Jonathan Martin

I know much less about why God allows people to suffer than I know that He Himself is a suffering God.

I follow Jesus not because I don't have any doubts. I follow Jesus because in my doubt, He has always been tender with me.

His body would be crushed, but the words would still remain: You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. The trajectory of Jesus' life and (in a real sense) the fate of the world hung on those few words. They were not the words of a Father celebrating the good things His Son had done, because He hadn't really done anything yet. Even though Jesus was perfect, it wasn't His perfection that brought the Father such delight. It was His very existence.

You can spot people who don't know Jesus very well because the world they see is always so ugly. Even if they use all sorts of religious language, don't be misled__eople who get touched by Jesus don't ignore the hurt and pain in the world, and yet they see so much beauty in it.

Many times in the Old Testament, God refers to human beings as His beloved. But when God called Jesus His beloved, Jesus did something truly remarkable: He believed Him. And He lived every moment of His life fully convinced of His identity.

With the tension churning within us, knowing all the ways the earth is not yet as God intended it to be, we are driven to pray daily: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." We are not looking for an escape from the world; we are looking for the restoration of the world.

When we begin to live like Jesus, people will perceive our peace as an indictment on their violence; they will see our security as an indictment on their insecurity.

Patiently, hopefully, actively we are waiting for Jesus. And yet here is the astonishing twist: As we wait for our Lord and the bodily resurrection yet to come for the departed, the world waits for us. As we long for God, the world is longing for God in us.

We've seen how beautiful it can be to follow Jesus into this new way of being human. But one of the things I love most about Jesus is how much He loves humanity in its brokenness. If He was surrounded by fractured people then, why would we expect it to be any different now? I actually think it is a larger mistake when we Christians attempt to pretend that our lives are more together than they really are in order to "manage our image" before the broader culture. Come look at our perfect church and our perfect family. And if you join us, maybe one day you, too, can have a perfect life! That kind of spin is a breeding ground for disappointment.

This fits the pattern of how God responds to human suffering: We come looking for answers; God sends a hot meal through a warm body. WE come looking for reasons for our hunger; God sends provision to feed us. We come looking for a sermon that will explain the complexity of the cosmos to us and satiate our desire for understanding; Christ responds with, "This is my body, given for you; this is my blood, shed for you."People try to offer us an explanation; God offers us a Eucharist.

The fact that your current station in life would seem to conspire against your usefulness to God is of no consequence.

IT is only when we are no longer in control--because of sickness, death, or our own bad choices--that we no longer cling. The path to salvation is the path of humiliation.

The cross of Jesus says to us there is nothing God won't do to bring us home--except force us to choose him. The cross is God laying down his great power so we might be compelled by the beauty of his heart. He will not coerce us, but only woo us.

But that's one way we can identify the devil's voice: It always plays to our fears. It is the voice that tells us we must do something to prove who we are, to prove that we're worthy, to prove that we are who God has already declared us to be. When we know we are loved by God, we don't have to prove anything to anyone. There is nothing we can do to make ourselves more beloved than we are.

When we protect ourselves from what we fear, we also undermine our capacity for wonder.

Increasingly, I'm coming to believe that fear is at the heart of all sin and disaffection. Fear that God will not be enough for us; fear that the identity we've been given is somehow incomplete.

It's true that Thomas was a doubter, but he was not a cynic, and that's an important distinction. Cynics often look for reasons not to believe and won't be moved by something beautiful__ust to make a point__ven if it's staring them down. Thomas wasn't a cynic, he was a hopeful doubter; he'd believe if he could.

When he was finally done, Margaret responded, "I am so sorry I hurt you. I never had any intention of hurting you. God loves you, and I love you. He loves this village and He wants to bless you. When you get over being angry, will you remember I'm still your friend?" Perplexed, he turned and walked away. In words that are forever etched on my soul, Margaret said, "Satan doesn't know how to respond to the gentleness of God's Spirit.