SCRIPTURE & SUFFERING, cont.
Here is a central thought from scripture. When confronted by a man born blind, Jesus' disciples asked, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, so that he was born blind?" Jesus answered "No one." Jesus did suggest that, by this man's eventual healing, God's works would be displayed (John, chapter 9). However, I don't think Jesus meant that God made him blind so that Jesus could heal him and show off God's power. Rather, he was simply born blind for any number of unknown causes, but his healing would reveal both Jesus' compassion, and also would be a sign to a future beyond this life where blindness will not be an issue. In fact, later in the story we find that the primary miracle and healing occurred, not when the man was given sight, but when he was given a new and healed relationship with God.
Some suffering is caused directly and indirectly by choices we or others have made. When my son is on the time-out bench (suffering horribly, of course) it is because of a poor choice he made; it is both a consequence and a punishment. A couple decades ago, many of my sinus infections were a result of smoking cigarettes, and my body's intolerance of that smoke. That was a consequence, perhaps deserved, but not actually a punishment, even if my own guilt made it feel like it. Drug use can affect fetal development. That is consequence, the child certainly did not deserve it, and I don't believe it is a "punishment." The penalty does not fit the crime; and it's attached to the wrong person!
Deuteronomy 24:16 and Ezekiel 18:19-20 both say that we are not responsible for our parents' sins, nor are parents responsible for their childrens' decisions and sins. We are very often affected by others' bad choices, but these are results and not punishments, even when they feel like it. They remind us, though, that our lives are intimately and inescapably connected to each other.
Then, there is suffering that results from causes outside of anyone's decisions or control; suffering can occur even after good choices and intentions. Are these punishments? Are they learning tools; did God send them to teach us lessons or to make us stronger? While we can learn, and we often can rise up "stronger", that doesn't mean that God sent the suffering; and it doesn't change suffering into a blessing. The fact that my wife and I adopted two wonderful boys did not make our infertility into a "blessing."
The stories in scripture about God opening wombs and giving miraculous babies to barren couples were--and sometimes still are--hard for my wife and me. I avoided preaching and teaching on those texts for a long time. On the other hand, they now serve as a reminder to me that God cares, cares very deeply about the wounds that life delivers to us, including infertility. I love my boys beyond words, and I still miss the biological children we never had. But I don't need God to give us a miracle baby now in order to prove his compassion for us. (Actually, at this point, I think I'd rather he didn't.) I take more comfort in the idea that, all along, he has been walking this path of infertility, adoption, and parenthood with us--even when I couldn't sense it.
The image we're given in Jesus is that God himself is not above suffering, but that he is found in all human experiences: including love, laughter, pain, disease and death. And after resurrection, Christ’s bodily resurrection is meant to show that God takes into himself all human experiences, with its wounds and scars, so that we have a God who understands. He walks beside us; he does not cause suffering, nor abandon us when we are lonely, hurting or dying. In Jesus, God had to watch his child suffer torture and death. Through Jesus, God experienced all this. He gets it.
Ultimately, I do believe in a resurrection life that we can only imagine or symbolize. There is a bigger story to be told. For now, one of our main purposes, like Jesus’, is to take care of each other (including family, friends and strangers) and creation the best we can, and along the way, we point to a God of love and mercy. We are not here to tear each other down, or to lay blame, or to prove our way of thinking.
After Jesus quoted the greatest commandments: 1) Love God with all your heart, mind, strength and soul, & 2) your neighbor as yourself, he added this very important statement: “ALL the Law and Prophets are to be interpreted through these greatest two.” Also, over and over again, we are told that God is creative, loving and merciful, and that these are his central characteristics. These describe the best and most helpful ways to understand God and to use scripture.
But does God “allow” suffering? Perhaps, character aside, God would be able to constantly intervene, but--as hard as it is to believe when we're in the middle of it--his love may prevent constant intervention. Free will, biological life, and creation can all result in suffering and death. I maintain that the Creator God is against suffering and death, and therefore provides an ultimate hope and promise beyond it. However, while we are here, puppets cannot love. A god who forces or constantly manipulates his people or creation in order to make them worship him cannot be loved; feared maybe, but not loved and truly honored.
I don't believe this life is just a test, or a trial run. It forms and shapes the eternal personality and people we become. 10,000 years from now, we'll have a better perspective on suffering and what we're going through. I have to believe that it is heart-wrenching for God to endure both our violence and our suffering, but the thing that motivated God to create is the same thing that keeps him from removing all our free will and suffering: Love. Love is the thing that also places him in the midst of our suffering.
