Theodicy...

I often think about evil and suffering in the world. It's hard not to if you have a pulse and pay any attention to the news. Most people don't even have to listen to the news; there is enough fodder in their own lives to prompt such musings. I also hear people who teach about healing ministry say things like, "God wants everyone to be healed," and I ponder the credulity of that assertion. While I believe the statement on one level, and I respect and learn from those who teach healing ministry, something inside me jerks back when I hear it. If God wants everyone to be healed, why isn't everyone healed? The answer I give myself is that everyone will eventually be healed in the afterlife, but is that all there is to it? We live in an exquisite world without a doubt, but it is a world that also seeps pain and suffering--a fallen, broken world. To think that God wants everyone to be healed and eventually will accomplish this has not satisfied my quest for meaning in this brokenness.

Peter Kreeft, in chapter 27 of Bread and Wine, penetrates beyond questions of how a good God can allow evil and suffering in the world and turns the lens on the character of this God. In contrast to an aloof, unaffected God (like Buddah), one who is disconnected from the tortured existence of his creatures, this God in Jesus Christ descended to our depths, entered our suffering spaces and gave the gift of himself. In an ironic twist, Jesus outwitted Satan  by voluntarily taking the death penalty for our sin and our suffering with the promise that by his wounds we would be healed. Does this just refer to soul salvation and healing in the afterlife? Not so says Kreeft, who contends that Jesus took our blows on the cross and descended into all of our hells.  Indeed, even when he doesn't heal our wounds in the present, "he comes into them and is broken, like bread, and we are nourished." And, "since we are his body, we too are the bread that is broken for others."

Everything belongs, according to Richard Rohr, in a book by that title, because God can hold everything. We can't, but he can. That gives me the freedom to embrace brokenness as so much more than a curse of living in this world. In brokenness, we are invited to be in Christ, because he has come to be in us and in all of our suffering. Maybe this is what Paul had in mind when he said, "that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death" (Phil. 3:10, ESV). I can do this because he became like me first.

Daily Office Lenten Reading
Hebrews 2:11-18
       
        ". . . Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested."

Did He sometimes feel like time was crawling and that He would never get to do the work of ministry?

Did He sometimes feel like time was speeding toward his ruin and destruction?

Did He sometimes wonder if He was actually hearing the voice of His Father or just operating out of some fancied construct?

Did He sometimes wonder why He didn't hear the voice of His Father more often or feel alone when He didn't hear the voice of His Father at all?

Did He sometimes strain under the injustices of life?

Was He sometimes tempted to doubt the goodness of His Father?

Did He sometimes feel impotent in the face of society's power structures?

Did He sometimes feel like His Father was not listening to Him, didn't hear the cry of His heart, or worse yet, heard but then turned apathetically away?

Did those 40 days in the wilderness seem interminable, and did He sometimes wonder if He wouldn't survive them?

Thank you, Oh most vulnerable Savior, that because you were tested by what you suffered, you are able to help us who are being tested. Help, we pray, for we have no other hope but you alone.