God isn't aloof to our sufferings

Eighty five years ago on the night of 9^th April, Germany bombed Birmingham with nearly 240 aircraft. One bomber was brought down by the air defences. As the aircraft descended earthwards, bits of burning wreckage fell away causing a row of houses to catch fire resulting in the death of 75-year-old Sarah Davies and three-year-old Anthony Smith.

Now out of control, the German bomber plunged to the ground careering into the rear of two adjacent houses both of which were occupied. In the one, Amy Hanson and her daughter Doreen were killed, while next door a family of five were also killed. These were Doris Smart and her two schoolboy sons Albert and Brian plus brother-in-law Alfred Smart and his infant son Malcolm.

Just names on a grave stone

I mentioned these by name to personalise them, for each will have had their own life-story, which would have been precious to them, even the two 3-year-olds, Malcolm and Anthony. Doreen Hanson was to have been married in a fortnight’s time. Yet it is a fact of life that, 85 years on, they are just names on a once respected but now grimy and overrun grave.

As with current wars, people of all ages are losing their lives which were precious to them. Each will have had their own back-story of hopes and fears.

How can we make any sense of it all? The easiest thing is to not try and simply turn our minds to something more pleasant. When the questions persist, however, are we going to resort to speaking of fate, chance or luck?

A man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief

Fundamentally, our pain and that of the world is one of estrangement from the God who made us but He isn’t aloof to all of this suffering. In the person of his son Jesus, God identified with us and immersed himself in our life-experiences, even being described as a man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief. He willingly subjected himself to the evils of humanity, which culminated in his being crucified by men.

This self-sacrifice of Jesus is the means of our reconciliation to God. As Jesus identified with us, so we are urged to identify with him and enter into the family of God. This is both difficult and easy. Difficult because we have a natural reluctance and easy because all that’s required is to turn towards God and trust Jesus (i.e. repent and believe).