The three toughest questions I can think of
It has to be the most gut-wrenching question in the Bible. On the cross, Jesus utters the words “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” meaning “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34)
A direct quote from Psalm 22, it is a cry worse than death. That sense of separation because of the sins of the world, of abandonment to a most hideous site known as “the place of the skull.” Here Jesus reaches the nadir of his crucifixion experience.
Rembrandt, Christ Crucified between the Two Thieves: The Three Crosses (1653)
I remember attending Good Friday services as a teenager, listening through the seven words on the Cross, coming to that most agonizing of moments where Jesus cries out “Where are you, God?” In the end, Jesus’ succumbing to death was somehow anticlimactic, all that emotional anguish having been put to rest. In his final words, Jesus finds an ultimate resting place as he submits to the will of his Father, a resolve to that earlier moment of utter abandonment.
When I read of grave injustices such as the lynchings in the Old South, the atrocities of far too many genocides, the death of Navalny in Russia and the destruction of Mariupol in Ukraine, and countless more, I cry out, Where were you, God?
Although my own experiences have never reached such depraved depths, I struggle to account for the causes of my own traumas. I run through self-imposed therapy and deduce that I have sensitized myself to the traumas of others as a way of reckoning with that question I have for God about my own experience, Where were you, God?
When I lived in Texas in the late seventies and Jim Crow was still writhing on the ground, I asked a pastor friend why many of my fellow ministers were so blatantly racist. His response was confusing to me and not altogether resolving. He said, “You are more sensitive.”
Somehow, other’s pain medicates mine. But how does one pain compensate for another?
Friends show me the “footprints in the sand” meme and tell me God has been there all along. He was there carrying you. But that answer does little to wipe away the question: If You were there, God, then why? Why didn’t you do something to stop it? Why, why, why, to the point that the question itself becomes too exhausting to utter yet again.
Surprisingly, what is needed in those moments is not an answer, especially not a pat answer. What we need is someone or Someone to sit with us in that moment of agony. And who better to sit with us in the pain than One who has been to the point of utter despair Himself? In grief and suffering, presence can mean far more than words.
I am not sure there are any perfect answers this side of the grave, but some answers are better than others. And a God who sits with us in the agony, who also experiences the agony, is a God who is worth listening to.
David doesn’t get his question fully answered in Psalm 22, but he does come to a place of resolve. Although he can’t fully get away from his plight, he acknowledges that God “has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.”
Okay, I get that this is an ongoing conversation between you and me, God, and we’re not through talking. But if that is as far as we’re getting on this first question for now, I have a second that can’t wait.
Where were your followers when this happened? Where were the people of faith? Where were your supposed hands and feet?
Where were they when Black children were lynched, when Jewish babies went to the Nazi gas chambers or were killed in the October 7 attack, when Palestinian infants were bombed, when children were slaughtered in Rwanda at the hands of their neighbors … my list goes agonizingly long, and it doesn’t take much effort to find church-going people behind some of the most heinous of atrocities.
I reject the notion that people of faith, especially Christians, are more culpable than others. List the horrific statistics of the past century or so and all peoples – Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, secularists, and on and on you go – none stand without bloodstained hands and more than enough blood shedding to go around.
But when I read of the agonies born by the African diaspora or Africans at the hands of the colonizers, when I study the disappearance and subjugation of the First Nations of the Americas, I do cry out, Where were we? Where were my kind of people of faith?
I scour the footnotes to see what people of faith are listed in the hall of shame and all too often I find they were clearly there – on the wrong side of the moral arc of history. Sure, there are saints galore who have stepped up to fight against injustice. But how does that equation work? I give you five good people of faith for your six bad people of faith?
I get that it doesn’t take much to be labeled a follower of Jesus, at least not in the earthly record books. And even then, people of faith are always a work in progress. But when generation after generation of people of faith stand on the bad side of history, I want to ask, “What is wrong with your theology?”
I am grateful for the William Wilberforces, the Frederick Douglasses, the Catherine Booths. I am relieved when I find Christians who have fought on the good side. It eases some of my shame and gives me a marker for my own journey.
So, the final question comes, Where are we now?
Where are we in our own time when people are suffering at the hands of others, when lawmakers break the laws, when killings are done in the name of supposedly civilized law, when the offering basket is passed for our neighbors nearby or our global neighbors across the sea?
I am heartened by the closing lines of David’s psalm where he writes, “Future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn – for he has done it.”
And who, pray tell, will do the proclaiming? Who will, as the prophet Isaiah has said, “loose the chains of injustice and … set the oppressed free?” (Isaiah 58)
If we can’t fully resolve in our lifetime the question of where God has been, and we can’t resolve why some people in God’s name have been on the wrong side of the equation, we can answer the question, Where are we – you and me – now?
Are we spreading the good news of God’s love, righting wrongs, and freeing people from spiritual, emotional, physical, and economic oppression? Are we, to channel Isaiah again, feeding the hungry, providing shelter for those who are wandering, clothing the naked? Are we doing away with accusations and malicious talk, and not turning away our own flesh and blood?
Are we repairing the walls of safe havens and restoring streets with dwellings? In other words, are we not simply avoiding evil on a personal level, but actively turning what is evil into what is righteous on a systemic level?
In the end, I can’t answer for God. And I can’t answer for my fellow believers, past or present. But I must – and will – answer for myself. And so, I resolve to answer the question, Where am I? And on what side of history will I be found?
If my thoughts stir yours, I’d love to hear your responses in the comments section below. And, if you find this kind of post thoughtful, be sure to subscribe – for free – here.