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are those who snatch the orphan child from the breast, and take as a pledge the infant of the poor” (Job 24:5, 7–9). According to the theology of his three friends, not only Job but also all those suf- fering in extreme poverty are re- ceiving their just portion accord- ing to God’s appropriate ruling. The effort to defend God on the basis of the belief that the tragic, inhumane occurrences mirror the will of God can justify not only the idea of arbitrary divine brutal- ity but also the unjust status quo in a societal context where unfair socio-political powers prosper, and the poor and helpless are left uncared for. The final chapter of Job remarks that God rebuked the three men for their folly of having not spoken of God what is right (Job 42:8).
In God’s address to Job, God confronts Job as well. In his book on Job, Gustavo Gutierrez ex- plains that God rebukes Job for remaining a prisoner of either-or mentality (see Job 40:8), which means, between me and God, only one of us can have a right- eous cause. When Job’s miser- able situation is interpreted with that mentality, if Job is innocent, God must be guilty. When Job is an isolated sufferer falsely ac- cused by his acquaintances, God will be only an indifferent observ- er at best, even if God is not a di- vine torturer. Ivan is preoccupied with this very way of thinking. The either-or mentality is not able to direct us to the depth of the relationship between our experi- ence of suffering and God’s. The suffering of God and the suffering of God’s creation do not entail a zero-sum game. God and suffer- ers are on the same ground.
As Jürgen Moltmann says, “God is in suffering and suf- fering is in God as God is love” (Moltmann, The Crucified God). God is not able to detach Godself from the realities of suffering in the world because of the nature of love that is God. It is not that
each form of suffering itself is the greatest expression of God’s love, but in everything that hap- pens, through the power of God the Spirit, we encounter the suf- fering presence of God, full of the greatest love for us. Wherever the suffering of God’s creation takes place, God takes the suffering as God’s own out of love. That is why we can trust that where suf- fering is, there is the cross.
The cross of
suffering and hope
In The Crucified God, Moltmann remarks, “All human history, how- ever much it may be determined by guilt and death, is taken up into this ‘history of God’...and inte- grated into the future of the ‘his- tory of God.’ There is no suffering ... which ... is not God’s suffer- ing; no death which has not been God’s death...” As God is the God of the entire cosmos, when God takes all suffering and death in history as God’s own, there is no distinction between the suf- fering and death within the walls of the church and outside them. In that sense, the cross as the symbol and reality of the suffering presence of God, that absorbs the pain of the world to bring healing, stands not only in some desig- nated religious areas but “in the whole of reality” (Dorothee Soe- lle, Suffering).
The cross does not tell us about why there is suffering or how it came into being. The origin of the power of evil and the problem of suffering is shrouded in a puz- zling, deep mystery. But the cross tells us where God is and what God does with God’s ceaseless love for all God’s creatures put in perilous pain. This is why Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a 20th-century theo-
logian and martyr, understands that God in Christ “does not enter [the world] in the royal clothes of a ‘Form of God’” but “in the form of a ruined human being in torn clothing ... incognito as a beggar among the beggars, as an out- cast among the outcast ... dying among the dying” (Bonhoeffer, Testament to Freedom and Christ the Centre).
Importantly, we are to be re- minded that the cross of suffer- ing and death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ comprise a seamless wholeness. They can be distinguished from each other, but it is impossible to separate them, as they are most deeply connected (Ernst Käsemann, “The Saving Significance of Je- sus”). The Crucified Lord is the Risen Lord. And the Risen Lord is the Crucified One who still carries the wounds of being hu- man as the eternal Lord of life. The suffering and death of God the Son on the cross lead to the ultimate restoration and salvation of the whole creation. The Gospel of John calls the life, death and resurrection of Christ, including the horrendous brokenness of the cross, the glory of God as a whole (Richard Bauckham, Gos- pel of Glory). God is suffering as the God of resurrected life. The cross witnesses the depth of suffering and at the same time announces that God’s incredible new life works incessantly where suffering is—to bring a different future, that is the future of the Re- deemer. Through God’s suffering work of inhaling the pain of the world into Godself, God exhales and spreads God’s undying, es- chatological life. God’s pivotal salvific work can be seen, heard and touched where sufferers are.
As mentioned above, there is no suffering that is not God’s suffer- ing; no death which has not been God’s death. For that very reason, “There is no life, no fortune and no joy which have not been inte- grated...into eternal life, the eter- nal joy of God” (Moltmann, The Crucified God).
In relation to the challenges of suffering, God does not need a hu- man defence of God at all, based on theoretical speculations, void of the awakening formed through one’s vulnerable encounters with the faces of the sufferers. God can defend Godself through the triune God’s presence embedded in the places of suffering and eventually through God’s eschatological rev- olutionary changes that the Book of Revelation declares (Revelation 21:1–5).
What God requires from us is our participation in God’s work of standing with those who are suf- fering, befriending them, and alle- viating their agony in love. It is not difficult to find those who suffer in the circle of our families, friends, congregations, local communities and so on. If we are living in a priv- ileged socio-economic context, it is necessary for us to meet with, listen to, and form our friendship and solidarity with the unappreci- ated, discriminated against or for- gotten because of their economic class, culture, gender, race, or religion, or because of mental, physical and social issues, by leaving our familiar associates and surroundings. “Therefore Je- sus also suffered outside the city gate in order to sanctify the peo- ple by his own blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is
to come” (Hebrews 12:12–14). In interpreting those verses, author Charles L. Campbell emphasizes that “the church is called inten- tionally and habitually to move out of the places of security and comfort” into the places of pov- erty and oppression where Jesus continues to bear abuse, suf- fering with and for those treated as “the non-persons of society.” Because the presence of God in Christ suffers where love suffers, Campbell explains that “drawing near to God and going outside the camp to follow Jesus are one and the same move” (Campbell, The Word Before the Powers: An Ethic of Preaching).
Listening to the fiercely critical words regarding Christian faith from his brother Ivan, Alyosha was not able to present his coun- ter-argument clearly. But soon after they parted, Alyosha moved toward those put in agonizing situ- ations, who were yearning for his care and companionship. What Alyosha was to put forth with all his strength was not about creat- ing the most elaborate arguments for Christianity. In faith, he was called to accept the suffering that could arise due to his involvement with the suffering of the helpless. In Alyosha’s mind, his brother’s questions were not ignored, but “superseded by an unlimited love for reality” (Soelle, Suffering). An- gelus Silesius, the 17th-century priest and poet says, “The rose hath no why; it blooms because it blooms.” To bear the burden of one another and our neighbours groaning in pain near and far—as a rose quietly shares its beauty in a small part of the world—is the call for us from the Lord who falls to the ground, dies and blossoms, being risen indeed.
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