When Life Falls Apart by Warren W. Wiersbe

Author:Warren W. Wiersbe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Living, REL012120, Suffering—Religious aspects—Christianity, Theodicy, Consolation
ISBN: 9781493410699
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2017-04-06T16:00:00+00:00

7

The God Who Suffers

A group of Christian missionaries visited Mahatma Gandhi to discuss their work in India. Before they left, Gandhi asked them to sing for him one of their Christian hymns.

“Which one shall we sing?” they asked.

“Sing the one that best expresses what you believe,” he replied.

They sang together:

When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss,

And pour contempt on all my pride.

We today take for granted the symbol of the cross. We forget that, in Jesus’ day, the cross was a despicable thing, reserved for the vilest offenders society could condemn. Nobody in the Roman Empire would have written a song about the cross, any more than we today would write a hymn about the gas chamber, the electric chair, or the gallows.

Jesus Christ not only did something on the cross, but He did something to the cross! He transformed it from a symbol of suffering to a symbol of victory and glory. And regardless of what a person may think about Jesus Christ, anyone who seriously examines the subject of suffering must confront Calvary. “He, as no other, stands before our eyes as an example and a warning,” wrote Sholem Asch, “and demands of us, harries us, prods us to follow his example and carry out his teachings.”

When you read the four Gospels, you discover a remarkable thing: Jesus didn’t explain suffering, but rather experienced it and did all He could to relieve it. Through His life, death, and resurrection, He transformed suffering and the cross on which He suffered and died. So powerful was His impact that, twenty years or so after the crucifixion, Paul was able to write, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14). In the Roman Empire, crucifixion was never mentioned in polite society; yet here is Paul boasting in the cross!

If there is one clear message that Jesus gives us about God and suffering, it is this: God is identified with us in our suffering and can enable us to turn tragedy into triumph. When you and I are fighting the battle, or facing the furnace, God is not a disinterested spectator; He is an active participant with us in the sufferings of life. “In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them” (Isa. 63:9).

The God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is not the “Unmoved Mover” of the philosophers. When He revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush, He said: “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering” (Exod. 3:7). During the difficult days of the judges, the Lord again assured His people by raising up deliverers, “For the Lord had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them” (Judg.

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