ve the world. He is most God for us when he is most forsaken and afflicted in his suffering. Faith in Jesus does not seek displays of power and glory, nor does it demand a blessing God has not promised, as though Jesus' death were not sufficient. Faith in the crucified and risen Jesus is content to have him present in suffering, silently embracing us as the Man of Sorrows who is acquainted with our grief.
In the parable of the wheat field (see Matt. 13:24-30), Jesus reveals God's way of dealing with the problem of evil. The enemy has sown evil weeds among God's good wheat. The interventionist farmhands demand immediate action-pull the weeds in order to save the wheat. But God's course of action is summarized in the words: "Let be!" (The Greek word is aphete, usually translated "forgive.") Forgive the weeds, let them be, lest you destroy the wheat. The "problem" of evil turns out to be no problem at all. The weeds will be sorted from the wheat soon enough, at harvest time. God neither abandons the world in its suffering nor does he intervene all that much-except to die on a cross and forgive!
This is not the "Watchmaker God" of Newtonian Deism, who stands completely outside the cosmos and rarely, if ever, intervenes. Nor is he the divine vending machine whose buttons are pushed by our prayer and praise. This is the God who is intimately present yet hidden in, with, and under the created order as the creative and redemptive Word through whom all things were made and in whom all things hold together, who fills all in all, and who embraces the suffering and death of the cosmos in his own divine-human death on the cross. God's Word and the Sacraments reveal this hidden God who suffers for us and with us. In baptism we are buried with Christ in his death (see Rom. 6:4). In the Lord's Supper, Christ's Body and Blood, the fruits of his own suffering and death, are given as food and drink (see 1 Cor. 10:16). We live off his suffering and death. "By his wounds, we are healed" (Isa. 53:5).
When we pray for and with suffering people, and when we pray in our own suffering, we pray with that Sufferer of Gethsemane who prayed "not my will but your will be done." We pray recognizing that God's will is always a good and gracious will to save (see 1 Tim. 2:4), even when it seems otherwise. We pray knowing that his grace is sufficient for us in our suffering and that his power is perfected in weakness (see 2 Cor. 12:8-9). Prayer motivated by a theology of glory seeks life that avoids suffering and death. The prayer of the cross seeks life in the midst of suffering and death and finds in Jesus the only way through death to eternal life.
Does this mean that we simply accept our fate then and eschew the use of doctors and medicines and "leave everything in God's hands"? Of course not! This, too, would be a theology of glory. How can we know that it is God's will that we make no use of his gifts of medicine? Why suggest that God's hands have nothing whatsoever to do with the doctor's hands? This would be claiming to know with certainty the hidden will of God concerning the disposition of our suffering. The petition "Thy will be done" means that we actively pursue God's will, employing whatever means he has placed at our disposal-his Word, baptism and Supper, prayer and confession, medicine and the surgeon's knife-yet recognizing that whether we live or die, our life is safely hidden with Christ in God, and we are always safe in him. Only through the cross of Jesus are we given to see suffering and death as good news, because only in the death and resurrection of Jesus does suffering and death find its fulfillment and ultimate meaning.
Why do bad things happen to good people? Look to Jesus on the cross, and ask the question again. Behold the Lamb! He is God's great nonanswer to the problem of suffering and evil. Where is God? Right there, in the midst of it all. Why does God let this happen? It is for you and for your salvation.
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Issue: "This is My Father's World" Sept./Oct. 2002 Vol. 11 No. 5 Page n