The problem of suffering

Some of you like problems in maths that make you think and some of you may not be so keen on them!· All of these problems have an answer.· But there is one problem which is more difficult than any of them, the problem of why God allows suffering.· Why does he allow cruelty and war?

One reason is that he insists on our being real human beings with the freedom to choose good and evil.  He will not turn us into robots so that we could only do what he told us to.  So the real question is, not “Why does God allow the human race to do wrong and cause suffering?” but, “Why did he make the human race at all?”  Well, God thought it was worth making us to share his life in Heaven in spite of all the sorrow and suffering that would result, and so we must leave it at that.

Sometimes suffering is caused by human wickedness, and sometimes by accidents or disease.  It can be a punishment brought by people on themselves.  For example, a gang of men may hold up a jeweller’s shop and steal several trays of rings and drive away in a stolen car, only to have a smash-up in escaping from the police.  And if they are badly injured, it is entirely their own fault.  On the other hand, their car, when it crashes, may injure a passer-by, someone who had nothing to do with the hold-up at all.  It is true that God can bring good out of evil, and as a result of the accident that person may be brought to want God and so to love him.  On the other hand, the passer-by may be a very holy man or woman.

So too with disease.  In a hospital ward there may be all sorts, good and bad, but all are suffering.

Some people say that the suffering in the world shows that God either cannot end it or will not end it.  If he cannot do it, they say, he is not all-powerful; and he will not end it, he is not all-good.  But there is something they forget, and that is that God himself has shared our suffering on the Cross.  And we remember that every time we say the Creed – “He suffered…”  And that is the most important thing of all.  Whatever the answer to the problem of suffering may be, it ceases to be a problem once we know that human beings do not suffer alone, because God also has suffered with them and suffered for them.

The Crucifixion

We can learn all we need to know from Jesus’ Crucifixion as we look at the little group there on Calvary: Jesus himself, the two thieves, and Mary the Mother of Jesus.

On the Cross Jesus offered himself and all his sufferings to God for the salvation of our souls.  “This is my body, which is given for you” (NRSV, Luke 22:19), given with all the pain that filled it as he hung on the Cross.  “This is my blood…which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (NRSV, Matthew 26:28); and as he offered his Blood, so he offered the thirst which the loss of his Blood brought upon him.  He was born for our sake, he lived for our sake, he died for our sake, and he gave his sufferings to God for our sake.

 “We may not know, we cannot tell,
 what pains he had to bear,
 but we believe it was for us
 he hung and suffered there”. (1)

The use of suffering

So the important thing is not why we should suffer but what we should do with our sufferings.  We have seen what Jesus did with his: he gave them to God for our sake.

The dying thieves

Now let us see how the two thieves used their sufferings.  One of them, a bad man, gritted his teeth and cursed Jesus to the end.  He was made worse by his sufferings.  But the other was made better by his.  He had also been a bad man, but he repented and accepted his sufferings as a punishment for his sins.  “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?  And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong” (NRSV, Luke 23:39-43).  Then he turned to Jesus in penitence and trust, and Jesus gave him forgiveness and eternal life.

Our Lady

And what of Our Lady?  She was innocent, completely spotless, but she suffered more than we can possibly imagine.  Years before, when she held Jesus in her arms and offered him in the Temple to God, the old man Simeon had said how a sword would pierce her soul, and the word he used for a sword referred to the terrible, broad-bladed sword of the barbarians.  It was at the Cross that her soul was pierced as she saw her only Son slowly dying in agony before her eyes.  We shall never know what she went through on that Good Friday.  But we can be sure she did not waste her sufferings by just putting up with them.  She would have used them by offering them with her Son’s and so turned them into a prayer for the salvation of the world.

Christian use of suffering

And that is the Christian use of suffering.  That is what you and I must do with our sorrows and our pains when they come.  We must offer them to God along with the sufferings of Jesus as a prayer – perhaps for someone who hates us, or who has no time or use for God, or for someone else who is suffering.  But the important thing is that we should give our suffering to God. 

We cannot fully tell why human suffering should be, but one thing we do know.  No one can point a finger at God and say, “It’s all right for you.  You don’t know what it’s like”.  Because if people do that, they find that they are pointing at the Figure on the Cross.

SUMMARY

1. God can always bring good out of evil and suffering.  The important thing about suffering is what to do with it.

2. The Christian offers his or her sufferings to God as a prayer along with Jesus’ offering of himself on the Cross.

3. We cannot fully tell why human suffering should be, but we know that God has shared it and we can share it with him.

Reference

Alexander, C.F. (1848) There is a green hill far away.  Available from: http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/t/t435.html  (Accessed 17 August 2010) (Internet).