Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. [1 John 4:7-10]
Where is Jesus?
An earthquake devastates an already impoverished nation. Horrific images flash across the television screen. Haiti scrambles to rescue and survive.
I recall similar pictures—terrorist attack, tsunami, hurricane, tornado—and the question always arises.
Where is Jesus?
Without access to heavy equipment, rescuers desperately dig through rubble by hand. Friends, family members, co-workers anxiously seek any news about loved ones. An inadequate medical system tries to address injuries. Bodies lie in streets.
And there’s the question: where is Jesus?
Why does a loving God allow such horrors? How do we reconcile grace and peace with tragedy on such an unimaginable scale?
WHY?
I don’t know why He allows such suffering. I don’t think anyone else does, either. Some offer simplistic explanations devoid of compassion. Some blame God, some blame the victims and almost appear to celebrate God’s vengeance. Some seize unexplainable tragedy as evidence of God’s indifference or non-existence.
Personally, I deplore self-righteous, judgmental pronouncements that paint God’s heart with cold vengeful colors, especially from those who ought to know better. All I’ve experienced of God tells me He doesn’t vent His anger on those He loves.
However, if we proclaim a theology of grace, we must also include a theology of evil. So here’s my answer.
WHERE’S JESUS?
He’s right there in the midst of suffering and struggle. Wherever someone scrambles for survival, He’s there. He cries with parents who scream in agony at the loss of a child. He agonizes with friends who wait in fear for news.
The bible clearly describes a broken, fallen world. We’re all targets in a spiritual war; in C.S. Lewis’ words, we’re currently living in enemy-occupied territory. That enemy does his best to tempt, frustrate, and discourage.
Our enemy is hard at work whenever someone mischaracterizes Jesus’ love. He celebrates whenever God is blamed for evil. He uses subtly twisted perceptions of God’s nature to hide a truth he desperately wants to conceal.
God does not cause tragedy to “get even” with His children. Pain and suffering are not God’s vengeance—they’re the work of an enemy who’s bolstered by misguided efforts to simplistically make sense of senseless horrors.
I believe one simple truth: God is love.
As I struggled to make sense of my injury, I heard all sorts of well-intended justifications. But one touched my heart and provided a sense of comfort. A friend simply stated, “When you fell, Jesus wept. He suffered and cried and hurt felt the fear.”
That image, the assurance that Jesus was right beside me as I lay helpless on the ground, comforts me. He knows my pain and sorrow, because He’s been there.
God didn’t cause my injury, and He didn’t cause the Haitian earthquake. But He’s right there with those who feel hopeless. He suffers, struggles, weeps, and mourns along with those He loves.
God reached across the universe and spoke The Word of His love into creation. He came so we could know light in darkness and hope in hopelessness.
Where’s Jesus? He’s right here.
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. [1 John 4:16]
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