Blame it on God
For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure (2Co 4:17)
Today's news are filed with information on the latest nature's calamity, the swine flu. Many people are sick or dying, schools and public libraries are closed, businesses are threatened to be locked indefinitely with cascading effects on the economy. But wasn't it yesterday when we were talking about hurricane in New Orleans, and before that about the tsunami in Thailand and before that about the earthquake in China and we can go on and on?
No matter how often these disasters happen is hard to understand and accept them as part of our lives. This is why we are always looking for a cause and many times we have the tendency to blame it on God, because it is the easiest thing to do. Why is God punishing us? Why is God not good? Does He like disease and suffering in our lives? Couldn't He just make it go away and why doesn't He do it?
Blaming it on God, as easy as it may sound, doesn't really solve the problem; because now, besides dealing with a natural disaster, we have to cope with an angry and vengeful God, on top of it.
Is there however any reason why we would think that all these cataclysms are coming as scoldings from a capricious God, that loves us today and hates us tomorrow? The answer is simple: no, absolutely not! If we are Christians we have no reason to believe that God would ever change His "disposition" toward mankind.
He made us out of love and He cared and provided for us the entire course of our history. God fashioned Man in paradise, the most wonderful place on earth, He let him wonder around and taste all the delights of the Garden of Eden, but one, the forbidden tree. Now really doesn't matter what kind of fruit it was in that tree, an apple, a pear or even a quince, but it was a test, a token that Man is steady in his relationship with God and that he really wants to live forever in freewill obedience, under the grace of God. In keeping this simple promise Man had the potential of immortality and incorruptibility at His feet. And yet, for Man was not enough, was too hard to resist, too tempting not to experience something else, to test if he really needs God or not in his life; to check if man can be his own boss, independent of God, his Creator. Obviously he was "helped" by the serpent to arrive to this conclusion, but nevertheless, in the end, the choice was his.
In this fundamental story lays in fact the mystery of our world full of disasters, suffering and death. God has not intended any of this when He created the world. He wanted Man to love Him, and to live in peace in the world that He provided him with. In the same time however, God did not wanted His creation to be pre-determined, to be forced into an "arranged marriage" with Him. God wanted the relationship to be mutual, to be freely accepted on both sides, so he created Man with free will, accepting, on the other hand, the risks of this decision: Man could say no to everything he so generously offers. But this was the only way a true relationship, based on reciprocity, could have being built.
Man, as we saw, failed the test and used his free will to flee from God and enter into an illusory autonomy, not realizing that with this independence, that we call today sin, he has actually severed his ties with the very source of life, peace, harmony and love of his existence. Man wanted to taste from the tree of knowledge so he would know everything, like God, but he already new what was going to happen because God gave him a fair warning in advance: "in the day that you eat of it you shall die."(Gen 2:17)
Indeed Man's nature, meant to be incorruptible, became corrupted, prone to disease, suffering and ultimately to death. This doesn't mean though that this was a punishment from God, it was only a consequence of sin, a result of the denial of God's care.
Despite this rejection God kept loving man, and Man was actually the one that would continue a history long time of defying God, over and over again.
So who is therefore to be blamed? God for He has "moods" or man for being completely inconsistent in his relationship with his Creator? If we look through the pages of the Old Testament we see God releasing wrath over mankind in many occasions: the great flood, the tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorra, the people that worshipped the golden calf and so on. But God didn't just perform this without a right cause because Man was not innocent in any of these instances. On the contrary time and again he was bluntly turning his back to God in grave sins. The inconsistency is not in God, but in man in all cases.
We cannot blame God for what we do to ourselves. We cannot blame God for not cleaning the air while we keep polluting and undermining any clean energy initiatives. We cannot blame God for cancer when we eat all the chemicals we can imagine. We cannot blame God for wars when we cannot live together as brothers. We cannot blame God for suffering, disease and death when Man brought this upon himself from the very beginning.
Despite this however, despite all efforts Man makes to push God out of his life, He, as a steady and loving Father, never stopped loving Man and reminding him, in many ways, that He kept the promise made to Adam and Eve when they were expelled from paradise "for he who has promised is faithful" (Heb 10:23).
God promised that He will send a Savior that will strike the head of evil (Gen 3:15). Jesus Christ is the incarnation of God's love for mankind and the fulfillment of this promise. In Him, in this new Adam our fate of suffering and pain is reversed: pain becomes joy, darkness becomes light and death becomes life. Our hope in times of suffering is set on Him. He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God. (1Pe 1:20-21) Through Him the suffering has been elevated from the simple pain of the flesh to a vehicle of redemption.
The afflictions of our lives shouldn't be blamed on anyone, but should encourage us to introspection and a thorough analysis of our life in Christ. If our faith is weak, if our existence is more inclined to sin than virtue then we would be more prone to suffering, because we loose God's protection, His providence, out of our own choice.
God does not create suffering, but at times He allows, or better said He is not alleviating it, in order to send a message out, to place a call to Man so he can come back at the source of health, life and joy. If a man has a friend and he is absolutely certain that his friend loves him, and if that friend does something to cause him suffering and be troublesome to him, he will be convinced that his friend acts out of love and he will never believe that his friend does it to harm him. How much more ought we to be convinced about God who created us, who drew us out of nothingness to existence and life, and who became a man for our sake and died for us, and who does everything out of love for us? (Abba Dorotheos)
From an earthly perspective our suffering on this corrupted world may be great, may seem unbearable at times, but from a heavenly perspective it has a significance that is highly personal. Suffering has purpose only if we link it with our own faith, only there we are able to find its significance. We should search for this meaning in our hearts while trying to "rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer" (Rom 12:12), thinking of the words of the Apostle Paul that give us such a bright perspective on life: may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Rom 15:13)
Hristos Anesti! Christ is Risen!