Friday, January 07, 2005

The Tsunami of Suffering

150,000 lives – and possibly much more! The tsunami waves which reverberated over the Indian Ocean the day after Christmas, 2004, caused untold damage and suffering.
We call this a “natural” disaster, meaning it was an act of “nature” which could not have been stopped.
After every incident where there is a large loss of life, people ask the question, “Why?”
So-called atheists say, “See? If there was a “good” god, he would have prevented this disaster!”
Agnostics say, “See? Even if there is a god, (and I’m not saying there is), what good did it do for those dead people?”
Many Christians say, “I know there is a good God, but why such a large loss of life which somehow He could have prevented?”
This idea of human suffering under the control of a good God is perplexing to many.
When a little girl was asked what impressed her most about the powerful movie “The Passion of the Christ”, she said, “When Simon of Cyrene called out for the beating to stop and Jesus had suffered so much, why would they go on causing Him more pain?” Her tender twelve-year-old heart was deeply moved as were so many of us who watched it and echoed the cross-bearer’s plea. As we shielded our tear-filled eyes from the unrelenting beating, humiliation and scourging of our Savior depicted in this film, so we often want to hide from the ongoing assaults on our own lives – crying out “Stop!”
Hearts crushed with a weight of grief, eyes swollen from an unending flow of tears, our lips repeatedly form the aching question – HOW LONG MUST I PUT UP WITH THE PAIN? And as we see the suffering following the tsunami, we say, WHY ALL THAT PAIN?
While myriad of writers, theologians and poets have wrestled through the ages with this enigma, there are no glib answers to the mystery of suffering. At a time when pain appears to be proliferating on every front – physical, mental and emotional – there is a great need to encourage each other in these dark and bewildering times in which we live. It is a time to remind one another that there is purpose in the pain.
One could not watch the Passion movie without being struck with the brutality that begged the question as to what was so heinous and incompatible with heaven’s holiness that human kind could not be reconciled without such suffering? Many unbelieving people find the entire concept of Jesus’ suffering and death totally repellent. A god who requires blood and beatings is irreconcilable with a Supreme Creator who loves His creation. And doubters cannot make the leap of faith that is required to reconcile pain with higher purposes than our own limited human reasoning can comprehend. If we are honest, we who do believe find the problem of pain hard to grasp at times.
The tsunami of suffering struck both Christian believers and unbelievers alike. Pain and death is just a part of the human condition. Part of the difficulty we have in identifying pain as part of the believer’s walk is that we are slow to accept that we are really and truly united with the living Christ. A large segment of Christianity claims that success alone should be the hallmark of a believer’s walk. And when pain and troubles come, they question their walk with Christ itself.
The Scriptures are unequivocal regarding the place of pain in the Christian life. We also, as Jesus did (Heb. 5:8), learn obedience by what we endure, not by what God miraculously takes us out of.
The deluge of disasters, disappointments and tragedies that overtake us are only bearable in the loving context of the Cross which, despite its gruesome physical reality, is still and forever a message of love.
The Bible speaks of God as a Master Potter forming and transforming us into His desired result. A number of years ago, I saw a fine piece of sculpture called “Forming Hands”. While the slightly larger right hand is gouging out the lump of clay, the smaller, finer left hand holds the piece of clay steady in the process. We can endure the pain because we know we are safe within the loving left hand as the right hand does its work forming us into the image of the Son. The Potter will not destroy the raw material in the process.
What of the pain in unbelievers? How long must they put up with pain? As long as it takes for them to come to a realization of their “natural” weakness in morality and their need for a Savior!
The Asian tsunami caused pain in Christians and non-Christians alike. It caused death in Christians and non-Christians alike. We know from the Bible that the deaths had eternal consequences of good for the Christians involved. Only God knows the type of consequences in the deaths of unbelievers.
What we can be thankful for is our assurance that Christ lives in us, as us, and for us – God’s eternal purpose.


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