A Strange New God

Introduction

The Passion of the Christ

The gospel for Palm Sunday as well as for Good Friday is always announced with the age-old venerable introduction: The Passion (the suffering) of our Lord Jesus Christ. (In Latin: Passio Domini nostri Iesu Christi.) From that traditional introduction Mel Gibson, a staunch Catholic who listened yearly to the reading of the Passion during Holy Week, got the title for his very lucrative but controversial movie The Passion of the Christ.

The scriptural Passion is a long account of the sufferings of the Lord found in all four gospels. It’s a blow by blow description of his physical sufferings: the scourging at the pillar, the crowning with thorns, the carrying of the cross, the parching of his throat and the piercing of his heart by a centurion’s spear. It’s also a blow by blow description of the Lord’s spiritual sufferings: the jeers of human beings who lost their humanity, the painful sight of his mother weeping at his side, the disappointment of betrayal by one he had chosen and, worst of all, abandonment by God, his father.

Bad News

In the wake of 9/11 when Islamist terrorists (in the name of and with the full blessing of God Allah) brought down two towers and three thousand human beings in the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan with one fell swoop, Christian preacher Jerry Falwell said, “I point my finger in the face of the pagans and abortionists and feminists and gays and lesbians and the A.C.L.U. people, and the People for the American Way, and I say `You helped this happen!’” In Jerry’s view God was using the Islamist terrorists of 9/11 to make Americans suffer for their immorality.

The day after Christmas, 2004, the worst tsunami in recent memory inundated southeastern Asia, ruthlessly sweeping away 140,000 people with one fell swoop. The worst casualties were the living: those mamas and papas crying for their bambinos and those bambinos crying for their mamas and papas. Along thousands of miles of costal regions people were crying out in their own languages and with their own gestures of grief, “God, why are you making us suffer so much?”

Soon many clerics in synagogues, churches and mosques all over the world were offering an age-old and worn-out explanation. A Jewish cleric, Rabbi Shlomo Amar (chief rabbi of Israel), said, “This is an expression of God’s great anger upon the world.” An Islamic cleric said, “The disaster was a reminder from God that he who created the world can also destroy it.” I don’t know whether the Christian cleric, Jerry Falwell, pointed his finger again on this occasion and said, “All you pagans helped make this happen.” Those diverse clerics agree on this: God used the overwhelming tsunami of Dec. 26 to make people suffer for their immorality or to simply remind them who’s in charge.

The God who in some way caused 9/11 or the tsunami of Dec. 26 to punish immoral sinners or to simply let humans know who’s in charge—the God who makes everybody else suffer but who himself does not suffer—such a God insufferable. The God who concocts pandemics such as AIDS or other disasters to punish us immoral sinners—the God who makes all of us suffer but who himself does not suffer—such a God is insufferable. Such a God is bad news.

Good news: God suffers!

The Gospel, on the other hand, is good news. It’s good news about the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s good news about a God who does not make others suffer but who himself does suffers. Not only is that good news, it’s also brand new news. For down through the centuries most of the gods were scot-free of suffering. But in the Incarnation, Christians have a strange new God who suffers. The Jewish God does not suffer. The Islamic God does not suffer. The Christian God suffers. When God entered into our atmosphere to become one of us, he lost a heat shield against suffering. After the Incarnation, believe it or not, God is no longer immune from suffering. He’s now one of us, and so he now suffers. St. Paul says nothing less than that in the second reading from Philippians, “Have this mind in you which was in Christ Jesus: though he was God, he let go and humbled himself and became one of us--became obedient to death, yes, even to death on a cross” (Phil 2: 5-8).

After the Incarnation God is no longer immune from suffering. That news is not only new it’s also hard to believe. St. Paul writes, “We proclaim Christ on the cross, a message that is offensive to Jews and nonsense to the Gentiles…” (I Cor 1: 23).

Good news: God suffers our sufferings

This strange good news (that God doesn’t make his children suffer but he himself does suffer) gets even better still. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose voice echoed through the deliberation chambers of Vatican II, writes, “It is fully in accord with the Gospel to regard God as a father weeping across the ages over the sufferings of his children, constantly trying to heal their wounds”(Divine Milieu). It is fully in accord with the Gospel to see God as the Good Samaritan suffering because of his children’s suffering, and inviting us to help him pour the oil of compassion into people’s wounds and hurry them off to the nearest inn for care and cure. Such a God who suffers because of his children’s suffering is, indeed, sufferable. And much more than that. At the end of the day, that, in fact, is what makes him Father.

Conclusion

Good News: God suffers his very own suffering

The good news gets even better yet: God not only suffers because of the suffering of his children, now after the Incarnation God also suffers because of a suffering of his very own.

Some time ago the news reported that spokespersons from the War Department drove up to a home, knocked at the door and announced to a father that his marine son (a dearly beloved young man in whom his father was well-pleased) had been killed in Iraq. Overwhelmed with rage and grief the father tore out of the house and torched their car. In his very heart he was crying out at God asking, “Where were you, and what were you doing when my son was killed in Iraq?”

After the Incarnation in which God begot an earthly son, God can now fire back at the grieving father saying, “I, too, am a father. I, too, have a son. And I was doing just what you are doing now: weeping over a son of my own in whom I was well-pleased but who was crucified, died and was buried.”