The Waking Dreamer: Suffering Love

Showing posts with label Suffering Love. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Born That Man No More May Die

Hebrews 2:10-18[1]

On Christmas Eve, we talked about how the light of God’s love shines in the darkness. And, as Henri Nouwen reminded us, “a little bit of light can dispel a lot of darkness.” For many of us, there’s no darkness we fear more than death. It’s the ultimate unknown. I realize that when we are young, death may seem remote and almost unreal. Until someone your age passes away. I had that happen to me when I was in college. Or perhaps a close family member whom you loved. Then the stark reality hits you. And when it does, most of us are unprepared for the fear that grips us. In response to that fear, we in this culture seem obsessed with keeping death as far away from us as possible. In days of old, people would die at home, and the family would care for their body. Now all of that is removed from our presence. And perhaps for good reason—there seems to be no logic, no rhyme or reason to the way the “grim reaper” takes its victims. Our inability to make any sense out of death only increases our fear.

But our New Testament lesson for today presents us with the good news that, because we bear this burden of mortality, Jesus also came as one of us, made of flesh and blood. He came not only to God’s unfailing love and continual presence with us, but he also came specifically bearing our mortality so that he could die as one of us. And the purpose of his death was to “free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Heb. 2:15). Though the Scripture text doesn’t spell out precisely how it is that he sets us free from the fear of death, the New Testament elsewhere reminds us that Jesus didn’t just come to die, but also to be raised from the dead, and by doing so to triumph over all the powers of darkness in this world, most importantly death.

Part of the purpose of his coming in the vulnerability of our flesh and blood was to demonstrate that our God is not so high and exalted as to be unconcerned with or unmoved by our burdens. There have been many who have believed that throughout the ages. Some of our “founding fathers” in this country believed God was like a clockmaker who made the clock, wound it up and let it go. It’s a belief system called “Deism.” They believed that God created the world, stood back, and lets it go on its way, but doesn’t get involved. On the contrary, the “gospel of Christmas” is that, by entering our broken and confusing existence as Immanuel, “God-who-is-with-us,” Jesus took all the burdens that we bear on himself. And so he made it clear that God is not the cold and distant deity whom some people have cringed before, and at times even hated. Rather, God is the one who loves us so much that, as we say in one of our confessions of faith, Jesus died to show us God’s love as “a love that is ready to suffer for our sakes.”[2]

That may seem like a strange thing to say about God. It was the conclusion Dietrich Bonhoeffer came to as he sat in his cell in a Nazi prison camp. He said, “God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. … only the suffering God can help.” I think Bonhoeffer knew whereof he spoke. It would not be long before he would lose his life at the hands of the Nazis. Our lesson for today puts it this way: “Because Jesus himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested” (Heb. 2:18).

But that really is the question, isn’t it? Can a God who is vulnerable enough to enter our brokenness really be powerful enough to do something about it? Wouldn’t it seem that a God who is able to suffer with us is a God who is just as impotent as we are in the face of our suffering and ultimately our experience of death? In fact, that has been what some have concluded: God loves us, and God suffers with us, but at the end of the day, that’s about all God can do for us. If that’s the case, I’m not sure many would conclude that a “suffering God” is “able to help” us at all.

Others are unwilling to relegate God (and us) to such a helpless state in which our experience with death leaves us with a mystery of suffering that we cannot solve by any means. So they insist that though our experience of suffering and death may be burdensome to us now, God will ultimately bring good from it. The same confession I cited earlier says, “nothing evil is permitted to occur that God does not bend finally to the good.”[3] And there is some comfort to that. But “finally” or “ultimately” can seem like a very long time. It can seem like a very long time. So what are we to do in the meantime? How does the suffering love of our vulnerable God help us here and now?

Well, for one thing, I think we must not underestimate the power of that love that was poured out at the cross. It may look like the Jesus who dies on the cross was just as weak as any other human being. It may look like God is unable to do anything except suffer the pain of watching his son die. And yet, if we were to conclude that, we would be vastly underestimating the power of God’s love. One of my schoolmates offered a clarification of Bonhoeffer’s famous phrase by saying, “Only the suffering God can help, but it is only the suffering of the God who has greater power than we do over suffering that is able to help.”[4] And God does have greater power than we do over suffering, and so he is able to help.

Yes, love can be vulnerable. It does not retaliate, it does not lash out at those who may in fact take the life of the one who is loved or even the one who offers love. But love always breaks the power of evil. As we say in that same confession of faith, “An abyss of suffering” has been “swallowed up by the suffering of divine love.”[5] All the death, all the pain, all the fear that we can experience in this life, God has swallowed up into the suffering of his own love for us. Love always wins the day, no matter how long it takes to get to “ultimately.” And that is all the more certain with God’s love! God’s love most certainly wins the day.

But there is more to it than that. Although our lesson doesn’t mention it, surely the implication is there: Jesus did not remain in the grave. Death was not powerful enough to hold him. God raised him from the dead, and by so doing he not only vindicated the power of suffering love, but also demonstrated that God does more than “just” suffer with us when we suffer. Rather, as Henri Nouwen reminds us, the resurrection is the demonstration that “God’s light is more real than all the darkness, that God’s truth is more powerful than all human lies, that God’s love is stronger than death.”[6] And so in the vulnerability of Jesus taking on flesh and blood and dying for us all, and in the astonishing power of God raising him to life, we see God’s light overcoming all the darkness, even the darkness of death. And, as the Scripture says, “The light keeps shining in the dark, and darkness has never put it out” (Jn. 1:5, CEV)!

[1] © 2025 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 12/28/2025 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. The title, "Born that Man No More May Die" is taken from a verse of the Hymn/Christmas Carol "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," by Charles Wesley.

[2] The Study Catechism (1998), question 8.

[3] The Study Catechism (1998), question 22.

[4] Steven R. Harmon, “Hebrews 2:10-18,”Interpretation 59 (Oct 2005): 406.

[5] The Study Catechism (1998) question 45.

[6] Henri Nouwen, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit, 32

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Backward Victory

Luke 23:33-43[1]

We live in a world where somebody has to lose for anybody to win. As I mentioned earlier this year in connection with the NCAA basketball tournament, in some cases, a lot of people have to lose for somebody to win. There are all kinds of examples of this win-lose scenario in life. Mathematicians and economists call it a “zero-sum game.” Although I wouldn’t say that I fully understand all the details, the idea is that if someone has to lose in order for someone else to win, then there is no real net benefit for the whole “system.” The alternative is a “win-win game,” where a win for one can be a win for many. In my mind, the many “collaborative” games out there, where everyone works to “win” together, are a good example. They point out the option that I wish the human family would learn: we gain more when we all win together than when we try to “beat” everyone else!

I realize that there are so many aspects of our lives that reinforce the “win-lose” scenario that a “win-win” scenario may seem positively alien. It’s almost as if we believe it’s the “American way” for there to be at least one loser (if not many) in order for there truly to be a “winner.” But there are so many examples in daily life that disprove that. Like when one farmer is injured and can’t harvest crops and the rest of the community pitches in to help out. I know that I’m an idealist, but I believe that everyone wins in that situation. I may also be a fool, but I think the world would be a better place if we all adopted that approach toward more than just the people we know. When you think about all the resources in this world—food and other commodities, money and the ability to generate it, talented and hard-working people—it really makes no sense for us in a global economy to think of anyone as an “enemy.” I may be a foolish dreamer, but I believe that if all the peoples of all nations worked together, we could make this a much better world.

Some of you may consider that to be “backward” thinking. I’m okay with that. There’s a lot about our faith that can seem “backward.” For example, today is the day in the Christian calendar when we remind ourselves that we believe that Christ reigns over all things and all people. I can think of no more “backward” way of doing that than with a Gospel lesson that describes his death on the cross! Kings don’t get dragged before their subjects and mocked by them. Kings don’t allow themselves to be spat upon and beaten. They’re the ones who are usually doling out those punishments. And on the rare occasion when a King or any other powerful person is publicly humiliated, that’s pretty much the end of their “reign.” But here we are, on this Sunday when we celebrate our faith that Christ is reigning over us all, reading the “good news” of his death on the cross.

The irony in this has raised questions since the day Jesus faced that ultimate test—especially for people who look at Jesus’ life and ask whether he actually accomplished anything. He gathered some disciples. He stirred up the Jewish leadership. And he got himself killed in the end. And while he was hanging there on that cross, vulnerable, showing all the weakness of his humanity, some in the crowd asked the question that many have repeated through the centuries: “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” (Lk 23:35). In the light of Jesus’ humiliating death, many have asked what a Jewish preacher from the First Century can do to make my life any better in the Twenty-First Century. And many have concluded that Jesus may have had some fine ideals, but he really can’t do anything to help us in this day and time.

But that conclusion misses some important signs that point out just how powerful the reign of Christ is, even in this passage that apparently presents Jesus at his weakest. One thing we need to notice is that in Luke’s Gospel, while hanging on the cross, enduring unimaginable agony, Jesus has the presence of mind to respond to his hecklers by saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk. 23:34). And when Jesus dies, he simply says, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk. 23:46). In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus gives up his life calmly and intentionally, full of trust in God.

But there’s another detail that we’re familiar with, but I think it’s easy to miss point. While Jesus is hanging on the cross, seemingly undergoing the ultimate humiliation, one of the criminals with him saw something that most all of those who witnessed this event firsthand missed. He saw that there truly was something about Jesus that set him apart. And so he took an amazing step of faith: hanging there on a cross, he looked at Jesus and asked, “remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Lk 23:42). How or why he had the faith to see Jesus hanging on the cross and believe that one day he would come into a “kingdom,” we may never know. But he did, and he asked Jesus to remember him.

I think what we need to pay attention to is Jesus’ response. It really was astonishing, if you think about it. There he was, having been beaten, having been humiliated by some of the Jewish leaders, having been strung up to die by the Roman empire. And he said to this man, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk. 23:43)! If you think about it, there was nothing about the situation that would have made anybody believe such an incredible claim under normal circumstances. And yet Jesus made the claim: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” The unnamed criminal left his request open-ended: “when you come into your kingdom, remember me.” He expresses faith, but he doesn’t pin Jesus down to anything specific. Jesus makes that astonishing claim any way: “Today,” not at some indistinct point in the future, “whenever.” “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” By doing so Jesus demonstrated not only that he was more than just an “exceptional man,” but also that what he was doing was not weak in any way. It was the ultimate display of the power of the one is the truest example there has ever been of a “king.”[2]

Despite the fact that it all seems “backward,” I think it is ultimately fitting to remind ourselves that Christ reigns over us with this story, because his death on the cross defines the way in which he exercises that reign even now. As one of our confessions puts it, “With no power but the power of love, Christ defeated sin, evil and death by reigning from the cross.”[3] The reality is that the only way for Christ’s reign of justice, peace, and freedom to be truly established in this world was through the path of the cross, where he exercised no power but the power of love. But his cross also led to his resurrection and ascension, where he was exalted, as St. Paul puts it, “far above … every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come” (Eph. 1:21). And that means that “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.” We associate those words with Georg Friedrich Handel, but he was quoting from Revelation: “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev 11:15, RSV). When you take the cross by itself, it can seem like the early Church got it all backward. But in light of the resurrection and ascension, I would say that they were able to see the true victory that came from giving up his life for us all.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 102, where he says that when we celebrate Christ as “king” it represents “the most radical reversal of the ideal of rule that can be conceived.”

[3] The Study Catechism, question 41.

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

The Depth of God's Love

The Depth of God’s Love

Philippians 2:5-11[1]

Sometimes our faith can seem to contradict the reality of our lives. Or perhaps it would be better to say that the reality of our lives seems to contradict our faith. Last week we talked about Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension to the Father as the crucial event by which God is working in the world to make everything new, already here and now. Just as the light dispels the darkness, Jesus spoke of his being “lifted up” as depriving the so-called “the ruler of this world” from any and all power. But in reality, that’s something we all have to choose to believe, and choose to see in this world. And I choose to believe that’s the truth about God and the truth about us and our world. But as I mentioned last week, there’s all too much evidence that the darkness in this world is just as deep and just as powerful as ever.

However strong our faith may be, there is a dark side to life that I think most of us would rather avoid. But whether we’re willing to look at them or not, there are dark places all over the world. There are dark places in our country, in our State, in our county—and in our town! For some, the darkness consists of a loneliness that may feel like it’s choking the life out of you. For others, it may be a sense of grief that you just cannot process. For still others, it may be a job that’s suffocating, or addictions that slowly erode the soul. For all too many, the darkness consists of mistaking what may feel good right now for “happiness.” However much we may believe that God is truly in the process of making all things new right now, there remains a dark side to life.

It’s no wonder that most of us would rather avoid facing the darkness in our world or in our own lives. But the hard truth of the matter is that the only way to overcome darkness is to have the courage to face it squarely. And that usually means taking a journey into that darkness that can be painful and frightening. The only way out of the darkness that we feel trapped in is to go through it. As we allow ourselves to wrestle with the pain and fear and doubt within, the very process itself heals us. And as we become healed, we grow strong enough to recognize the darkness without giving in to it. We grow strong enough to enjoy the freedom to live in the light. We grow confident that our faith is not misplaced, but rather that we have good reasons to believe that God is working in and through us for good right now.

I believe that’s a part of what our New Testament lesson from Philippians for today is about. It’s about Jesus’ journey into the very heart of the darkness that oppresses the human family in order to set us all free from its power. That journey led him not only to give up his rightful place with God to become a human being, just as vulnerable as the rest of us. His journey took him farther than that: he not only “emptied himself” to become human, he also subjected himself to the humiliation of a cruel execution and actually tasted death for us all. He went into the very abyss of all the darkness and suffering we can experience in this world and took it upon himself.

If we had not heard this story all our lives, I think at least some of us would venture to ask why Jesus would do such a thing. When you look at our world and the darkness in it today, you do see a few brave souls who are willing to enter some aspect of it, at least for a time. But the idea of someone actually taking on all the darkness of this world strains our ability to understand how anyone could possibly do such a thing. In the death of Jesus on a Roman cross there is something more going on than simple human compassion in action. In Jesus we see the depth of God’s love in all its life-changing power at work. I think that’s the key to understanding how Jesus could take on all the darkness in this world. And we learn from this that God’s love is a love that will not rest until it reaches out to every dark place we can possibly go to bring all of us back home to the light.

Of course, that answer is also a part of the faith we’ve been taught all our lives. But it seems to me that if we think about it, this too raises questions that may not be easy to answer. If we’re honest with ourselves, we have to at least wonder why this particular expression of God’s love was the one chosen to set us free from the darkness. Many have tried to understand this in human terms and imagine that Jesus volunteered to take God’s wrath toward us all on himself. The idea is that his death was the punishment that we deserved. It’s embedded into our faith not only through Scripture, but also through the hymns we sing. But I don’t find that perspective to be very compelling. That only reinforces the idea that we have to cower in fear before an angry God who may strike us down at any moment. And I don’t think that’s what was going on when Jesus embraced his death on the cross.

Jesus embraced the suffering of the cross because that’s who God is: a God who loves us enough to suffer for us so that we can be whole. The God of the Bible is not an angry God, but rather one who constantly suffers on behalf of his chosen people. That’s the lesson of much of the Hebrew Bible. And beginning with some of the prophets, and especially in Jesus, we see that love extended to the whole human family. That’s how the God of the Bible chooses to love us all, time and again. And the God of the Bible is a God who never quits loving us this way. Part of the mystery of our faith is that it was God who was suffering on our behalf on that cross. St. Paul said it this way, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). Somehow, some way, it’s God who takes on the suffering we endure when we wander into the dark places of this life. That’s the depth of God’s love for us all!

Now some of you may be feeling like I’m only taking you further down the “rabbit hole.” The love of God poured out for us in Jesus on the cross is indeed, as one of our confessions puts it, a mystery beyond our understanding.[2] So if you’re wondering how God could suffer for us on the cross, the only answer is a short one, though it is far from being a simple. The answer is that in Jesus we see the mystery of God’s love. It’s a mystery how God could suffer for us on that cross. In Jesus, we see the God who is the redeemer of the despised, the savior of the hopeless, the one who chooses the unwanted. It bears repeating: the death of Jesus on a cross shows us that God’s love reaches into the very depth of any darkness into which we can go and will not rest until we are all back home with him.

The good news of the Gospel is that there is no depth of suffering that Jesus did not reach in his death on the cross. Truly does our affirmation of faith state that “An abyss of suffering” has been “swallowed up by the suffering of divine love.”[3] That means Jesus’ death on the cross has set us free from all the darkness we could ever experience —the loneliness, grief, agony, alienation, cruelty, abandonment, estrangement, despair, shame, rejection, and self-destruction. Jesus has taken all of that on himself. God has taken all of it into his love. For me, that means that no one can sink so deep as to be beyond hope, beyond the reach of God’s love. However far we may fall, the love of God has already been into the depth of the abyss in Jesus Christ and is waiting there to bring us back home.

[2] The Book of Confessions 2016, Confession of 1967 9.15, p. 289.

[3] “The Study Catechism,” question 45 (approved by the 210th General Assembly of the PCUSA, 1998).

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Suffering Servants

Isaiah 53:1-12; John 13:1-35[1]

It’s hard to look at this world and not be overwhelmed with all the suffering you see. Most of us don’t have to look very far, because in some form or another suffering is a part of our lives. What makes that hard for us is our tendency to resist suffering. We think it’s not “supposed” to be that way. We’re “supposed” to be happy and joyful. But life doesn’t work like that. For some of us suffering comes sooner, for others it comes later, but it inevitably comes to us all. We can either accept it as a part of life, or we can beat our heads against a “wall” trying to avoid it. I think a lot of us probably do some of each.

One of my favorite authors has a different view of suffering. He says that our experience of suffering connects us with the human family, because suffering is something that we all have in common.[2] When I think of our Scripture lessons for this evening, I think that our suffering is what makes it possible for us to serve others the way Jesus did. It’s hard to actually serve someone if you aren’t able to relate somehow to their life experience.

Our lesson from the book of the prophet Isaiah is one of the most beloved passages of the Bible. This lesson paints a beautiful picture of what it looks like when someone is willing to answer the call to serve others, even when it means suffering on their behalf. The main theme of Isaiah 53 is that the “Servant of the Lord,” whom we identify as Jesus, took our sins upon himself so that we might be made whole and right with God. I must confess, however, that the part of this passage that comforts me most is the statement, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 53:4, RSV). That’s the language of older translations; it’s not found in our pew Bible. I like the older version because it reminds me that Jesus not only bore our sins, but he also knew the grief and sorrow we bear in this life. Jesus knows what it’s like to suffer for the sake of others!

One of the challenges some people have with this thought is that somehow an “angry God” made Jesus suffer in this way to satisfy a need to punish us for our sins. That image of God is a scary one in a world where people so often abuse others. But I don’t think that’s the point of Isaiah 53. The point is that God’s “Servant” is called to suffer on behalf of others because that’s what God does. The God who never quits loving us is a God who suffers for us and for with us.[3] What we see on that cross is God’s love poured out for us all, taking on all the pain and suffering of the world, in order that we might find God right in the middle of it all, using it to create new life. And we see in Jesus a “suffering servant” who is willing to fulfill God’s love for us even when it leads to a humiliating death on a cross.

That brings me to our lesson from John’s Gospel. As Jesus was preparing his closest disciples for his death, he shared a meal with them. And at this meal he did something none of them would even consider doing for each other: he washed their feet! I think what Jesus was trying to impress on them was that this humble, self-sacrificing love is the kind of love that defines God’s very character. It’s the kind of love that Jesus shared with his disciples. And it’s the kind of love that Jesus commanded them to share with one another: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (Jn 13:34).

Jesus showed them what this kind of love looked like in real life by washing their feet. He washed the feet of Judas, who would betray him. He washed the feet of Peter, who would deny even knowing him. He washed the feet of the others, who would abandon him and run for their lives. I think Jesus knew all of this, and yet he still loved every one of them by washing their feet. And he commanded all who call him “Savior” and “Lord” to love others in the same way.

When we understand Jesus’ command to love one another through the lens of his willingness to follow the path of the “suffering servant,” I think it opens up some new ways for us to understand our lives. If we decide to obey this command and love others enough to humble ourselves as Jesus did, we’re going to find that choice uncomfortable at times, like washing people’s feet would be. But there are going to be times when loving others will be painful. Instead of trying to avoid the path of suffering, we can choose to embrace it.

That doesn’t mean that we go out looking for suffering. But when it comes, and it will, we can look for the good that God is doing in our lives, and through us, in the lives of those who are hurting all around us. Like Jesus, we may have to suffer to truly serve the hurting people in our lives.[4] We choose that path because suffering love is the way God loves us. We serve others through what we may have to suffer because that’s the way Jesus served us. And Jesus calls us to follow him on this path as “suffering servants,” loving others even when it’s uncomfortable, serving others even when we suffer for it.

[2] Cf. Henri Nouwen, Turn My Mourning Into Dancing, 5-11. He challenges us to embrace our suffering in the faith that God will redeem it and use it for good rather than seeking to avoid it.

[3] Cf. “The Study Catechism,” 1998, q. 14: “In Jesus Christ God suffers with us, knowing all our sorrows. In raising him from the dead, God gives new hope to the world. Our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is himself God's promise that suffering will come to an end, that death shall be no more, and that all things will be made new.”

[4] Nouwen, Turn My Mourning Into Dancing, 11: “In Christ we see God suffering—for us. And calling us to share in God’s suffering love for a hurting world.”

Sunday, March 28, 2021

What Wondrous Love!

Mark 15:1-47[1]

Love is a mystery. It’s wonderful and painful. It can bring out the best and the worst in us. We long for love and yet at the same time we are at least a little afraid of it (or maybe a lot!). Hopefully, all of us at some time in our lives have someone who embodies the best of love. They love us “just because,” without any conditions, exclusions, or limitations. And they keep loving us that way for as long as they’re a part of our lives, no matter where we go or what we do. Unfortunately, one of the greatest tragedies in this life is the fact that some of us never get to experience that kind of love from another human being.

It’s not the same thing, but I think that recognizing the love of God expressed for us by Jesus Christ can help us here. The Bible speaks of God’s “unfailing love” long before Jesus was born. But I think in Jesus our Savior we see just how far that love extends. There is no place we can go in this life where we are excluded from God’s love. Wherever we may find ourselves, even the most hopeless places, God has already been there in Jesus Christ to pave the way back to his love. In truth, even the love of those people who have loved us so wonderfully is “complicated” by their humanity. That means all of us will come to the place in life where we must look to God’s love to sustain us, because his is the only love that truly never fails.

I see that unconditional, unlimited, and irrevocable love displayed in the story of Jesus’ experience of being arrested, tried, beaten, mocked, and crucified. Our Gospel lesson for today includes it all. And one thing that amazes me is the fact that Jesus—who was fully human and subject to our physical limitations—endured that whole ordeal out of his unwavering resolve to carry out God’s saving purpose for us fully. When I think about all that he went through over the course of about 18 hours that day, it’s overwhelming. It’s hard for me to grasp that Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior willingly subjected himself to it all out of his commitment to be “obedient to the point of death” (Phil. 2:8).

I thought we might walk through the events of that day in order to have a better sense of all that Jesus endured. Prior to our lesson, Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. His prayer revealed his anguish about what was about to happen to him. And to get an idea of the emotional and physical toll of the stress he felt over what he knew was coming, Luke’s Gospel tells us he was sweating profusely as he prayed. He felt the dread that any person would feel when faced with impending trauma.

That evening, Jesus was arrested and taken before some of the Jewish religious leaders, where he was interrogated all night. He was bound and was subjected to constant questioning. Mark’s gospel tells us he was assaulted by the false accusations of “many” lying witnesses. That takes its toll emotionally and physically. Finally, at daybreak, they sent him off to Pontius Pilate, the Roman official who was governing the province of Judea. We don’t know how long this interrogation lasted, but it seems that he endured more verbal attacks from his accusers for several hours. Remember that Jesus had been up all night, and the last food he had eaten was the evening before.

After that, Pilate brought Jesus and a rebel named Barabbas before the crowd, both of them bound as criminals. Perhaps he may have even recognized the faces of some of the people who had shouted, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” when he had entered Jerusalem a few days earlier (Mk 11:9). But now they were shouting, “Crucify him!” So Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified and had him beaten. Jesus was “scourged” with a whip made of leather straps to which were attached nails, glass, or rocks. Some who were “scourged” didn’t survive the beating. At this point, the soldiers who were going to crucify him staged a “mock coronation” for him as the “king of the Jews.” They struck him, they spat on him, and they placed a crown of thorns on his head.

Finally, they took Jesus to crucify him. He had endured the physical and emotional stress of no sleep, no food, and a constant barrage of verbal assaults. He was literally beaten to within an inch of his life. It’s no wonder he couldn’t carry the crossbeam they laid on him! One detail that sticks out to me is, after all that, Jesus still had the presence of mind to refuse the mixture of wine and myrrh that was intended to ease his pain. After all he had endured to this point, his determination to fulfill God’s saving purpose completely remained resolute. He was “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). After reading the full story, I think that may be something of an understatement!

When I stop to really think about all this, I find myself overwhelmed: I grieve to know that Jesus went through all of this for me. I’m humbled by his unflinching commitment. But perhaps most of all, I’m amazed by the love that I believe was behind it all, motivating him to endure everything he suffered for our sakes. As our affirmation of faith says it, “there is no sorrow he has not known, no grief he has not borne, and no price he was unwilling to pay” to enable us to know the unconditional, unlimited, and irrevocable love of God. All I can say in response is, “What wondrous love”![2]

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, 277: “There is no loneliness and no rejection which [God] has not taken to himself and assumed in the cross of Jesus.”

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

God is There

Psalm 22[1]

As we conclude the season of Lent with the remembrance of Jesus’ suffering and death, we may recall that Jesus quoted the first line of Psalm 22 in his agony on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1). The very idea is unsettling: that the God who promises never to forsake us would in fact do so. And the prospect that he abandoned his own Son at the moment when he fulfilled God’s saving purpose most completely can be shocking. I think Jesus knew he had to die. Yet he cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” I believe Jesus trusted that God would raise him from the dead. Yet he cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” What troubles me is the question where God was while all this was happening.

I know the standard response: “he had to turn away because Jesus took all the sin of the world on himself and God cannot look upon sin.” That just doesn’t cut it for me. I want to know where God was during the awful silence that followed Jesus’ prayer. It is a prayer after all, addressed to God. Jesus wasn’t just acting out some sort of elaborate play. This was the real thing. And when the agony of the cross overwhelmed him, Jesus cried out one of the most heartbreaking prayers of the Bible. And God’s response was … silence. Did God really forsake Jesus on the cross?

Maybe we’re looking at this in the wrong way. We tend to equate silence with abandonment. But sometimes we’re silent with those who are suffering because we are suffering with them. I believe that’s what was going on at the cross. Rather than abandoning his Son, God was right there with Jesus, experiencing all the anguish his heartbreaking prayer expresses.^{^[2]} God was silent because God was suffering with Jesus. While the idea of God “suffering” might seem strange to us, at the cross God made it clear once and for all that his suffering has become our redemption, and his apparent weakness is in fact a demonstration of his powerful love.

Perhaps the biggest surprise in all of this that the cry “My God, My God, why?” can actually be an expression of faith. What we have to notice is that the Psalm takes an abrupt turn. The psalmist cried out to the Lord, and the Lord heard his cries and delivered him from whatever was causing his trouble. And he confirms that God is the one who is on the side of those who suffer: “[God] did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him” (Ps. 22:24). The point of this is that even in the midst of suffering, God is there, paying close attention to those who are suffering, hearing their every cry for help.

Unfortunately, the idea that those who suffer must be undergoing punishment for some kind of wrongdoing is something that has become ingrained for many of us. I think this pattern of thinking can be most harmful when we encounter suffering ourselves. When hardship strikes us we tend to think, “What did I do to deserve this?” And yet if we can take the Psalmist’s perspective, perhaps instead we can trust in God’s unfailing love despite any hardships we encounter. We can take this step of faith because at the cross God demonstrated once and for all that he is the one who is there with all the afflicted in their suffering.

When we wonder where God was while Jesus was suffering on cross, the answer is that God was right there suffering with him. And that answer also applies to each and every one of us when we may wonder where God is in our moments of anguish.^{^[3]} God is just as present with us as he was with Jesus. God will not abandon us any more than he abandoned Jesus. If God seems silent, it is not because he is ignoring us, it is because he is suffering with us. That’s where God always is—right beside us, walking with us every step of the way, supporting us in ways that are sometimes unseen and unfelt. But they are real nevertheless. Wherever you find any suffering or heartbreak or anguish in this world, God is there, pouring out his love to bring healing and new life.

[1] © Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 4/9/2020 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann The Way of Jesus Christ, 173: far from abandoning his Son, “in the surrender of the Son the Father surrenders himself too.”

[3] Cf. Martin Marty, A Cry of Absence: Reflections for the Winter of the Heart, 174 “God participates in the life of the people [who suffer] and suffers at their side.”

Thursday, April 04, 2019

God was in Christ

2 Corinthians 5:16-21[1]

Through the ages, the images preachers and theologians have used to depict God have created some significant problems. One example is Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741). It was required reading in my Sophomore American Literature Class in college. Edwards drew the picture of God dangling sinners over the prospect of an eternity of punishment like someone might dangle a spider over an open flame. Personally, I’d have to say that seems cruel even for a human being, let alone God. It certainly doesn’t convey the idea that God is gracious and compassionate, full of mercy and unfailing love!

Unfortunately, when it comes to Jesus’ death on the cross, many of us have some ideas that are not consistent with the biblical witness. It’s common to think of Jesus, who loved us enough to give up his life for us, standing in the gap for us with God, who is angry enough with us for our sins that he is willing to consign us to eternal flames. Jesus may come off in a positive light from that perspective, but that kind of a God is someone I think we’d want to keep our distance from, rather than embracing as a loving father who will not let anything in all creation separate us from his love.

Then there’s the question of Jesus’ cry of agony from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” I would say that most people take that statement both too literally and not seriously enough. Jesus was quoting the first line of Psalm 22, a psalm that expresses both anguish over afflictions and also trust in God to sustain us. The same Psalm that begins with “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” also affirms, “he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me” (Ps. 22:24). If we really take Jesus’ cry seriously, we have to include this affirmation of faith in our understanding of it.

Again, we have to consider the implications for our image of God if we really believe that God abandoned Jesus on the cross. The New Testament presents Jesus as fulfilling the ultimate act of obedience to God’s will by dying on the cross. Paul said it this way: Jesus “became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). If God abandoned Jesus at the moment of his greatest obedience to God’s purpose, then what possible hope could you or I have that God will sustain us in our hour of need? I’d have to say that’s also not a very inviting image of God!

I think our lesson from St. Paul for today might help us here. As we find in the consistent witness of Scripture, Paul does not set an “angry God” over against a “forgiving Jesus.” Rather, Paul says that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). Now this could be read in a couple of ways. We could read it to say that God accomplished the work of salvation through what Jesus did on the cross. That would be entirely consistent with the message of Scripture elsewhere. But we could also read it the way the King James Version rendered it, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.” In other words, if we take the idea of the incarnation seriously, that God became a human being in Jesus, then God was the one who was hanging on the cross. In Jesus, God was the one who died for our sins. In Christ, God was the one who gave himself up for us that we might have life.

This is an image that might sound strange to us. How could God “die”? We’re used to the idea of God all-powerful as the one who rules over all things, not the one who allows himself to be mistreated at the hands of lowly mortals. We’re used to thinking of God as “above it all.” It may be difficult for us to think of God allowing himself to be humiliated in this way. We’re also used to believing that God is too pure to be tainted by our failures. How could God take on our sins? All this may strain our ability to make sense out of how to hold together God’s love and Jesus’ death on the cross.^{^[2]}

But the two are completely consistent with the Gospel message in the New Testament. As our affirmation of faith for today puts it, when Jesus died on the cross, he “was never more in accord with the Father’s will. He was acting on behalf of God, manifesting the Father’s love that takes on itself the loneliness, pain, and death that result from our waywardness.”^{^[3]} The Study Catechism puts it a little differently: through Jesus’ death on the cross, we see “how vast is God’s love for the world — a love that is ready to suffer for our sakes, yet so strong that nothing will prevail against it.”[4] The Good News is that Jesus completely fulfilled God’s will for us in his death on the cross.

I think sometimes we would like our faith to be easier. We embrace the good news of God’s love for us. But we shrink back from the full implications of that love. It is a love that will not leave us where we are. It is a love that enters into our brokenness in order to bring us new life. And because “God was in Christ” on the cross, we can also be assured that God’s love is a love that nothing can separate us from. Just as God never abandoned Jesus, so God never abandons or forsakes us in his love. Because “God was in Christ” on the cross, he continues to draw us all into the eternal life he wants to share with us.

[2] Cf. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison. The Enlarged Edition, 360-61: “God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8:17 [quoting Isa. 53:4] makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering … Only the suffering God can help … That is a reversal of what the religious man expects from God.”

[3] Presbyterian Church in the United States, “A Declaration of Faith,”117th General Assembly (1977), reissued by Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 1991, 4.4.

[4] Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), “The Study Catechism,” 210th General Assembly (1998), question 8.

Tuesday, August 07, 2018

Into the Abyss

Philippians 2:5-11[1]

There is a dark side to life that I think most of us would rather avoid. But if we’re willing to open our eyes, we will see that, along with the light that is most definitely real, there is also darkness. There are dark places all over the world. There are dark places in our country, in our State, in our county—and in our town! For some, the darkness consists of a loneliness that may feel like it’s choking the life out of you. For others, it may be a job that is suffocating, or addictions that slowly erode their souls. For all too many in our own town, the darkness consists of mistaking what may feel good right now for happiness. There is a dark side to life in this world.

It’s no wonder that most of us would rather “stay on the bright side of life” and avoid confronting the darkness in our world or in our own lives. But the hard truth of the matter is that the only way to overcome darkness is to have the courage to face it squarely. And that usually means taking a journey into that darkness that can be painful and frightening. The only way out of the darkness is to go through it. As we allow ourselves to wrestle with the pain and fear and doubt within, the very process itself heals us. And as we become healed, we grow strong enough to recognize the darkness without giving in to it. We grow strong enough to enjoy the freedom to live in the light.

I believe that’s a part of what our New Testament lesson for today is about. It’s about Jesus’ journey into the very heart of the darkness that oppresses the human family in order to set us all free from its power. That journey led him not only to give up his rightful place with God to become a human being, just as vulnerable as the rest of us. His journey took him farther than that: he not only “emptied himself” to become human, he also subjected himself to the humiliation of a cruel execution and actually tasted death for us all. He went into the very abyss of all the darkness and suffering we can experience in this world and took it upon himself.

If we had not heard this story all of our lives, I think at least some of us would have to ask why Jesus would do such a thing. When you take a look at our world and the darkness in it today, you do see a few brave souls who are willing to enter some aspect of it, at least for a time. But the idea of someone actually taking on all the darkness of this world strains our ability to understand how anyone could possibly do such a thing. In the death of Jesus the Christ on a Roman cross there is something more going on than simple human compassion in action. In Jesus we see God’s love in all its life-changing power at work. And we learn from this that God’s love is a love that will not rest until it reaches out to every dark place we can possibly go to bring all of us back home to the light.

Of course, that answer is also a part of the faith we’ve been taught all our lives. But it seems to me that if we think about it, this too raises questions that may not be easy to answer. If we’re honest with ourselves, we have to at least wonder why this particular expression of God’s love was the one chosen to set us free from the darkness. Some mistakenly think of God in human terms and imagine that Jesus volunteered to take God’s wrath toward us all on himself. But I don’t find that perspective to be very compelling. That only reinforces the idea that we have to cower in fear before the angry God who may strike us down at any moment. And I don’t think that’s what was going on when Jesus embraced his death on the cross.

Jesus embraced the suffering of the cross because that’s who God is. The God of the Bible is not an angry God, but rather one who constantly suffers on behalf of his chosen people and the human family as a whole. That’s how the God of the Bible chooses to love us all, time and time again. And the God of the Bible is a God who never quits loving us this way. Part of the mystery of our faith is that it was God who was suffering on that cross. St. Paul said it this way, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). It is God who takes on the suffering we endure when we wander into the dark places of this life.

Now some of you may be feeling like I’m only taking you further down the “rabbit hole.” The love of God poured out for us in Jesus on the cross is indeed, as one of our confessions puts it, a mystery beyond our understanding.^{^[2]} So if you’re wondering “how can this be?,” the only valid answer is a short one, though it is far from being a simple one. That is, in Jesus the Christ we see the mystery of God’s love. In Jesus the Christ, we see the God who is the redeemer of the despised, the savior of the hopeless, the one who chooses the unwanted. It bears repeating: the death of Jesus on a cross shows us that God’s love reaches into the very abyss of darkness into which we can go and will not rest until we are all back home in the light.

The good news of the Gospel is that there is no depth of suffering that Jesus did not reach in his death on the cross. Truly does our affirmation of faith state that “An abyss of suffering” has been “swallowed up by the suffering of divine love.”^{^[3]} That means Jesus’ death on the cross has set us free from all the darkness we could ever experience —the loneliness, agony, alienation, cruelty, abandonment, estrangement, despair, shame, rejection, and self-destruction. No one can sink so deep as to be beyond hope, beyond the reach of God’s love. However far we may fall, the love of God has already been into the abyss in Jesus Christ, and is waiting there to bring us back home.

[2] The Book of Confessions 2016, Confession of 1967 9.15, p. 289.

[3]“The Study Catechism,” question 45 (approved by the 210th General Assembly of the PCUSA, 1998).

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Caring Deeply

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8[1]

We live in a time that seems devoid of risk-takers. To be sure, there are plenty of people who engage in risky behaviors, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about people who set off on journeys of exploration without knowing for sure whether they would make it back safely. I know there are some of them, but I don’t see too many people “boldly going where no one has gone before.” Even NASA, which seemed to embody that spirit for so many of us for so long, is retreating from manned space flight to sending robotic devices to take all the risks for us.

You may see things differently, but to me it feels like we’ve decided these are the days for playing it safe. We do everything we possibly can to minimize the risks we take in every aspect of our lives. We want guaranteed outcomes, assurances of protection, and hedges to minimize any potential exposure to loss. Any kind of loss. But the problem is that life is full of losses. To protect ourselves from loss, we have to refuse to be vulnerable to the people around us, to life itself. Choosing to live that way is really choosing to avoid life altogether. Yes, if we take risks, if we make ourselves vulnerable, we’re going to get hurt. We’re going to lose something or someone we cherish. But to refuse to do so is to choose not to live at all.

When you pay attention to the story of St. Paul’s life and ministry in the New Testament, I think you’d have to conclude that he took a different approach to life. While he may have started out on a relatively safe path, after he met Jesus Christ his life was anything but safe. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, it seems as if Paul was constantly going from the frying pan into the fire as he went from town to town preaching the gospel and planting churches. Paul was nothing if not a risk-taker, making himself vulnerable in just about every way possible—even risking his life at times for the sake of the gospel and the people he served.

In our lesson for today, Paul mentions the fact that he had been “shamefully mistreated” at Philippi just before coming to Thessalonica. If we read the story in the book of Acts, we find that he was arrested and thrown in jail, although it was illegal to do that to a Roman citizen without due cause. Again, we have to remember that jails in St. Paul’s day were a far cry from jails today! I think it would be more accurate to say he spent the night in the city dungeon. I’m not sure how eager I would be to get back to the work of preaching the gospel and serving the church if it meant spending time in jail, let alone a dungeon! And yet, Paul seemed to take it all in stride. He continued to take the risk of serving Christ.

If you think about all that St. Paul had been through, I think it’s amazing that he continued to press on from place to place. When St. Paul came to Thessalonica, a city he’d never visited before, he says, “we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition” (2:2). Just exactly what that opposition was, we may never know for sure. The book of Acts mentions opponents who followed Paul from place to place, stirring up opposition against him, gathering crowds to run him out of town. Despite all of that, the Apostle kept right on proclaiming the Gospel in every new city he visited.

I don’t know about you, but I find it amazing that Paul was able to keep on going despite all the opposition and even outright attacks he faced. I think he gives us an idea of why he would do so when he says, “So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves” (1 Thess. 2:8). It was his genuine love for the people he was serving that kept him going in the face of overwhelming odds. The fact that he “cared deeply” for them was what motivated him to keep taking the risk of putting himself out there, serving no matter what the cost, sharing God’s love for all whom he encountered on his travels.

I think part of the reason why he was willing to make himself so vulnerable was because of his commitment to practice what he preached. In another letter he says, “we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God” (2 Cor. 4:2). His commitment that his private life would be consistent with his public life made it possible for him to share himself so openly with the people he served in churches all over the world of his day.

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s difficult to take this approach to life. Most of us cannot say that we perfectly embody the model of aligning our private lives with the part of ourselves we present to the world. Most of us cannot say that our public lives are a shining example of discipleship to Jesus Christ. When we feel vulnerable in these ways, our natural tendency is to withdraw and protect ourselves. But that’s not the example Jesus set for us, nor did Paul. They offered themselves freely because they were motivated by something deeper and more powerful than a desire for safety. They served because of the heartfelt love and concern they had for others. I think their example can help us today: we, too can take the risk of making ourselves vulnerable and choose to serve others no matter what the risk may be because we care deeply for the people around us.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Through It All

Isaiah 43:1-7[1]

If you’re like me, when “all’s right with the world” it seems to be a lot easier to trust in God. When life is relatively stable, when the family is whole and healthy, when we find joy and meaning in our daily activities, it’s not hard at all to see God’s hand of blessing at work in our lives. But when you take all that away, it’s also fairly easy to believe that God has abandoned us. When unexpected change hits us squarely in the face, when our family is fractured by the challenges and changes of life, when life itself seems to lose its joy and meaning, we may wonder whether there’s even a God at all. Let alone one who actually cares for us.

This problem isn’t unique to us or to modern life. Throughout the ages, people who have faced tragedy and hardship have questioned the love of God. And many have questioned the very existence of God. For those of us who may have made it through life relatively unscathed, we may have a hard time understanding this. But I would say that most people suffer some kind of heartbreak at some point in their lives. And when we do, it’s a very natural thing to ask the question, “Why?” It’s even a biblical question. From the Psalms to the Prophets to Jesus on the cross, the question “Why?” echoes throughout the Scriptures.

Unfortunately, the Bible never gives us an answer to that question. What it does is to assure us over and over again that, in whatever circumstances we may find ourselves, God’s love for us never fails.[2] That is the message of our Scripture lesson from Isaiah for today. If we look at these verses by themselves, we may find them comforting to some degree. But I think the real impact of any passage like this comes when we understand the situation of the people to whom these words were originally spoken. They were living in forced exile, far from anything familiar. They were people who had lost everything—homes, lives, land, and even in some cases family. They had gone through the worst catastrophe imaginable. They had gone through the flood, and felt overwhelmed. They had gone through the fire and felt burned.[3]

Into this situation of devastation and brokenness, the prophet declared God’s unfailing love. This is no mere glib promise. The language of the Scripture lesson makes it clear that God’s love for his suffering people is set in the context of Creation and Redemption, the actions that define God’s character in the Bible.[4] When the prophet says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine” (Isa. 43:1), he is speaking of the love that constitutes who God is. For him to stop loving them would mean that God would stop being true to himself. For him to stop loving them would mean that God would have to stop being God.[5]

This is the basis for the prophet’s assurance to the people: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you” (Isa. 43:2). Now, I think we sometimes have a tendency to read too much into promises like this. From a real-life perspective, you can’t go through a flood without getting soaked through. And you can’t go through a fire without at least smelling like smoke, and maybe even getting singed. But the promise is not that we will never suffer, but rather that these hardships will not consume us. And the reason for that is that God promises to be with us and to sustain us with his unfailing love.[6]

And in case there is any doubt about whether this promise has any teeth to it, God stakes his reputation on it. Through the prophet, God makes it clear that the basis for the promise of his unfailing love is the essential nature of who God is: “I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Isa. 43:3).[7] No matter what might come their way, God assured the people that they would always be surrounded by his loving presence: He says, “Do not fear, for I am with you” (Isa. 43:5). That, too, is an admonition that echoes throughout the Bible. From Moses to Revelation God is continually reassuring his people that they do not need to be afraid of what life may bring their way, because He is with us through it all.[8] And he always will be.

In contrast to those who may think that our faith is unrealistic, time and again, the Bible promises us the support of God’s loving presence in the midst of the worst that can happen to us. Our faith is not naïve to the fact that there is a tragic dimension to life.[9] Think of it: at this very moment, how many people on the planet are suffering—suffering the loss of a loved one, suffering the lack of basic necessities, suffering because they have been displaced by disease or war, suffering because of the cruel and inhumane way in which we can treat one another. A faith that promises “everything will be just fine” without taking full account of the hardships of life would be worse than naïve; it would be obscene.[10]

But that is not the nature of our faith. Right in the midst of the worst that life can throw at us, the Scriptures promise us over and over that God’s love for us will never fail. They promise that no matter what may come our way, God will sustain us with his presence. They promise us that even if we have to go through the flood and through the fire, they will not destroy us. And the basis for that assurance is the very nature of who God is: a God whose love for us never fails, a God who is our Savior in all the circumstances of life, a God who is with us no matter what.[11] In all of life, we can trust that God’s love will sustain us and bring us through it all.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltman, The Crucified God, 243, points above all to God’s presence at the cross, where he says that God “suffers the death of the Son in the infinite grief of love”; cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 172-78; cf. also Paul F. Knitter, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, 126: “The God embodied in Jesus suffers not only for the victims of the world; this God suffers like them and with them.”

[3] Cf. Paul D. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 62, where he says that the people “needed a word of assurance, a promise that there was a future beyond the baffling suffering and shame they had suffered.” Cf. also Mary W. Anderson, “Who is Like Thee?” The Christian Century (Jan 26, 2000), 87, where she says, “in the midst of their captivity the people are wondering how their God can be omni-anything when they are so miserable.”

[4] Cf. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 61, where he observes that creation and redemption go together in this text: “the Creator God is the God who enters history to establish a relationship with human beings and to heal their brokenness.”

[5] Cf. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 61, where he recognizes the tension between the expression of God’s “wrath” in the judgment the people have undergone and the affirmation of God’s love here. He says, “Contradictory as they may seem on the face of things, expressions of divine anger, as genuinely as affirmations of divine steadfastness, reveal the commitment of God to authentic, reciprocating love.”

[6] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.1:39, where he refers to the assurance of the the Heidelberg Catechism (ques. 26) that “whatever evil he sends upon me in this troubled life he will turn to my good, for he is able to do it, being almighty God, and is determined to do it, being a faithful Father” (cf Book of Confessions 4.026). Cf. also Christopher R. Seitz, “The Book of Isaiah 40-66,” New Interpreters Bible VI: 381.

[7] Cf. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 64, where he says, “only one word could satisfy the deepest yearning of the fearful heart, a word of assurance that the Creator of all, …, loves radically and unconditionally. The reason this defeated people could hope for a future beyond tragedy is a remarkable promise, a promise filled with the creative power that belongs exclusively … to love.”

[8] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 24-25: “Neither in presumption nor in despair does there lie the power to renew life, but only in the hope that is enduring and sure.” For him, fear is hopelessness that expresses itself either as presumption or despair.

[9] Cf. John Caputo, On Religion, 118. He says that “the love of God” is distressed by the question raised by that which is “loveless” in this world: “Does anyone know or care that we are here?” He puts it more clearly when he asks (p. 119), “Is there nothing beyond the heartless and unrelenting cosmic rhythms, nothing loving, kind, or fair?” Ultimately while he recognizes that he cannot make this “tragic sense of life” go away, he will not agree that “the tragic is the real truth” of our lives. In fact, he insists that “faith is faith precisely in the face of the facelessness of the anonymous” and is always “haunted” by “this specter of a heartless world of cosmic forces.”

[10] See Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark, 61-62: “Anyone who claims to believe in an all-powerful, all-loving God without taking into account this devastating evidence [i.e. the Holocaust] either that God is indifferent or powerless, or that there is no God at all, is playing games. … If Love itself is really at the heart of it all, how can such things happen? What do such things mean?”

[11] Cf. Caputo, On Religion, 123, where in the face of the prospect that all that really exists is a heartless, tragic world of anonymous cosmic forces, he affirms, “The name of God is the name of the One who takes a stand with those who suffer, who expresses a divine solidarity with suffering, the One who says no to suffering, to unjust or unwarranted suffering.”

The Waking Dreamer