This morning a large aftershock again shook the city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. As we all read the reports of damage and deprivation, I encourage you to think deeply about what you know about God’s character and nature. I also challenge you to sit down with friends and family and think about what you can do to reflect that character in your own lives.

I also encourage you to contribute financially to an organization like World Vision.

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A few years back I read a controversial, little book called The Lost Message of Jesus by Steve Chalke and Alan Mann. For the most part, it was just a restating of the central argument of Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy. (For the record, I think both books are worth reading, but Willard’s is vastly superior. I found Steve and Allen’s take on the atonement to be unnecessarily inflammatory.)

There is a story Steve tells that really made me stop and think. Years later now I believe it may have shifted something fundamentally in my thinking.

Like many of us who grew up going to Sunday school, Steve had an array of teachers who tried to make the hard parts of the Bible easy to understand for kids. One difficult portion is the story found in Exodus 33 where Moses is allowed to see God’s backside — seeing something of his glory. But Moses isn’t allowed to see God’s face because, as the text says, “Anyone who sees [God's] face will die” (v. 20).

What’s up with that?

Well, Steve’s Sunday school teacher did what a lot of our Sunday school teachers did. He took a kleenex and lit a candle. Moving that tissue slowly closer to the candle’s flame, it ignited before the two even touched. God is like that! God is an all-consuming fire, and we are thin and sinful — like tissue paper. No one can get close to God without being burned up. That’s why no one can see his face and live.

Well, that’s scary. That’s the premise behind Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. But is it accurate? I suppose in one sense it may be. And yet….

I remember a friend whose mother was gradually losing her battle with Alzheimer’s while his father was going blind. I saw how hard this was on my friend. He looked miserable sometimes and felt helpless. I have another friend who suffers chronic pain — everything he does hurts. There is no comfortable position for him to sit or stand. I am afraid the pain will drive him mad. I know a couple who cannot have children biologically. Sometimes I catch them watching me with my kids, and I see the confusion and sadness.

These are not the most horrific sights. Certainly, none of my friends would compare their situation with those who are suffering in Haiti or Rwanda or even the ghettos of Brazil — where it’s a miracle if you live to be my age. My friends live in relative comfort compared with those whose lives are wracked with the torture of AIDS and abject poverty. And yet the pain of my friends is most acutely felt because…well…because they’re my friends. I’m emotionally attached to them. The people in other parts of the world are easier for me to ignore. All I have to do is turn off the TV.

I sometimes look at the suffering of my friends, and it reminds me of just how deep the reservoir of pain is in this world. In those moments, when I stare deep into the well of human suffering, I just want to die. I don’t want to live with the pain of what I’ve seen. Going on with the knowledge that such suffering exists in the world is difficult.

Now, imagine how God feels.

If he is who the Bible would have us believe he is, he has witnessed every act of suffering, every time innocence has ever been lost, every example of depravity. He has heard every cry, every agonized silent scream.

Perhaps it is this, rather than our sinfulness, that explains why we cannot look at God’s face and live. If God is love — it says that in the Bible, you know — then it makes sense for the one who loves most to also be the one who suffers most. I imagine all that suffering etched on his face. I also imagine that no one could bear to see a face marked with that much pain and live.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 1:41 pm and is filed under Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.