And so we come to the sufferings of Our Lord, and there we see God himself actually sharing in human suffering in his own Person.  And it is that fact above all others which transforms the whole problem.

Let us consider the human and historical context of Our Lord’s sufferings.

This world is a world that is consciously or unconsciously in revolt against God; and a pattern of resistance to him was built into the history of his Chosen People, Israel.  And it manifested itself in their rejection and persecution of the men of God who proclaimed to them his will and sought to establish his sovereignty over their hearts and minds.

So the prophet Jeremiah, in the 6th century BC, summarised their history by declaring, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel…From the day that your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day; yet they did not listen to me, or pay attention, but they stiffened their necks.  They did worse than their ancestors did” (NRSV, Jeremiah 7:21,25-26).