you don’t believe that, then either you are without sin or you have created an idol of Christ in your mind.

It seems that many of us think that He would offend other people more than He would offend us. We base this on the fact that when we read His words, we’re not that offended. This is either due to the fact that we’ve conformed completely to His image, or we’re misinterpreting what He said. Chances are, we haven’t conformed completely to His image. A disciple isn’t someone who finds the teachings of Jesus easy, a disciples is someone who recognizes they are hard teachings, but follows Him anyway because they know they can’t go anywhere else, and though difficult they accept His words because they know He is God (John 6:67-69).

I keep saying “if Jesus walked the earth,” but Jesus isn’t dead. The words He spoke still speak out to us. He is still alive and reigns from the right hand of His Father. His Spirit still stirs our souls, convicts us, and comforts us. Yet, we are like the Pharisees in John 6 when we come across a difficult saying of Christ and we debate, “Did He really mean this?” Certainly not everything Jesus said was meant literally, but there are always clues in the text as to whether or not He was being literal or not. When He says “truly, truly,” He’s not speaking in a metaphor. When He teaches on a consistent theme, He’s not using a metaphorical technique. Much of what we claim is figurative is probably something Jesus meant to be taken literally, but we refuse to do so because to do so would offend us greatly.

With that, we are left being no different than the Pharisees, attempting to explain away Christ. He have pacified Him, we have humanized Him, we have deified Him, but most ghastly of all, we have sanitized Him. Perhaps He is not sanitized for those we disagree with, but He is sanitized for us. The Marxist who just can’t give up the teachings of Christ suddenly sees Jesus as a revolutionary for the workers. Jesus is read as a pre-Marxist, someone arguing that the government should treat everyone equal in wages and property. Of course, Jesus never taught this. The Capitalist who just can’t give up the teachings of Jesus, sees that Jesus never said anything about moral obligations concerning companies or about the free-market system. Jesus is read as someone who teaches personal holiness and has no implicit opinion on the economy. Of course, Jesus had quite a few things to say about greed.

Jesus becomes a battering ram that we use to promote our viewpoint. We interpret Jesus to fit our cause rather than letting Jesus interpret us and changing us for His cause. And don’t let anyone fool you, such actions happen among liberals, conservatives, emergent, or anyone else. Everyone is guilty of it to some degree, but some more than others.

While we do need to interpret the words of Jesus, I would argue that it’s sometimes better to take those words literally unless it’s blatantly clear that it’s meant as a metaphor; that is, within the text and the tradition of interpretation, it’s been seen as metaphorical or at least as pointing to a bigger truth. Otherwise, we must prove that something is metaphorical. But if we take this approach and find a teaching unpalatable or difficult, this doesn’t give us reason to cast it aside, but instead to conform ourselves to that teaching.

Christ is alive, He did raise from the dead, and He has sent His Spirit to hover over the darkness of this earth, shedding light. We are not reading an ancient text that must be reinterpreted for our modern understanding, but instead we are reading a timeless text that allows us to interpret our modern culture. We must let the words of Jesus speak to us, even if we find them offensive, because those words are alive, more alive than we currently are, and in accepting those words we will find life.

A thousand miles away a woman stumbles out of the car of her most recent “John.” She came to Hollywood to lead the glamorous life, the life of a Hollywood actress. When she could hardly make the rent, she allowed men to film her having sex with other men. She made money while she could, hoping that eventually she could make a breakthrough at a real movie and leave her self-created nightmare. But it wasn’t long until she was too worn out for films. She turned to the streets where her pimp injected her with drugs, he intentionally hooked her, all so he could use her to keep turning tricks and making him money. She remembers the songs that her father used to sing at church. She remembers the peace and safety of home and longs for it. But she knows there is no forgiveness for a whore and returns to walking her corner, waiting for the next middle-aged man unsatisfied with his life.

A young boy in Indonesia wakes up for his shift at the local factory. A man in Grand Rapids attends to his wife’s hospital bed as cancer eats away at her. A mother and father collapse into each other’s arms as the police tell them of their son’s death in an alcohol related incident. Another man becomes homeless, another husband cheats on his wife, another homosexual teenager contemplates and commits suicide due to bullying, another woman feels she has no hope and has an abortion, another soldier kills an innocent civilian. Around the world lives are ruined, tears are shed, and a cycle of the darkest evil perpetuates itself in our world.

It is fair to ask what God would allow such suffering. How could God stare down at His creation and watch them suffer? Such a question is not without its attempt at an explanation. One theological student will scoff at the question and say, “God allows it for his glory!” He will be satisfied with such a deeply theological answer, even as the orphan dies from AIDS, the theologian will insist that God’s glory is found in the open wounds of a dead orphan. The more philosophically minded theologian will say that God allows evil for a greater good. He will look to the sexually abused child and say, “Don’t worry, God is going to let a greater good come of this” and then offer a brilliant syllogism for the child to follow, all so the child will understand why God allows his father to sexually assault him on a daily basis. But others will not be satisfied with such theodicies. They will tell the suffering that God is weak, that God didn’t know such suffering would occur and that God is powerless to stop such suffering. The only hope for those who suffer, say these modern pseudo-philosophers, is in other people, all the while forgetting that the least of these suffer because of other people. These pseudo-philosophers suck all hope out of the lives of those who suffer.

What God would allow such suffering? We can come up with extremely intellectual replies – replies I myself have used – but how do you tell an abused woman that God is letting her husband beat her so He doesn’t have to contradict free will? Such a God seems cold, without love, and unworthy of worship.

What God would allow such suffering? The answer to this question is found in the cosmic mystery of Jesus Christ, in the Incarnation; the answer to why God allows evil is that He allowed evil to befall Him, to befall His ever-beloved Son, so that healing might be found. Upon the cross all theodicies are broken and laid bear, they are shown to be insufficient for explaining evil and inadequate and conveying God’s love in suffering.

Why would God allow evil? What we do know is that He faced that evil Himself. In the beginning God breathed life into Adam and then watched Adam fall. God witnessed Cain kill his brother. God watched man fall into oblivion and turn their hearts against Him, which only increased their suffering. But God did not view this as a distant observer, as a Deistic fantasy; instead, God took on our flesh and witnessed our suffering through our eyes. He walked our streets, He breathed our air, He ate our food, and He suffered as we suffer. Though God had a purpose for evil, He did not make us face such evil alone, but instead endured the evil Himself.

The god of Islam would not allow evil to befall him. The multiple gods of Greece, or northern Europe, or India are often the causes of evil and indifferent to human suffering. Yet, in Christianity, God comes down with full knowledge that one day His own creation will beat Him and crucify Him. As the soldiers flung the whip at Him during His scourging, He knew the soldiers’ most inner thoughts, for He knew them before they were ever born. The hands that held Him down and nailed Him to the cross were the same hands He formed in the womb; these men who murdered Him were once children He looked over. Christ suffered the ultimate betrayal, but in this He gained victory over death.

He went down into the grave and death swallowed Him up in triumph, but death could not contain Him. Even the blackest darkness cannot contain the faintest light, but Christ is the light from which all light comes. The darkness engulfed Him, but His light broke the darkness so that only He could be seen. These dark chains that attempt to bring us into the grave were broken when Jesus died and then rose from the grave. While God allowed suffering, He did not allow us to wallow in it; Christ died for us and provided a way for healing.

As the dying orphan looks up into the sky as the stars shine upon her, she is ushered into the arms of Christ by a thousand angels. As she peers into his eyes her scars are removed, her sickness is gone, and in death she finds healing, for just as death could not contain Christ, it cannot contain His children either.

As the worn down prostitute is left without hope and feels she cannot be forgiven, but she is looked upon by Christ as a lovely bride. He is more than the tract she has been handed multiple times by Christians who will only deal with this seedy individual in passing; He is grace, He is forgiveness, in His infinite nature her finite sins are forever lost, and He has buried those sins in His death. As He kisses her on her forehead to remind her of what a loving touch feels like, He wipes away her sins and makes her brand new, and He brings her into her new home, one that will not cast her out, but instead a place where she will feel more at home than she ever has anywhere else.

The tears we shed are not shed alone, but are shared with the God of the universe. Jesus looks upon the evil of the world and weeps. He died those many years ago so that we might find a respite from these problems, that while evil might befall us it could not overtake us, that one day as we fall before His feet He may raise us up, embrace us, wipe our tears away, and say, “Never again shall evil come to you, welcome home my child.”