Where is God?

Edvard Munch, The Sick Child, 1885–86. (PD)

Where is God? This is the question that I am not only asked quite often as a Chaplain, but it is a question that I have asked myself. Throughout my life, I have been asked how I can view the world the way I do, sometimes being accused of being a pessimist. When I hear such criticisms, I always picture the scene in Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” where at the conclusion, several crucified victims of the Roman courts are hanging as they break out into song. They all begin to sing “Always look at the bright side of life.” I’ve often seen this as a metaphor for the church. The church sometimes seems to feel that its role is to proclaim that “yes, things are bad, but only because you’re looking at it that way.” So many Christians often proclaim that life is hard and suffering exists, because of the way people view the world. That vision of the world is pretty contrary to scripture, and it is contrary to the world around us. Suffering exists in the world, and we should never put the blame for their suffering on the faith of those who are suffering. It is heretical, and it is cruel. 

Ask anyone laid up in a hospital bed, a Soldier, Sailor, Marine, or Airman whose deployment is getting extended, a single parent who has just been laid off in the midst of a financial recession, or any other discouraging circumstance imaginable. How do you think they would respond to the advice; “C’mon, buck up now! Things aren’t that bad!” The plain and simple truth is that no one wants to hear that they are just a “Debbie Downer” when they lament. The Bible is full of lamentations. Very rarely does God respond to those laments with; “Oh, C’mon now, things ain’t that bad!” Sometimes things are that bad, but instead of telling people their attitude is the problem, maybe they just need to know they aren’t in it alone. God tells Moses that he isn’t in it alone. Moses in turn tells the Israelites that they aren’t in it alone. The Israelites complain incessantly, which we often view critically, but if it were us, I think we would be just as prone to complaining. 

In Romans 8:18 Paul says “I am reasoning that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy in contrast with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Paul goes on, linking the suffering of ALL of creation to the suffering of humanity (Romans 8:22), only furthering the notion that suffering is very real and an undeniable part of life. Paul writes this letter from the dank darkness of Roman prisons, to the bloody roads linking the corners of the empire, lined with those condemned by Rome, hanging from crosses, much like the one that ended Christ’s life. Do you think Paul traveled those roads telling the crucified that if they would just change their attitudes things wouldn’t be so bad? 

Christ is seen as a savior, not because he shows us that “life ain’t so bad,” but because God recognized that in order for humanity to know God truly cared, God would have to prove that suffering was experienced first hand. God suffers through Christ, and that suffering proves to us all that life can be dark and difficult, even for a savior. 

Elie Wiesel wrote a book titled “Night.” In his book, he describes the scene of an execution of a little boy. As the little boy is hung in a concentration camp by Nazi SS soldiers, a man asks the question “Where is God!?” Elie responds to that question with “hanging here, from this gallows…” Elie was a Holocaust survivor, and he wrote passionately about the existence of God. He struggled with knowing God in such a dark and dreary world, but in that passage, which is interpreted many different ways, I hear a recognition of God present in the darkest of places. 

As the news grows dreary and challenges continue to arise in the midst of these days ahead, many will question where God is in the midst of all these events. What we should all consider is that we are not the first to ask such questions. The first century church grew out of the ashes of persecution, following a crucified manifestation of God. They followed a man killed on a cross, not a man that abolished the cross. The cross remained in use, as a means to intimidate generations to come, but it didn’t intimidate them, it drove them closer to God. As things grow more challenging, I hope we can find ways to recognize God is with us. There is no easy answer to fixing our problems or fears, but God shares in them with us. And when God is daring enough to share in our problems and fears, God gives us the model to follow. We, too, need to share in each other’s fears and problems, caring for one another, loving one another, because we share in the suffering of one another. This gives us all strength to endure the sufferings of this life. And when we all share in that suffering, God isn’t so hard to find anymore, because God is in the face of our neighbor, suffering beside each of us. 

Amen. 

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Christ Carrying the Cross, 1564 (PD)

Sources

Monty Python (Comedy troupe). Monty Python's The Life of Brian (of Nazareth). London :Eyre Methuen, 1979

Wiesel, Elie,Wiesel, Marion.Night. New York : Hill And Wang, 2006. Print.


*This is my personal blog. Thoughts and opinions are my own and are not necessarily those of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, Navy Chaplain Corps, or the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.