THE QUESTION THE MANGER ANSWERS

“If your God is so powerful and so loving, why does He allow suffering in the world? Why doesn’t He do something about it?” This is the typical neo-atheist’s expected attack on Christianity. The attacker smugly poses the question as if it is an intellectual argument that triumphs over belief in God. He lobs it as a gotcha question and expects a deer-in-the-head-lights look. It is meant to flummox and bumfuzzle a believer into jettisoning his belief in God and, at the same time, provide the arrogant asker with a philosophical justification for rejecting Him. There is only one problem. His is not an intellectual question. Yes, this theodicy can be intellectual and dealt with philosophically. But atheist askers do not query it that way. They ask in a sensational appeal to the emotions. How does a powerful, loving God allow babies to be born with congenital, painful abnormalities, children to be abused, mothers to be killed in last week’s tornados, grandmother citizens to be blown apart in Ukraine, the family down the street to have no money to buy their children Christmas presents …. That stirs the emotions. How indeed can a powerful, loving God allow such suffering and do nothing about it? Ahhh! And, there’s the rub. I am not saying that the question has no philosophical answers. Though it by no means has an easy answer, there are intellectual answers. But the question isn’t really asked seeking answers. It is asked in an appeal to the emotions in order to obfuscate the intellectual and subterfuge the faith. Last night, watching a Christian-school Christmas program, it occurred to me that the emotional question, “If your God is so powerful and so loving, why does He allow suffering in the world? Why doesn’t He do something about it?” has a historical answer. He HAS done something about the suffering in the world. The Manger is the answer to the question. See, neo-atheists ask the question to impugn God, make folks feel bad about Him, embarrassed by Him, and motivated to expel Him from their lives and beliefs. But not only is their question flawed, they ask the wrong question. Instead of smugly asking, “If your God is so powerful and loving, why does He allow suffering in the world?” they should humbly and wonderingly ask, “Why would a powerful and loving God enter into our world of suffering.” Therein is the answer to the question. A powerful and loving God did do something about the suffering of our world by entering into our world of suffering. When? How? When He was incarnated in the human embryo conceived in Mary. When He was birthed in a “barn.” When He was laid in a Manger. The powerful loving God entered our world of suffering first to suffer WITH us. And, then, to suffer FOR us. On the Cross. His suffering was an answer to our suffering. It gave us hope in suffering. Hope that He would redeem from suffering. Redeem us--spirit, soul, and body. Redeem our world. Ultimately, to make a new us and a new world. One without suffering. One without sufferers. One where all suffering is righted. “If your God is so powerful and loving, why doesn’t He do something about suffering?” He has. Don’t believe it? Look in the manger. Still not convinced? Look from the manger to the cross. The manger shouts, “God has come into our world of suffering. The cross adds, “And suffered for us.” This season, in pageants, plays, displays, and decorations, whenever and wherever you see the Babe in the Manger and think of the original Nativity, do not merely think, “What a pastoral but cozy scene, what a cute little, cuddly-looking baby He must have been lying there.” Think, “The powerful, loving Creator/Redeemer God entered into our suffering!” And, when an atheist tries to discombobulate your faith with his smugly posed question, “Why doesn’t your God do something about suffering?” answer, “Oh, He has! Go look in the manger!” ---Pastor Clifford Hurst