After an extensive tour of the United States, the popular German theologian and pastor Helmut Thielicke was asked what he had observed was the greatest deficiency among American Christians. His incisive response was, “They have an inadequate view of suffering.”[1] Most of us see pain as something to be avoided—and ultimately eliminated and fixed. This is particularly evident during the current Covid-19 pandemic. Because the Western church, and especially the church in America, has become accustomed to living in comfort and security it has largely forgotten how to deal in a biblically informed manner with suffering and crisis. But what happens when pain is denied, dismissed, and hidden? According to Douglas Hall, a society that represses suffering ironically suffers three consequences: First, we lose the ability to accept or articulate our own suffering. Secondly, we are unable to imaginatively respond to the pain of others. And third, we seek out scapegoats or an enemy that we can blame as the source of our troubles. The result is a despair that eventually erupts in conflict and even violence.[2]
Christians in the Covid-19 Era
Public Health experts inform us that the Covid-19 virus will be with us for some time. Even when a vaccine has been developed, we will not know immediately how effective it is, and it will take time for the vaccine to be made available to everyone. During this Covid-19 era many Christians have acted admirably. Churches have exhibited the love of Christ in offering various forms of assistance to those impacted by the virus.
However, in other instances this has not been the case. There are disturbing examples of Christians not following safety guidelines with spurious arguments such as “the devil can’t get into my church so I’m safe” or “Jesus is my vaccine, so I don’t need to worry.” In some cases, the refusal to wear a mask in public has led to altercations which have erupted in violence. Wearing a mask and social distancing—effective measures to stop the spread of the virus—have been so heavily politicized that such common sense guidelines have become the latest battle ground in the never-ending culture war which consumes our nation.[3] Prominent evangelical leaders such as John MacArthur have openly defied state and local public health mandates and continued to hold large public gatherings (with congregants neither wearing masks or social distancing) on the grounds that “We must obey God rather than man.” The reality is, however, that such attitudes and behaviors among Christians are both highly irresponsible and a poor witness. They are not consistent with either Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:37) or the clear instructions of the Apostle Peter to “Keep your conduct among the [unbelievers] honorable, so that . . . they may see your good deeds and glorify God.” (1Peter 2:12). They also indicate a lack of awareness of the deep Christian tradition of caring for the sick during plagues.
Recovering a More Biblical Response to Suffering
How can we recover a more biblical response to this pandemic and to suffering in general? To begin with, Scripture teaches us that God’s presence and grace can be most deeply felt in the depths or “abysses” of life. As the psalmist says, “though I walk through the darkest valley . . . you are with me” (Ps 23:4). The very first word in this verse can be translated “even more so,” indicating that, while we may be tempted to run from The Depths, that is where we can more deeply experience God’s presence and grace if we respond in faith and obedience.[4] This is beautifully expressed in Romans 8:17-27 which describes how Christians share in the sufferings of the created order in anticipation of its full redemption. In that moment, says the Apostle Paul, God’s Spirit “intercedes for us with groanings that are too deep for words” (8:26) In other words, through his Spirit God groans with the church, at the very place where the world is in pain.[5]
In his book A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis poignantly describes his struggles to make sense of the death of his wife from cancer. He writes about how suffering challenged him to rethink the basis of his faith and forced him to acknowledge the limits of his preconceived images of God:
Images, I must suppose, have their use or they would not have been so popular. (It makes little difference whether they are pictures and statues outside the mind or imaginative constructions within it.) To me, however, their danger is more obvious. Images of the Holy easily become holy images—sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins.[6]
In his experience of grief and loss, Lewis discovers that God is the great “image smasher” who uses our own suffering to reveal his presence and sanctify our lives. He suggests that the mystery of suffering is ultimately resolved in the mystery of the incarnation which leads to the cross. This does not mean that the cross justifies or completely explains suffering. Nor does it glorify suffering. But it enters into suffering and redeems it.[7]
In the great incarnational hymn Paul declares that Christ “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:7-8). Here, Paul indicates that God is both present with us and enters our suffering through the incarnation and the cross. This same hymn calls us to be of the same mind as Christ by following his example of sacrificial love (2:5). The very experience of sharing in Jesus’ suffering enables us better to identify with and serve others who suffer, including innocent victims of injustice. In the words of Phil Zylla, “Compassion, meaning ‘to suffer with’. . . involves a participation in the brokenness of the world and speaks prophetically from the perspective of the woundedness that we all share.”[8]
Jesus’ self-emptying which took him to the cross causes us to give up all illusions of power and efforts to control. This is illustrated in J. R. R. Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings where the ring itself is the symbol of power. Though the epic story contains many complex and dramatic layers, the basic plot is straightforward: The only way Middle Earth can be saved is if the ring is returned to the evil kingdom of Mordor, where it had been made, and then destroyed there. Only one lowly and insignificant hobbit named Frodo can return the ring. But he needs the help of his hobbit friends and a host of others to accomplish his mission, which is to give the ring away—to return it to the place where Mordor will consume it and be consumed in the process. Kris Rocke and Joel Van Dyke point out that “Tolkien offers a profound insight into the nature of power—that in order to be properly rewarded, it must be given away.”[9] The spiritual journey of Frodo is an example of a “cruciform love” that pours itself out like Jesus. “Every effort to grasp, hold, and control ruins the very thing that gives it life.”[10]
The story of Frodo in The Lord of the Rings also illustrates how God often reveals himself to the lowly, marginalized, and scandalous persons of society and even uses them to accomplish his purposes. We see this in various biblical accounts. In Genesis 16, for example, we read the story of how God comes to Hagar—a single, poor, African sex slave. In this encounter, she calls God El-Roi, “the God who sees.” This is the first instance in Scripture of humanity naming God—six chapters before Abraham does the same![11] Job’s journey out of the silence of affliction into an epiphany begins with him sitting on a dung heap (Job 2:8) The phrase “dung heap” reflects how throughout history the ill, sick, and poor have been shunned by people and even caste as society’s “untouchables.”[12] Matthew’s genealogy includes a number of marginalized women (Tamar, 1:3; Rahab 1:5; Ruth, 1:5; and Uriah’s wife, 1:6) among Jesus’ ancestors. In his list of those who are in the great “hall of faith” the author of Hebrews refers to those who suffered severe tortures and were “destitute, afflicted, mistreated” (Heb 11:35-37). These “voices from below” indicate that God’s grace and the power of Jesus’ resurrection is often revealed in our weakness and suffering.
[1] Yancey, Where is God When It Hurts?, 19. [2] Hall, God and Human Suffering, 43-47. [3] Smith, “Consigning His Voters to Sickness.” [4] Casperson, Hydroponic Spirituality, 10-11. [5] See Wright, “The Pandemic Should Make Us Humble.” [6] Lewis, A Grief Observed, 65-66. [7] Rocke and Van Dycke, Geography of Grace, 192. [8] Zylla, Virtue as Consent to Being, 120. [9] Rocke and Van Dycke, Geography of Grace, 240. [10] Ibid., 238. [11] Ibid., 282-83. [12] Hubble, Conversation on a Dung Heap, xi.
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