When God Hides His Face

"Answer me quickly, O LORD; my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit." -Psalm 143:7

If our Creator loves us, why does He allow suffering and death? 

The question is older than Job.  The first son of Adam was righteous. Tending his flocks with the greatest of care, he always sought to give God the very best. Because of his goodness, he caught the evil eye of a jealous brother. With one strike, innocent blood was spilled--blood that cried out from the ground for his Creator's justice.

What did it matter to Abel that Cain was punished? Would that God had stayed his hand! Would that someone, anyone, might have intervened!

One of the most noble callings in our culture is the "helping professions," which include caregivers of medical and mental health treatment, emergency responders, social workers and private charities. We see suffering around us, and our gut reaction is to help make it stop. To do something to better our world. We take pride in this. The greatest thing a human being can put his hand to is helping his neighbor.

Yet even the Good Samaritan could not prevent his neighbor from brutal assault by roadside bandits.  He could only cure his wounds and care for him.  The question that plagues us today is not: "Which passerby was the best 'neighbor' to him," but rather, "Why didn't the omnipotent God intervene BEFORE the assault?"  

Why indeed?  

During our dark night of the soul, in the midst of our suffering--that is when we crave answers.  God may be present with us, and willing to comfort us.  Yet He is often strangely reserved in the very moments that we find ourselves beating bloody fists upon heaven's door, crying out, "Why?!"  We wholly expect our Creator to open the gate in that moment and hand us a scroll or a piece of gilded-edged parchment, entitled: "Because..."  

What I have experienced, instead, is a warm, yet bewildering silence.  

Silence is troubling, especially the silence of someone you trust to take care of you.  As a therapist, I can tell you that nothing equals the consternation of someone who comes to me for the solution to all his problems, and I give him no answers.  No friend or family member would expect me to fix his life for him.  Yet, in a treatment setting, the proper response to my standard, "What do YOU think is your best course of action?" is usually: "Hey!  I'm paying YOU to help ME!"  The underlying assumption, of course, is that "help" implies I have both the power and the RIGHT to give him the answers he desires.  (This tendency of man to pawn his freedom for security reminds me of a Biblical character who sold his own birthright for a bowl of chili.)  

I can't judge my clients too harshly, because I myself have been the guilty party.  When perplexed, my knee-jerk reaction is to rush to some wise authority figure, hoping for a textbook solution.  A rash person will actually give me one.  However, the wisest people I know are not so quick to alleviate my suffering.  They remind me of my own responsibility.  Even if the problem was not of my making.  Even if I have no idea what to do... we can work through this together.  But ultimately I must act.  To act is to live; to respect the dignity of another life is to require action.  

I am reminded of Frodo's exasperation when he asks the oldest and wisest lady in the land for the way out of his own moral dilemma, and she leaves the ball in his court: "Never go to the Elves for advice, for they will say both yes and no!"  

Why not intervene?  It would certainly be easier for someone else to solve the problem for me move on.  But I would not move on.  I would not have experienced any personal growth.  So, the next time this trouble arises, I would be in the same predicament.  I have a great deal of respect for such people, who have the guts to say "no" to my demand for answers.  They recognize the dignity of my free will and value my personal growth... even at the risk of my disillusionment.   

Sure, God could go around stopping every sin before it happens.  But by doing so, he would invalidate the dignity of our free choice.  And He would never solve the underlying problems of humanity.  

But, Penguin, my esteemed reader will interject--what does this have to do with the extreme suffering of an innocent child in Africa?  How is she supposed to solve her own problems without help?  Where is God's love in that?  

If we take a look at the bigger picture, we will realize that one suffering child is no freak accident.  She is, rather, a victim a larger problem: man's inhumanity to man.  Last year, Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate was 516 quintillion percent.  In January of this year, they printed the first $100 trillion dollar note... enough to purchase three loaves of bread!  And Zimbabwe is rich compared to some countries.  Government embezzlement in Africa has created a vast system of oppression, for which no one has called them to account.  Evil governments are the business of the whole world--OUR business.  Yours and mine.  That suffering child is our neighbor!  

Whether we like it or not, it seems that God has taken a step back to see what mankind will do about Africa. 

Before judging God for His refusal to intervene, let us give pause to what kind of a person He is.  We know, of course, that He is all-powerful, all-knowing and completely just, and that everything in the universe is His.  If we stopped there, it would be easy to characterize God as sort of a rich uncle, one whom we visit on Christmas and Easter, and who always shows up to bail us out whenever the car breaks down or we need an instant source of cash.  

But look at how God is described in Isaiah: "Truly, You are a God who hides himself, O God and Savior of Israel!" (45:15).   

In May 1980, eager audiences were poised for a glimpse of the real Darth Vader... at least, the back of his scarred head.  It was not until the final moments of the film that fans got a look in the eyes of the character who rocked the Republic.  In the Old Testament, God shows only His back to Moses, because whoever sees His face will die.  He hides His glory even as He walks in the sandals of humankind.  It is only on the Mount of Transfiguration that the shekinah glory of God's face briefly becomes visible to human eyes.  

Philippians 2: "[Jesus] being in His very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing..."

"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" -Psalm 22:1

Instead of stopping sin in its tracks, God withheld His omnipotence in view of the magesty of free will that He had created... and yet He still intervened to rescue humanity from the horribe mess they are in.  And to do that required that He withhold justice when the greatest injustice of all took place.  

At the sixth hour, darkness fell.  God the Father hid His face.  

God the Son let Himself hang there, dying for lack of oxygen.  He didn't have to let Himself be nailed to a piece of wood.  He could have called down ten thousand legions of angels to rescue Him from that cruel injustice.  He was all-powerful.  Yet He who had the choice, chose to suffer, to bleed, and to thirst.  

For three long hours, God waited in pain, in darkness, naked and bleeding on the street corner, while people walked by Him and laughed.  He waited while His friends watched in agony, their hope for the future nailed to a Roman cross.  While the authorities washed their hands and turned the other way.  

God hid Himself.  And He became nothing.  

Jehovah died.  

The First and the Last, the One who had life in Himself, who gives life to the world, became a corpse attached to a piece of wood.  

If God had not waited, if He had come down off that cross and walked up the stairway to heaven, He would have gone back alone and abandoned the world to its sin and injustice forever.  If Jesus had not said, "Not My will, but Thine, Father, be done!" then there would be no salvation for mankind.  The Jewish sacrifices only covered sin in that to sacrifice was an act of faith against the ultimate sacrifice that was to come.  The blood of goats and cattle could never bring back the soul of Abel, whose blood cried out for justice against the first murderer in history.  More death only creates more death.  You cannot fight fire with fire, or blood with blood, or crime with law.  You must either raise the dead to life, or call the whole thing a wash and cleanse the afflicted earth with another flood, the one thing God promised He would never do.  

Only in one case could blood purchase blood.  The blood of God Himself bought the keys to Death and Hades.  The blood of one who was pure and holy, yet chose to suffer the ultimate injustice, broke the power of death over us all.  

Resurrection.  

Hope.  

Jesus intervened.  He acted willingly on the gut instinct that God has put into all men made in His image: that when you see injustice, you act to correct it.  YOU act.  Not someone else, not President Obama, not the system, not the next driver on the road or the next Good Samaritan that passes by.  You.  

God may have hidden Himself for a while, but He didn't ever call evil Somebody Else's Problem.  He made it His problem and took the cost upon Himself to correct it.  

"To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.  'He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.' When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." -I Peter 2:21-25

Think for one moment: what would the world be like if Christians did not follow in Christ's steps?  From the streets of Calcutta to the bush tribes in Sudan, Christian missionaries have dedicated their lives to helping their neighbors afflicted by poverty and hunger.  That poster-child in Africa has hope, because somebody else cares about her.  That crippled boy dying on the streets of India may be rejected by his fellow men, but one of the Sisters of Mercy may come along and give him shelter and a clean bed to sleep in.  

The harvest is great, but the laborers are few.  Imagine now what the world would be like if ALL human beings took responsibility for their neighbor's well-being.    

That is what I think will make heaven, heaven.  A Rabbinic story is told of a man who once had a vision of hell, in which starving people were gathered around a soup pot.  They scooped it with spoons longer than their arm, crying in frustration when they could not reach the food to their mouths, and fighting amongst each other.  Then the man was shown heaven... a happier version of the exact same scene.  The difference: the people fed each other.  

God calls us to action.  If we open our eyes to see, and our ears to listen, we will hear a rousing call to action to help our neighbor.  

A story is told in Christian circles, of a man who, moved by a sermon on listening to God, asked God to speak to him.  Immediately, God told him to stop and pick up a gallon of milk.  Thinking the instructions crazy, he obediently purchased the milk and proceeded to head down Seventh Street until he felt compelled to stop at a certain house and knock on the door.  Inside a young couple had been praying, as they had run out of money and needed milk to feed their baby.  This Christian brother 

While I don't know the origin of this particular story... for me, this call is a daily reality.  At least, those days that I wake up with a consciousness of God and the awareness of His will in my life.  On such days, opportunities present themselves for me to help make the world a better place.  Obedience to God's voice often requires courage and faith.  He invites us to step outside of our comfort zone to help those around us.  

That said, one of the most powerful actions we can take is to pray for one another.  In James 5, it is written: 

Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

In the Old Testament, too, God often directed people to pray for His will to be accomplished.  Job offered a sacrifice for his miserable comforters' sin of omission.  Abraham bargained with God over the city of Sodom, and Moses effectively begged a change of heart out of God when he reminded the Creator of His covenant never to destroy Israel.  

Why on earth does God command us to pray for one another in order for Him to act?  Logically, if God is great and absolute, He will never change His mind or His plans.  And if He knows what we need before we ask it, why should we even bother to ask?  Can't the Almighty Creator manage the world on His own?  

But the issue of prayer has nothing to do with logic, space, or time.  I think it has everything to do with a real relationship... a relationship complete with the passions and negotiations of any human relationship.  God wants us to care.  He gave us sentient hearts that we might respond to the pain around us with the same attitude God does: with compassion... with anger... and ultimately with action.  

Why do you say, O Jacob, 

and complain, O Israel, 

"My way is hidden from the LORD; 

my cause is disregarded by my God"?

Do you not know? 

Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God, 

the Creator of the ends of the earth. 

He will not grow tired or weary, 

and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary 

and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary, 

and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the LORD 

will renew their strength. 

They will soar on wings like eagles; 

they will run and not grow weary, 

they will walk and not be faint.

-Isaiah 40