Genesis 1:26-27, Genesis 3:1-13
Let us pray, Loving Father, give me sensitivity and clarity as I speak in your name. Give us ears to
hear what you want each of us to hear this morning, in the name of Jesus, Amen
We watch the news, we read the newspapers and we can be overwhelmed by the suffering we see on
every side. There are natural disasters like floods, drought, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes,
tsunamis, causing devastation and despair. And we see the results of human actions, the horrific
injuries from chemical weapons in Syria, whole families being blown to pieces in Israel/Palestine,
children living on the streets in South America, a young woman raped and killed in India. And in
this country, young girls being exploited for sex, elderly people being ill-treated in care homes, a
family burnt to death in their home in Leicester.
And in our own families not one of us has escaped illness, or loss, or disappointment or tragedy.
Sad things happen, as Alison reminded us earlier. So there's no wonder people say, 'If there IS a
God, and if your God is so good and powerful, why is there so much suffering in the world?'
Maybe God is good but not powerful, so he can't stop the killing, the illness, the exploitation, the
disasters. Or perhaps God is powerful, but maybe he's not good, and doesn't want to stop the
suffering. Because, they say, surely if your God was both good and powerful, he would intervene
to stop all the evil in the world. CS Lewis writes powerfully about this in his classic book, The
Problem of Pain. We want to believe that our God is good and powerful, but we are faced with some
hard questions as we look around.
In this series on healing and wholeness, I have drawn the short straw! Why Suffering? is our subject
today.
Last week Gill showed us that we are a healing community. And on the tree here we have some
words which illustrate what different groups offer in the realm of wellbeing and healing. In the
coming weeks we will be looking more deeply at healing and wholeness.
But today, we explore how it comes about that there is so much suffering in the first place
requiring healing and wholeness!
I know that there are people here this morning who are hurting, for all sorts of reasons. You don't
want clever answers, even if I could give any, which I can't. You don't want lots of words, or
explanations. You want compassion, understanding, someone alongside. And at times of suffering
it can feel as if God is far away.
Philip Yancey wrote a helpful book called Where is God when it hurts? Because sometimes God
seems to have gone away just when we feel we need him most.
And it doesn't help when well-meaning Christian people say insensitive things. A child dies, and
someone offers the consolation, it's all right, Jesus wanted him in heaven. Ugh! No!
A much loved elderly relative dies, and someone says, brightly, well, she had a good innings! It's
not what we need to hear.
This morning we cannot find the answers to all our questions, and I hope I do not say anything
insensitive; but perhaps together we can identify some pointers which will lead us to some kind of
perspective on the huge question, Why Suffering?
The reality is we live in a fallen and broken world. Beautiful in many ways, but broken.
So what has gone wrong? We find clues in the early chapters of the book of Genesis.
We read there that God made everything, and he saw that it was good.
He made man and woman, and they had a great time, in a good relationship with God, at peace
with each other, in harmony with the world. God made them in his image, with his characteristics,
and able to relate to him. They were unselfconscious and at peace in body, mind and spirit.
So there we have Adam and Eve, living the good life, with plenty of freedom, lots of choice, and
with the responsibility of caring for God's creation. You could say, everything in the garden was
lovely!
But there was just one thing that was forbidden – they were not to eat of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. It was a 'Do Not Touch'.
Well, what do you want to do when you see a Do Not Touch? Or a No Entry sign? Or Keep off the
grass? It's very tempting, especially if you can't see the reason for the prohibition.
It was very tempting for Eve. She didn't see why she shouldn't – so she took the forbidden fruit and
ate!
And here on our tree, we have the very apple, with a bite out!
Why did Eve take the fruit? Maybe she thought God had no right to put any restrictions on her. She
wanted to be boss. She didn't want to be dependant on God – she would assert herself. She knew
best!
And she implicated Adam by giving some of it to him.
Adam and Eve knew they had disobeyed God, and they felt guilty and hid from him in shame.
Perhaps we recognise ourselves in this unfolding story.
For when God came looking for them, Adam and Eve started the blame game! Adam blamed Eve
and Eve blamed the serpent! And Adam even implied that it was all God's fault – the woman you
put here with me gave me the fruit! Doesn't it sound familiar? They did not take responsibility for
their actions, and they lost their Paradise, they lost their good relationship with God.
It all went pear-shaped, or apple-shaped perhaps. Harmony was lost.
But notice in verse 21 of Genesis 3, God still loved them, and provided them with clothing to cover
their nakedness. God did not love them because they were lovely, but because he is love and he
wanted them to love him, to trust him and obey him, as he longs for us to love him, trust him and
obey him.
Why doesn't God intervene? Why didn't he stop Eve taking that fruit? Why didn't he stop those
suicide bombers? Why doesn't he prevent cancer, and arthritis, and leukemia? Why didn't he stop
that train from crashing? Why didn't he stop that young man overdosing on drugs?
God has given us free will. We have choices. He could have made puppets, rather than humans.
He could have made robots, who did what he told them all the time. But he chose to make humans,
with responsibility and choice.
I once heard it said that for parents of teenagers, the place to be is always in the wrong! Teenagers
can be rebellious. But the solution is not to lock them in their bedrooms and keep them prisoner!
They have to live and learn – and take comfort, if you have any teenagers in your family – they do
grow up!
God did not make us into puppets, robots or prisoners. He didn't lock us in our bedrooms! He gave
us freedom and choice. And humans do not always choose well or wisely.
Someone described the story of the Garden of Eden as if it was a drama on a stage. Imagine a very
experienced Director with inexperienced actors. The Director tells them how they should perform,
and they know what he wants. But when the audience comes and the play begins, the actors ignore
the director's instructions, do their own thing, and the play is a disaster.
All human beings are made in the image of God, with the capacity to love, to make good choices, to
live life well. But that image, that reflection of God is tainted by selfishness, by rebelliousness, by
sin. We are a bit like sticks of seaside rock –there's lots that lovely and good about us, but inbuilt sin
is like the little word that goes all through that stick of rock. It's part of who we are.
We live in a broken and chaotic world.
In chapter 3 of Genesis, relationships were broken. Harmony was destroyed. And in chapter 4 we
find Cain killing his brother Abel – suffering has begun, in a big way. And the killing and the
suffering goes on, in Syria, in Egypt, in Israel/Palestine, in Britain.
Adam and Eve are representatives. This is our story, the story of the world.
But what about what we call natural disasters? And what about illness? They are no one's fault,
surely?
Pete Grieg started the brilliant 24/7 prayer movement. His book about it is called Red Moon Rising.
Then he wrote another very different book called God on Mute. For Pete's wife, Sammy, the
mother of his two tiny boys, suddenly developed a brain tumour. Pete gives a very honest and
moving account of sometimes feeling totally abandoned by God through that time. It felt as if God
was on mute, God was silent. Why did she get a brain tumour? There was no one to blame. It was
nobody's fault.
Some suffering today is the direct result of people's actions, but lots of suffering is just because the
whole of our world is broken, after the Fall we read about in Genesis chapter 3. There is sickness,
there is pain, there are natural calamities. The whole of creation is in turmoil, and we all suffer as a
result.
Romans chapter 8 speaks about the 'whole of creation groaning in pain like the pain of childbirth,
waiting to be free from its slavery to decay'.
The entry of rebellion into the world has consequences far beyond human actions. It's a cosmic
sickness and we are all caught up in it.
When a child dies of cancer, it's not their fault. When a man is hit by a deep depression and is
unable to work, it's not his fault. When our grandson was born with multiple and profound
disabilities, it was not his fault, or anybody else's. When a tsunami wipes out a whole coast line, it's
not the fault of the people living there. When a flood sweeps down on a valley populated with
thousands of people, it's not their fault.
It happens because we are part of a fallen and broken world.
But when a drunk driver kills a child, when a man takes a gun and shoots a rival, when suicide
bombers fly into the Twin Towers, when someone sets fire to a house killing a mother and her 3
teenagers, it certainly is someone's responsibility. Even global warming we can take some
responsibility for. But there are many events which allow no such straightforward explanation.
There is no immediate cause and effect.
We live in a fallen, chaotic, and broken world.
There is evil, there is suffering. And it's not how God wanted it to be. It's just how it is. Oh yes,
there are miracles of healing and it's wonderful to hear about them. And we pray for healing and
sometimes blame God when it doesn't happen
Someone very close to us suffered deeply when her husband suddenly left her and her children for
another woman. She felt betrayed, rejected, worthless, abandoned, angry, misunderstood. And she
fell apart. She tells how one day she lay on her bed, weeping, crying out to Jesus, yelling at him that
it was all unfair, it shouldn't have happened. She shouted at him that he didn't know what it was like
to be betrayed, abandoned, alone, rejected by someone who was supposed to care for her. And
then, with a start, she realised that Jesus did know.
He knew what it was to be betrayed, alone, abandoned, rejected , crucified even.
And with that realisation, that God understood, that God in Christ had been there, and more, from
then on, she began slowly to get her life back together.
We live in a fallen and broken world.
But God has a remedy. He has intervened. He has come in human form in Jesus to bring healing,
forgiveness and wholeness. The kingdom of God is creation healed, including us, and in due
course, God will bring in his Kingdom and creation will be restored.
And in the end, God's Kingdom will come. Revelation 21:4. God will wipe away all tears from
their eyes. There will be no more death, no more grief, or crying, or pain. The old things have
disappeared.
We live in the in-between times, when creation is not fully restored, when suffering continues, when
disasters happen. For now, we live in a world where there is a mixture of beauty and suffering. God
calls us to love him and to trust him; and God wants us to do whatever we can, with his help, to
alleviate the suffering we find here.
In the beginning there was a tree in the garden of Eden.
Then there was the tree, the Cross of Jesus, on which Jesus took on all the sin and suffering of the
world.
And the glorious picture of the future in Revelation chapter 22, The angel showed me the river of
the water of life, ….. On each side of the river was the tree of life …..;and its leaves are for the
healing of the nations.
Three trees, all part of the story of God, Creation, the Fall, and creation restored.
Why suffering? We are part of a fallen and broken world.
Where is God when it hurts? He is right in there, suffering with us.
The Long Silence.
At the end of time, billions of people were scattered on a great plain before God's throne. Most
shrank from the brilliant light before them, But some groups near the front talked heatedly –
not with cringing shame, but with belligerence.
Can God judge us? How can he know about suffering? Snapped a pert young brunette. She
ripped open a sleeve to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp. We endured
terror. Beatings...torture. Death!
In another group a Negro boy lowered his collar. What about this? He demanded, showing an
ugly rope burn. Lynched – for no crime but being black!
In another crowd, a pregnant school-girl with sullen eyes. Why should I suffer? she murmured.
It wasn't my fault.
Far across the plain there were hundreds of such groups. Each had a complaint against God
for the evil and suffering he permitted in his world. How lucky God was to live in heaven
where all was sweetness and light, where there was no weeping or fear, no hunger or hatred.
What did God know of all that man had been forced to endure in this world? For God leads a
pretty sheltered life, they said.
So each of these groups sent forth their leader, a Jew, a Negro. A person from Hiroshima, a
horribly deformed arthritic, a thalidomide child. In the centre of the plain they consulted with
each other. At last they were ready to present their case. It was rather clever.
Before God could be qualified to be their judge, he must endure what they had endured. Their
decision was that God should be sentenced to live on earth – as a man!
Let him be born a Jew. Let the legitimacy of his birth be doubted. Give him a work so difficult
that even his family will think him out
of his mind when he t
his closest friends. Let him face false charges, be tri
convicted by a cowardly judge. Let him be tortured.
At the last, let him know what it means to be terribly alone. Then let him die so that there can be
no doubt that he died. Let there be a great host of witnesses to verify it.
As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up
from the throng of people assembled.
And when the last had finished pronouncing sentence, there was a long silence. No-one uttered
another word. For suddenly all knew that God had already served his sentence.....