Suffering - we know all too well what that means: A terrorist attack, a serious medical problem, the loss of a job, or marriage, the death of a child, spouse, or parent. Suffering causes deep anxiety, pain, sometimes depression, loneliness and even guilt. Often there are endless struggles with questions like, ?God, why me? Or I'm hurting, where are you God? Or why do you permit suffering?'

 I want to offer some thoughts today on the theme of suffering. One of the most agonizing, existential questions for people today is that of innocent suffering. If God is all powerful why does God allow it? Does God really care? The media brings real-time suffering into our living rooms and offices. We see the carnage of the latest conflict in the Middle East; the train crash in Europe: the AIDS victims of Africa and the death and devastation wrought by an earthquake and tsunami in Asia. Also, in our lifetimes, murder and genocide have been committed on almost unimaginable scales-whether the holocaust, Stalin's victims in the Soviet Union (some estimates run as high as 23 million) Pol Pot and the Khymer Rouge in Cambodia. Or the thousands were killed on September 11^th in the World Trade Center.

 Sometimes the unexpectedness of death amplifies the pain and tragedy.  One observer of the World Trade Center attack commented that she was watching TV that morning and the announcer said that between 40 and 50,000 people worked in the WTC. "50,000 people got up this morning, did their regular morning routines, went to work, and I'm sure not one in a thousand thought that it would be their last day on earth." 

 But it is not just suffering ?out there', with us as observers. Many of us here today know about suffering, either personally or through the experience of someone close to us.

 I think the first time this really came home to me was in South Africa, I had only been ordained a couple of months and my boss asked me to visit a young woman who had recently begun to worship with us. Cindy had four children all under 8. As we chatted I asked about her situation, assuming that she was divorced. She explained that her husband had recently died of an unexpected heart attack, while scuba diving. I was just getting ready to trot out my seminary based ?explanations' about suffering when Cindy went on to tell me more about her life situation. Her husband was an architect whose business had been struggling. So a few weeks before his death he cancelled his life insurance policies; when he died she was left hurting financially. Two weeks after the funeral Cindy discovered that she was pregnant with her fourth child. I sat there overwhelmed by her story, realizing how empty and inadequate my clever, logic chopping arguments about suffering were, when faced with real world tragedy.

 Suffering is not a recent innovation, something new to the world. It has always been part of human experience. The Book of Job grapples with the issue of God and human suffering. Early Christian theologians, influenced by Greek philosophy, affirmed what they called the ?impassibility of God'; arguing that God was untouched by human suffering since God is immutable (unchangeable), perfect and all sufficient.

The majority of Christians today (including theologians) affirm that God cannot be impassible. Such a God could not truly be said to love, since real love inevitably involves participation in the sufferings and joys of the one who is loved. Deep within us we all know anguish when our spouse, parent, child or friend is suffering.  St. Paul says that "God proves his love for us in that, while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Rom.5:8). This just could not be true if God were unaffected, untouched by pain and suffering?

 In contrast, the death of Jesus on the cross reveals something eternally true about the nature of God- that weakness and humility are intrinsic characteristics of God in Christ-that is, that God, in his nature, as Jesus, experienced suffering, pain and fear. This is very clear; it was God, as Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, who in the garden was "deeply grieved and agitated" (Matt. 26:37); who shrank from suffering and death: who from the cross in darkness, pain and isolation asked "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"  This means that within the Trinity itself, there was anguish and rupture of relationships. God experiencing suffering means that the Creator fully participates in all the risks and consequences of the creation.

Good Friday points to two, amazing truths about God.

Firstly, God is with us in our pain and suffering, not as a detached observer, but as a fellow sufferer. Jesus is described as the one who is fully able to be with us in our suffering and struggles, because of his own experience. He is no stranger to pain, fear, weakness, isolation, despair and death. There are no feelings or experiences about suffering that you or I need to be ashamed about or try to hide from God-we should come in our anguish, our despair or anger confident that far from being rejected, we will be understood, loved, accepted and supported. Also we come with hope, asking for relief from suffering, healing and strength and resources in our need.

Secondly, it was love that led to the suffering of Jesus on the cross. Love involved costly, self-giving action. God suffered alienation within the Godhead, between Father and Son to overcome our alienation from God. As Scripture affirms, "by his wounds, we are healed". From time to time our relationship with God becomes strained, not as close as it once was. If we know ourselves to be alienated from God today we have an opportunity to return to God; to acknowledge our alienation and need of reconciliation. To draw near to the God who loves us and longs for us.

Let us pray.

Tender God we recognize that in Christ crucified you reveal that the very essence of your nature is a Love that goes to the uttermost lengths for everyone-the lowest, the least, the lost; for each of us here as we kneel at the foot of the cross today. May we worship and adore you as we open ourselves to your love and presence with us now. Amen.