Reflecting what happened at Sandy Hook, David Limbaugh writes,
As loving beings, we will never be able to process fully and bear such indescribable pain as the Sandy Hook parents are now experiencing. But the God of the Cross provides us authentic hope and refuge, because unlike any other gods ever contemplated by the mind of man, the God of the Bible suffers right along with us and, because of His superior capacity for love, to a degree immeasurably greater than even we experience.
Far from being an impersonal God, the God of the Bible created human beings in His image, knowing in advance that they would disobediently separate themselves from Him through sin and thus require His divine redemption. This, in turn, would require His own deep spiritual pain and suffering. For there was no other way for God to reconcile man to Himself than by lowering Himself to human form, suffering all the indignities of human existence, and then volunteering Himself for a humiliating and excruciating but wholly undeserved death on the Cross so that by faith in Him we could be saved as a result of His sinless life, his death and his ultimate triumph over death through His resurrection.
Evangelist Ajith Fernando wrote, “At the cross we see the immensity of God’s pain as He endured the sacrifice of Jesus. And God experienced that pain of the cross from the time He created the world, for the Bible describes Jesus as ‘the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.’”
That God was willing to suffer and sacrifice for us shows that He is a God who loves us and can relate to us (and to whom we can relate) through His own sufferings.
To be honest, such words can be cold comfort to those who are in the midst of trials, especially if they are offered tritely (of course, there is nothing trite about Limbaugh’s article–here I am speaking of others). To those who are in the midst of grieving, the only thing we can really do is grieve with them.
Yet, in quieter times, we should be able to see that what Limbaugh says is entirely correct. Indeed, that God suffers with us represents humanity’s only real hope.
So true, of course. We are not promised a life of ease and pleasure, but just the opposite, and as believers, our task is to “take up [our crosses] daily…” Learning to lean on and draw comfort from the Creator of our souls is the lesson to be learned from daily suffering. Hard, hard lesson, that…