Ash Wednesday: An Excerpt from “The Deep Deep Love of Jesus”
The cross assures us of God’s love for suffering people.
The cross not only addresses the philosophical problem of evil, but also the (maybe deeper) emotional question of evil: How can I trust a God who allows or even appoints suffering in my life and the lives of my loved ones? The suffering that some people experience in this world is often so terrible we must wonder how they can keep a soft heart to‐ ward God. It’s one thing to understand the theology intellectually; it’s another to keep trusting when the wounds are so deep. How can I, as a sufferer, believe God loves me if he wrote my story like this?
Here’s one important answer: When people suffer with us, we know they love us. Jesus (who is God) suffered with us, so we know confidently we are loved by him.
The suffering that Jesus experienced wasn’t simply the traumatic physical pain that led to his death, but the equally traumatic emotional pain of betrayal and abandonment. “When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve. And as they were eating he said, ‘Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’” (Matthew 26: 20–21)
Betrayal is one of the major themes around the whole narrative of the cross. And for some of you, the worst suffering you have experienced or will experience isn’t physical pain, but pain caused by those closest to you—in trusted relationships where you’ve been betrayed or abandoned. These experiences can truly devastate us.
How can we trust a God who lets such deep bonds shatter?
We don’t know why God writes each of our stories the way he does. But God became a fellow human in Jesus and we see in this passage a glimpse of the mysterious reality that every heartbreak we experience in our lives became his too. He doesn’t just sit up in heaven and let us all suffer down here. He came and shared the hurt with us. Jesus has carried all our sorrows (Isaiah 53:4). He was betrayed by one of his closest friends, he suffered injustice, he suffered physical torture, he suffered loneliness. He has carried for us and with us the full spectrum of human suffering.
Isn’t this what those who love us most do when we’re suffering? They enter into our pain with us. They weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15). We may not understand why God allows our suffering, but because of the cross the one thing we can’t say is, “I suffer because God doesn’t love me.” Even God’s beloved Son suffered. Suffering isn’t a sign that God has rejected someone. It’s God’s love that compelled him to share in our suffering. Even if we don’t understand why we’re hurting now, we know we can trust him to carry us through. He wept with us so that we can rejoice with him.