what is up with suffering?

Over the past few years, I have become near obsessed with the issue of suffering. It's strange really, because it's not like I've experienced huge amounts of tribulation or pain myself. I guess what I have begun to realise is that God so closely associates himself with suffering, and I find this intriguing. I have begun to ask myself the question: what if there is more to suffering than just trying to avoid it? It seems that it is not something that God is interested in simply getting rid of, but an important part of the way He reveals Himself.

Suffering is a significant roadblock for a lot of people, and it is no surprise. How is a human being supposed to reconcile a supposedly loving and all powerful being with the fact that a family member is suffering from a debilitating disease and is in huge amounts of pain? How can He just watch rape, genocide, starvation and terrorism and apparently sit on His hands? This problem is not to be analysed under the microscope of the ivory laboratories of theological debate, but in the messy, excruciating, desperate realities of real existence on this risk laden planet.

The problem of suffering is referred to in theological spheres as “theodicy”, meaning the ‘justice of God’. Discussion usually centres around this age-old conundrum: If God is good then he can’t be all powerful if He lets people suffer. But if He is all powerful then He can’t be good if He lets people suffer. Therefore God cannot be both good and all-powerful at the same time. Consequently, the God of the Bible that claims to be both of these things is nothing more than a revered fairy tale and a cause for tribalism.

But then there’s Jesus. Jesus who actually was good – goodness in the flesh. God Himself. But instead of preventing suffering and exercising some sort of divine control and separation from pain, Jesus enters into pain, social isolation and extreme physical suffering. He chooses to. If Jesus is truly God (and if you’re a Christian, then that’s you my friend) then Jesus is revealing who God really is, and God’s stance to the problem of pain. God enters into it; he doesn’t put an end to it. What on earth do we do with that? All our theology needs to begin with Jesus, and if our theology of suffering does too, we need to begin all our discussions from the cross.

Unfortunately, our tradition has offered some less than helpful answers to the issue, looking to defend God in what seems to be some sort of pious Stockholm Syndrome. Some of these thinkers sound a lot like Job’s friends offering suggestions that seem reasonable explanations to them, often blaming the sufferer or appealing to some sort of “the ends justifies the means” argument. I heard the story of a woman who suffered a miscarriage and while in hospital recovering, her well-meaning friend suggested that the reason her baby had been taken away from her was because “God looked around Heaven and decided that He needed something to brighten the place up.” The woman had to use every ounce of self-control to not say something nasty back to such a ridiculous response. We must do some good thinking around here since it is a place that so many people fall off.

John Newton suggested that we suffer so that we don’t become too attached to this world and keep our eyes on Heaven. John Piper thinks that our suffering is a means to greater glory and is evidence with your union with Christ (why non-Christians suffer too then, is a mystery). James Boyce wrote it is necessary because there is no other way to build character. While there is truth in these statements, they are flimsy and shallow once applied to real situations, like a road worker shot down senselessly in south Waikato this week. The question remains: What is God up to?!

Over the next little while I’ll be looking at this whole topic in more detail, but for now, perhaps we need to change our perspectives around this. Instead of framing suffering around ideas of injustice, how do we frame all suffering in light of the cross? God suffers. How does that even work? And what does that mean for the suffering of human beings?