“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence” (NRSV, Genesis 6:11)

“From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must…undergo great suffering…and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (NRSV, Matthew 16:21)

Today we commemorate with gratitude and respect those who fell in the First and Second World Wars, and in more recent conflicts.  What makes all those wars relevant today is the fact that they were monumental examples of a human malaise which is characteristic of every generation – the ruthless pursuit of power and the total unconcern for the innocent suffering which is inevitably involved.

That lust for power has often been identified with a single person; for example, with the Kaiser in 1914 and with Hitler in 1939, but one man cannot fight a war and behind his leadership is the will and effort of all those who, at any rate to begin with, hoped to profit from their expected victory.  And in more recent times we have seen, and still see, the continuing struggle to win or maintain power by adopting the declared principle of Mao Tse-tung: “Power comes out of the barrel of a gun”.

What Lord Acton said back in 1887, is always true, “Political power tends to corrupt…”, and he might have added that the ambition for power tends to corrupt also.

It is never very helpful to talk in ‘ifs’.  Nevertheless, it happens to be true that if the leaders of the nations and the people they govern, were all inspired by a personal love for God and a resolute desire to please him and to be pleasing to him, then conflict would be replaced by co-operation and the sufferings now caused by man’s inhumanity to man would be no more.

The world, however, is not like that, and so far as recorded history is concerned it never has been.  Human beings are not even interested in what their Creator wants, only in what they want either for themselves or for the group to which they belong – which amounts to the same thing.  In other words, for them the ultimate authority is not the will of God but the will of human beings.  And the wills of human beings are warped and twisted by an innate moral flaw which makes them a menace to themselves and to their fellow human beings, and which is the direct cause of most of the suffering in the world today.

It all looks very dark.  But the Christian religion transforms the whole sombre scene.  In the words of Isaiah, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined” (NRSV, 9:2).

That light is Jesus Christ, God the Son, who by becoming Man entered this world of hatred and greed and violence, who was crucified by his fellow human beings whose nature he had taken to himself, and who was raised from the dead to be the Living Lord of the present for every generation.

So on the Cross we see the torture and the death of the innocent, of God himself made Man – put there by his enemies because they saw him as a threat to their position and their power; and handed over to them by Pilate because Pilate could see his own position and power in jeopardy if he refused to yield to the shouts of “Crucify him”.

Nor was the Divine Christ the only innocent person who suffered on that day – there was also the almost intolerable anguish of the bereaved, for standing by the Cross of Jesus was his Mother – the innocent Mother of God.

That tremendous fact of the Crucifixion of God illuminates the whole scene of human suffering as a flash of lightning lights up the darkest storm: God himself has of his own free will entered into this hostile world and personally shared in its suffering.

That is a truth which, if it does not explain the mystery of suffering, at any rate raises it to a higher level where to the Christian believer it ceases to be a problem because it is infused with the knowledge of God’s love for humankind as proved by his willing participation in human suffering.

And the added knowledge that in his love for us he came down to our level in order to transform us and raise us to his level, there to share our lives with him both here and hereafter, that knowledge makes sense of human life in spite of all its suffering.

If, on the other hand, you believe in God but do not believe that Christ was and is God made Man, then you are faced with an appalling problem as to what kind of God he must be – to create the world and then opt out of it himself.  And for people who do not believe in God at all, human life is meaningless anyway.  In the words of Macbeth it is: “…a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” – very different from the spirit in which the Christians in New Testament times faced the immediate prospect of persecution to the death.  We happen to have a contemporary account from the pen of St Peter himself of how they awaited the ordeal:

“Blessed be that God, that Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he wrote to them, “who in his great mercy has begotten us anew, making hope live in us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  We are to share an inheritance that is incorruptible, inviolable, unfading.  It is stored up for you in heaven, and meanwhile, through your faith, the power of God affords you safe conduct till you reach it, this salvation which is waiting to be disclosed at the end of time.  Then you will be triumphant.  What if you have trials of many sorts to sadden your hearts in this brief interval?  That must needs happen, so that you may give proof of your faith, a much more precious thing than the gold we test by fire; proof which will bring you praise, and glory, and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.  You never saw him, but you learned to love him; you may not see him even now, but you believe in him; and, if you continue to believe in him, how you will triumph!  How ineffable your joy will be, and how sublime, when you reap the fruit of that faith of yours, the salvation of your souls! (1 Peter 1:3-9, our emphasis). (1)

Reference

1. Knox, R. (1948) The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, translated from the Latin Vulgate, London: Burns Oates and Washbourne Ltd.