Dear Church Family,

We have almost completed the gauntlet of Summer activities. We survived VBS and camp and mission trips. We celebrated the 250th Independence Day. We completed our new preschool wing. We have celebrated baptisms and the Lord’s Supper. And I think it has been worth every minute. Thank you for serving in this great church! The following article is longer than usual, but I think it has some real insight on theodicy—

The Strange Beauty of Suffering by Rich Bitterman

American life trains us that comfort is a birthright. We upgrade, distract, stream, medicate, schedule, scroll, renovate and numb. Then sorrow comes without asking permission. Often it walks into the room with muddy boots and sits down in the best chair.

The first sound suffering pulls from the human soul is often a question..why? Why did God allow this? Why this diagnosis? Why this child? Why this marriage? Why this grave?

That question itself tells the truth about us. The question rises by instinct because God has written Himself into the conscience. We know love and power belong to Him. When the world breaks, something in us cries out because brokenness feels like an intruder.

Somewhere in the human conscience, Eden still aches. We have never walked its grass, yet we miss it. We can imagine a world where babies are never buried, marriage vows never rot and every table is full. Ask a man what to call such a world and he will likely borrow the language of heaven.

Scripture tells us why we ache. Suffering entered through sin. Pain is not always tied to one particular sin in one particular life. Jesus would not let us draw that cruel line. When people brought Him news of bloodshed and disaster, He said those who suffered were not worse offenders. Then He turned the tragedy toward the living: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

The question is not first, “Why them?” The deeper question is, “Why not me?” I have lived in God’s world with God’s breath in my lungs, God’s gifts in my hands and still I have wanted the throne for myself. The shock is not that suffering falls upon rebels. The shock is that mercy keeps waking us.

Then the gospel takes us to the worst suffering the world has ever seen. The eternal Son of God took flesh and came down into our ruined neighborhood. He entered through poverty, not palace doors. His mother wrapped Him in cloth while the world slept. He grew up in a rough place where gossip had teeth and life had calluses.

He knew hunger and weariness. He knew rejection. Men lied about Him with lungs He was holding together. He watched grief fold people in half. He stood at a tomb and wept. All His life moved toward a hill.

In the garden, dread pressed sweat from His skin like blood. At the trial, justice covered its face. Soldiers tore His back open. Thorns crowned the brow before which angels bow. Hands He had formed lifted the hammer. Mouths He had filled with breath mocked Him. The Maker of trees hung from one. The Lord of glory gasped beneath a darkened sky.

Yet the deepest agony of Calvary reached beyond nails, nerves, blood and bone. The sinless One stood where sinners deserved to stand. The beloved Son drank the cup His people had filled. The Judge bore judgment. The Lamb carried guilt He never committed. From that dreadful holiness came the cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Hebrews says Jesus endured the cross “for the joy that was set before him.” That joy was never the nail, the shame or the wrath His soul endured. It was the Father’s will accomplished, the grave conquered, the bride redeemed, heaven opened and sinners brought home. Love looked through the agony and saw His people forgiven.

Here suffering begins to shine with a strange beauty for the Christian. Christ entered it. He did not send explanations from a safe distance. He came near enough to be hated and to carry our curse in His own body on the tree.

His suffering saves. Ours never does.

Keep that line bright. Your cancer does not complete His cross. Your grief does not purchase forgiveness for another soul. When Jesus cried, “It is finished,” heaven heard completion. The debt was paid as the veil tore from top to bottom. The throne of grace opened to sinners who come through Christ.

Still, the Savior who finished redemption does not waste the wounds of the redeemed. Pain is ugly when it enters the room. It steals hair, sleep, appetite, strength and plans. Christianity does not perfume the curse and call it lovely. The beauty begins when Christ steps into the wreckage and claims even this as His servant.

A Christian’s pain can become worship. The hospital bed can become a pulpit. A diagnosis can strip the glitter from this age and show a man the solid mercy of God beneath his feet.

Jesus promised both trouble and courage. “In the world you will have tribulation,” He said. Then came the command that holds trembling saints upright: “Take heart; I have overcome the world.” He does not promise His people unwounded lives. He promises Himself inside the wound.

Sometimes God uses suffering like a chisel. A sculptor strikes stone because he sees a shape hidden there. God means to make His children like Christ and He knows which places in us resist the touch of mercy. Pride often survives sermons and comfort can leave idols undisturbed. Pain reaches the locked rooms. The blow is real. The hand is Fatherly.

Job learned this when he lost his wealth, children, health and nearly every human comfort. His friends thought great pain must mean great guilt. God shattered their little system. Job never received every reason. He received God.

Suffering had taken him lower than he ever wanted to go and there he found God larger than he had ever seen Him. Satan had claimed Job loved God for the gifts. Strip the gifts away, he said, and the worship will die. Yet a wounded man on ashes showed heaven and earth that God is worthy when the body is broken and the questions still burn.

Paul learned it too. He begged the Lord to remove the thorn. Three times he pleaded. The answer came with steel and tenderness: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” People looked at that frail apostle and saw strength that could not have come from him.

America needs Christians with windows like that. Polished religious consumers fall apart when comfort leaves the room. Widow saints can sing through tears. Fathers can pray beside hospital beds. Weary Christians open Scripture with shaking hands because they have nowhere else to go. A grieving Christian who still sings tells the world Jesus is better than the life we wanted.

Suffering should also move us toward other sufferers. Christ fed the hungry. He touched lepers. He wept with mourners. We visit the sick, sit with the grieving, bring casseroles and Scripture, pay bills when we can, whisper prayers when words feel too heavy and help carry what we cannot fix.

Then we speak the gospel because eternal suffering is real, Christ receives sinners, and His blood forgives what no human hand can wash away. Suffering becomes beautiful only when Christ stands at its center.

Without Him, pain is wreckage. With Him, even wreckage becomes a workshop of glory. The scar remains and the limp may last the rest of the journey. Yet the Man of Sorrows walks beside His people and He knows every mile.

One day, the Eden ache will end. The world conscience remembers and Scripture promises will arrive with the voice of the King. Cancer will lose every room it stole. Graves will surrender every saint they held. God Himself will wipe tears from every face. Until then, we carry what He assigns because His shoulder is under it with us.

Only Christ’s suffering saves.

Our suffering becomes one more trembling place where the Savior shows the world He is enough.

Press On!

Mark