Deeper Longings with Jake M
23 June 2020
Hello, my name is Jake and I attend the second congregation at RHC. During this lockdown, I have been studying the book of Job and thinking about why there is suffering in this world. During this pandemic it is hard to make sense of all of the suffering in the world. Where is God in this pandemic? Is this a judgement from God? How does God allow viruses to kill people? Are viruses evil? The book of Job provides us with a blueprint for trusting in God by seeing him as our creator and sustainer who suffered for us and is ever present with us in our suffering.
When trying to answer the question, ‘Why does suffering occur?’, we quickly encounter the retribution principle - you are suffering because of what you have done (some might also know this as karma). This is discussed head-on in the book of Job. The challenge is made of Job, a righteous believer, that he is only following God because of his blessed life. So this is all taken away from him - all of his wealth, his family and his health. Job sits in devastation and his friends are present with him. One by one they argue that it is his fault - he must have sinned or he might be being punished for future sins. Or perhaps he is being taught a lesson by God, you know, to build his character. If you have been to church for awhile, you may be familiar with this sort of language. Perhaps if you’ve been ill or suffered another way, you may have been told that you did not pray enough or that you did not have enough faith or perhaps you are being punished for a previous sin. These suggestions are hardly ever true and almost always hurtful and they are not how we see Jesus respond to people suffering.
Job also points out that, often, wicked people go unpunished so it appears more complicated than simply good people don’t suffer and bad people do. Job complains about how violent people seem to go about their lives and are not punished.
Job then asks for an answer from God - why are you doing this to me? So let’s see how God responds to Job’s request for answers.
He comes in a whirlwind, saying: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:4)
What follows is one of the most beautiful and terrifying descriptions of the natural world, describing not only the grand scale of this world but also how little we really understand it. Or even if we could understand it - through science, for example - how little power we have to influence it. At one point God says to Job, “Can you change the positions of the constellations?” Basically, God’s saying, “Can you move around the stars in the galaxies?”
Most importantly, God does not give Job an answer to why this universe has pain and suffering and viruses and violence. But he does say that he knows all and that we should trust him.
As a scientist and a Christian, I’m interested in what the presence of viruses says about God and our natural world. Some of the most recent scientific research on viruses has shown me that God is much bigger than I could imagine, and has changed the way I think about viruses and whether or not we really can consider them to be truly evil. From modern genetics we can work out that viruses are integrated directly into our own DNA, making up 8%. These viruses have been deactivated, but they still have some functional parts that are, in fact, critical to how our bodies work. It is not an overstatement to say that we rely on viral DNA to survive.
Now, I want to be clear that I am not saying viruses are good. The global death of many thousands of people grieves God greatly. We know that God never minimises our suffering. Even when Jesus was about to bring Lazarus back to life, he mourned him first. He, in fact, entered into history and suffered with us. God the Father watched as his son, Jesus, was cruelly killed on a cross. Today God is always present with us in our suffering through his Spirit and his people. It is critical for the church to mourn and be present with all those who suffer.
However, the fact that our bodies rely on viral DNA to function points to the complexity of evil in our world and that God alone is in a position to judge and guide history. But he is not some old man sitting in a cloud; he is intimately present with us in our creation and our suffering.
I love the book of Job because God calls us to trust him by revealing his majestic creation to us and is present with us in that creation. We are unable to fully understand why bad things happen, but all this discussion about why there is suffering, should bring us back to God - knowing more about him and trusting more in him. God sees us in our suffering. He mourns with us and he's got this whole world in his hands.
So let’s pray. Our almighty Father, all glory and majesty to your name. You are not far off those who call on you. Please be present with us in our suffering. Forgive us when we have tried to reduce the suffering of those around us, or tried to explain people's suffering and your plans. Let us as a church look upon your creation and fall down in worship, holding fast to you and your promises that you will never leave us nor forsake us. Let us, in our suffering, draw near to you and together, proclaim as Job did many years ago:
“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:25)