Be Nice

Every culture or era has its own way of defining issues that invoke shame and guilt. These are connected, but different. Guilt is a feeling associated with things done or not done. Shame has a much deeper and wider impact. It is, in a sense, a deep embarrassment about who we are. It is an almost visceral contempt for some act or behavior that leaves you feeling disgust, contempt, or humiliation…at yourself.

In 2 Timothy 1:8, the Apostle Paul tells the young Timothy, not to be ashamed of the testimony of Jesus. The apostle understood the pressure against telling others about Jesus, the cultural dynamics that militate against boldness, and the real dangers and threats from militant traditional Jewish audiences or hostile Roman Imperial authorities. The dangers were many, and as we know from the history of the early church, they were real.

One danger, however, that I’m fairly sure they did not face was the pressure to be “nice.” What do I mean? In
our time, we have lived through the expansion of the market, the explosion of media influence, and what Philip Rieff of Chicago University calls “the triumph of the therapeutic.” We are immersed in values and visions of the good life, which we inculcate with almost every breath that we breathe. It is a cultural moment where looking good and feeling good are paramount, and anything that threatens, disturbs, or challenges the cultural value-setters is ruled out of court.

I am not suggesting that following these values is a conscious choice for many, but I would propose it is the default setting of most lives in our comfort-driven, convenience-laden moment. Our internal radar system is fixed on the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. We simply “know” that certain things, difficult things, and yes, even some good things, are just too much to ask in our context.

For instance, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel…” Well, maybe for some
people. “Be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is in you…” But they may think I’m a fanatic, or worse, some kind of religious nut. Anyway, the doors of the church are open and we have a special speaker on Sunday. They can come if they want to (or not). I can’t jeopardize my status, my peace, my equilibrium, and thereby risk becoming not “nice.”

I must confess it is hard for me to envision the apostle Paul worrying excessively about not being “nice.” It is equally difficult if I consider others who risked reputation or safety to speak of the God they found. They were not rude, belligerent, ugly, or unnecessarily aggressive. They were clear, confident, compassionate, and courageous. At stake were some key issues for all of the above, the importance of truth, and the necessity of obedience. The Christian story is not advice, a set of ideas, or a moral exhortation for those who happen to like such things.

Perhaps you’ve never reflected on whether your
sincere desire to be “nice” undermines any expression of belief or disbelief. If you are effectively stopped by an internal dialogue that insists the need to be nice trumps all other goods or needs, perhaps it is time to seek afresh, resist that voice, break the hold of bad ideas, and step out in faith and obedience and do or say what is needed.

There are worse things in life, after all, than not being nice! Perhaps being without Jesus is one of them?

Stuart McAllister is vice president of training and special projects at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Fire, Myth, and Miracle

Ballet lost some of its wonder when it was explained. It was a class that was supposed to lift my mind, lighten my spirit, and boost my grade point average. Instead it became a one-credit nightmare: a class dedicated to dissecting moves I could not duplicate, within a semester that seemed to slowly dismember my romantic fascination with dance.

Explanations sometimes have a way of leaving their questioners with a sense of loss. Students note this phenomenon regularly. Expounded principles of light refraction and water particles seem to explain away the rainbow, or at least some of its mystique. Air pressure, gravity, and the laws of physics deconstruct the optical mystery of the curve ball. Knowledge and experience can ironically leave us with a sense of disappointment or disenchantment.

I recently read an article that scientifically explained the glow of a firefly. The author noted the nerves and chemical compounds that make the
“fire” possible, pointing out that it is merely a signal used for mating and is in fact far from the many romantic myths that have long surrounded it. As one who delights in the stories of science but simultaneously a fanciful story before a sky ignited with bugs, I put the article down with a sigh. And then a thought occurred to me in a manner not unlike the description itself: The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.(1) Where nerves and photocytes seem to explain away the glow of the firefly, have we any more erased the miracle of light?

However accurate or inaccurate our explanations might be, they sometimes have a way of leading us to short-sighted conclusions. They have also led us to outright incongruity. Brilliant minds try with great effort to define humanity as an impersonal collocation of matter, an adult germ in a vast cosmic machine. We have brusquely described life as a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing, only to claim
that this should not lead us to despair. We have declared our appetites and our reason the gods of a better religion, while insisting both God and religion to be an invention of the human psyche. We scoff at the notion of a savior who frees the captive or restores the fallen, while maintaining we live with every qualification for human dignity, distinction, and freedom. Are these even realistic applications of our own philosophies? Do the explanations warrant the conclusions?

On the contrary, we seem to undermine our own mines. Why should a tale told by an idiot have players of any intrinsic value? Why would an impersonal, cosmic accident see herself as a personal, relational being worthy of dignity? What we are attempting to explain away in one sentence, we are arguing for in the next.

Explanations need not always lead us to the conclusion that all is lost. But neither should our explanations lead us to conclusions that contradict our own accounts. Thankfully, in
both cases, there are times in life where we find, like Job, that we have spoken out of turn and discover there may be more to the story. Sitting through the whirlwind of God’s own 63 questions, Job exclaims: “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”

Ever thankfully, I believe there is invitation that both invites great disclosures and discloses in great mystery. “Call to me,” the God of wisdom tells the prophet and the people. “And I will answer you and tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” The presence of light can be overlooked, but it cannot be explained away. Can we any more explain away the presence of God?

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) John 1:5.

Who Then Is This?

As a Christian writer and speaker, I am often asked what the most frequent questions are regarding the Christian faith. Of course, I am frequently asked questions of an intellectual or historic nature: Did Jesus of Nazareth really exist? Is his resurrection from the dead a historical event? How is one to understand the Bible as the Word of God? For some, the questions never go beyond intellectual curiosity or pursuit. For others, these questions need to be answered for constructing a sound apologetic.

For others, however, the questions come from the deepest places of the heart. They come because of personal experience with suffering of one form or another. Is there a God? f so, does that God care about me, know me? If so, why does God seemingly allow so much suffering? When the fervent prayers of righteous men and women do not prevent the cancer from spreading, or the child from dying, or the plane from crashing, or the marriage from
failing, these more existential questions come like water bursting through the dam.

Unfortunately, these questions are not unique to my ministry or this generation. They have been asked for millennia. The technical term for the theist’s problem with suffering is called theodicy. Theodicy is the word given in the seventeenth century by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, one of the great intellectual thinkers of the Enlightenment period.(1) Theodicy attempts to explain how and why there can be suffering in the world if God is all-powerful and loving. In trying to solve this problem, some thinkers have denied the omnipotence of God; God is all-loving, but not able to do anything about suffering. Others dispense of the notion that God is all-loving, at least in any conventional understanding. But, neither of these alternatives provides a satisfactory answer ultimately.

Intellectual wrangling over this problem, aside, the experience of suffering in light of both the
goodness and power of God has caused many to doubt God, and others to walk away from faith altogether. If God does not prevent suffering, and if God does not care about the sufferer, then for some, the only alternative appears to be that God cannot exist in any meaningful way.

The writers of Scripture wrestled with these questions too. Often, they provided different ways of answering these questions. Some believed that suffering resulted from sin. Others believed that God causes suffering as a form of punishment. Still others asserted that suffering brings redemption.(2)

In Mark’s gospel, a simple story about a boat caught in a terrible storm provides an altogether different answer framed around three profound questions. When evening had come, Jesus and his disciples got into a boat, most likely to cross the Sea of Galilee, in order to “go over to the other side” (Mark 4:35-41). In the course of their travel, a fierce storm arose suddenly and violently. It was so
intense that the waves were not only breaking over the boat, but the boat was filling with water and on the verge of sinking. The gospel writer tells us that Jesus was asleep in the stern of the boat and resting soundly when the disciples roused him with their fearful, first question: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Jesus seems to ignore their question their question, and instead answers the wind and the waves, “Peace, be still.” His exhortation to the natural elements of wind and water was nevertheless intended for the disciples as well, for he returns their question with a second question: “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” To which the disciples reply to one another with the ultimate question, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”

It is not entirely unreasonable for those who want to be followers of Jesus to think that because he is in the boat suffering will not arise. But suffering does come, and the wind roars around and the sky
turns black, and the storm of all storms appears to envelop all in darkness and terror. Jesus, don’t you care that we are perishing becomes an incredulous for all who would wish for immunity from the troubles of life. But Jesus’s answer reminds us that faith does not insulate us from life’s storms. Indeed, as noted author Craig Barnes has written “Faith…has little to do with our doctrines or even with our belief that Jesus could come up with a miracle if he would only pay attention. Faith has everything to do with seeing that…the Savior [is] on board”(3)

In the midst of difficult and often unending questions about suffering, Jesus is there in the midst of the storm of doubt, in the tumultuous waves of despair, in the gale-force winds of defeat. He rests in the assurance of God’s care in the storm. His presence with the disciples in the storm tells us more about who he is–neither removed from suffering, nor always preventing suffering–then why we suffer. “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Margaret Manning is a member of the writing and speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

(1) Bart Ehrman, God’s Problem (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 8.
(2) See for examples Proverbs 3:33, “The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the abode of the righteous”; Amos 4:1-3, “[Y]ou cows of Bashan who oppress the poor, who crush the needy…the Lord God has sworn in his holiness: the time is surely coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks”; and Isaiah 53, the redemption by the suffering Servant.
(3) M. Craig Barnes, When God Interrupts (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 138.

Deficient Stories

Gregory Wolfe, editor of Image journal, tells a story about telling stories for his kids. He describes the memorable bedtimes when he attempts to concoct a series of original tales. “My kids are polite enough to raise their hands when they have some penetrating question to ask about plot, character, or setting,” he writes. “If I leave something out of the story, or commit the sin of inconsistency, these fierce critics won’t let me proceed until I’ve revised the narrative. Oddly enough, they never attempt to take over the storytelling. They are convinced that I have the authority to tell the tale, but they insist that I live up to the complete story that they know exists somewhere inside me.”(1) Children seem to detest a deficient story.

There is no doubt that our sense of the guiding authority of story and storyteller often dramatically lessens as we move from childhood to adulthood. And yet, regardless of age, there remains something deeply troubling about a story without a point, or an author not to be trusted.

In an interview with Skeptic magazine, Richard Dawkins was asked if his view of the world was not similar to that of Shakespeare’s Macbeth: namely, that life is but “a tale told by an idiot, filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing.”(2)

“Yes,” Dawkins replied, “at a sort of cosmic level, it is. But what I want to guard against is people therefore getting nihilistic in their personal lives. I don’t see any reason for that at all. You can have a very happy and fulfilled personal life even if you think that the universe at large is a tale told by an idiot.”(3)

His words attempt to remove the sting his philosophy imparts. And yet, it stings regardless—both with callousness and confusion. If I am but a poor player fretting my hour upon the stage of a tale told by an idiot, what is a “fulfilling” personal life? There is no basis in the naturalist’s philosophy for intrinsic dignity, human worth,
or human rights. There is no basis for moral accountability, right or wrong, good or evil. There is no basis for the layers of my love for my husband, the cry of my heart for justice, or the recognition on my conscience that I am often missing the mark. There is no room for my surprise at time’s passing or my longing for something beyond what I am capable of fully reaching in this moment. This is not the story I know.

In the words of G.K. Chesterton, “I had always felt life first a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller.”

Could it be that our relationship to stories, our first love of the tale beyond us and the author beside us, conveys a deep truth about our own cosmic tale? Are not the very philosophies we carry attempts to make sense of the grand story of which we find ourselves a part?

The first words of Genesis 1 boldly claim that we are not lost and wandering in a cosmic circle of time and chance. There is a story that emerges from
the beginning, and we have a place within it. Similarly, the writer of Hebrews describes Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith, where ultimate significance is aptly defined as being written into the story of God. God’s Word places us in the timeline of a coherent history, delivering us from the deceptions of the enemy, telling us who we are, and where we came from, what is wrong with us, how we are made whole, and where we are going. We are placed within a story of which we know and celebrate the outcome, even as we wait for it through time and trial. In Christ, history’s outcome—its ultimate end—is revealed. Dark days may follow, but the ending is known. It is a story neither deficient, nor untrustworthy.

C.S. Lewis fittingly describes heaven at the end of his Chronicles of Narnia as a place where good things continually increase and life is an everlasting story in which “every chapter is better than the one before.” His compelling reflection has often reminded me
of Christ’s beloved disciple in the closing chapters of his testimony to the significance of Jesus Christ. Notes John, “If all of the acts of Christ were recorded, the world would not have enough room for all the books that would be written” (John 21:24-26). Like children, eyes widen at the thought. What a story to be a part of, a life to find touching your own.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Gregory Wolfe, Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on Art, Faith, and Mystery (Square Halo Books: Baltimore, 2003), 81-82. (2) Skeptic, vol. 3, no. 4, 1995, pp. 80-85.
(3) Ibid.

Give Me This Water

The first time I remember hearing the metaphor “rain on your parade,” I was at a parade and it was raining. As a nine year old, the disappointment was memorable. To this day, when I hear the metaphor used, it conveys with heightened success all that the phrase is meant to convey—and arguably more. I remember standing in the rain, watching the once-solid crowd dwindling to nothing, the marching bands abandoning their neat rows, the bright floats bleeding in color. The optimistic few remained in their chairs, somehow assured that the show would go on. But we were not among the faithful few. “I’m sorry that it rained on your parade,” my grandpa said as we piled in the car, soggy and dispirited. With half a parade to remember, we went home, our enthusiasm thoroughly overshadowed by the rain.

We are mistaken when we think of metaphor as an optional device used by poets and writers for fluff and decoration. Much of life is communicated in metaphor.
There is so much more to time’s landscape than often can be described plainly. Metaphorical imagery is unavoidable for the plainest of speakers. When I say to my colleague, “Your words hit home” or “I am touched by your message” I don’t mean that her words are reaching out of her book and patting me on the head. And yet, in a way, I do. What she had to say made an impression, opened my mind, and struck a chord; communicating so without metaphor is nearly impossible. It is the case for much of what we have to say; there is no other way to say it.

Language seems to recognize that there is something about life that makes metaphor necessary. Words in and of themselves fall short of conveying certain truths and intended meanings.

At the image of Christ upon the Cross, the hymnist inquired, “What language shall I borrow, to thank Thee, dearest friend?” One of the things I find most nourishing about the Christian scriptures is their upholding of this mystery, speaking not
in rigid confines but with words that always point beyond themselves. Scripture communicates in a language fitting for both the mind and the heart. There is a richness conveyed in its pages that stretches minds and moves emotions. “O Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, how oft I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not have it” (Matthew 23:37). “As far as the east is from the west, so far [God] removes our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).

Jesus speaks of the profundity of God’s longing. The psalmist writes of the absoluteness of God’s forgiveness. Both paint pictures beyond the words themselves. Both demand a response while inviting a relationship, and we are freed to worship in spirit as well as in truth. Scripture reminds us that life can’t always be defined plainly, accepted in terms and principles. It reminds us that God is far beyond the insufficient words we assign, and that no eye has seen, nor ear has
heard, nor mind conceived what God has prepared for those who love without bound.

When the Samaritan woman came to draw water at the well, Jesus asked her to give him a drink. The exchange was plainly enough about water but the words were about life, though she didn’t realize it at first. Shocked that he, a Jew without a cup, would request a drink from her, a Samaritan with a past, she asked if he knew what he was doing. And then they had a conversation about thirst that made her so much more aware of own thirst.

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?”

Jesus not only invited the woman to see her need plainly, he pointed her beyond the metaphor, inviting her into the real and unplumbed hospitality of the one that meets that need. “Everyone
who drinks this water will be thirsty again,” he said, “but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

In this plain and potent exchange, the woman at the well found someone who told her “everything [she] ever did,” and drew her to everything she ever needed. “Sir,” the woman replied, “Give me this water.”

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

“The Unbearable Lightness of Being”

I’m at an age in life when enough of it has passed that I can make some comparisons. The last five to ten years have been strange. I recently read some essays by Timothy Garton Ash about the period he calls the decade with “no name”—the turn of the millennium to the present. It is indeed a decade in which we have seen some extraordinary events, some dreadful acts of violence, an ongoing range of catastrophes, and some of the worst economic and moral failures that burst the bubble of unending prosperity and further shuttered confidence in many of our institutions.

Many years ago, the Czech writer Milan Kundera wrote of “the unbearable lightness of being.” Like many others, he sensed the hollowing out of existence, the thinning out of life, the emptying of meaning that seems to occur under modern conditions. One friend of mine calls this “cultural vaporization.” The thing is, this is not some vague idea or esoteric notion. It is a description of how life is really being perceived.

Many people today seem convinced that the point of life is that there is no point. We face what Nietzsche call “Das Nichte”—or, the nothing. Our public philosophy tells us that we are the result of blind force plus chance and/or necessity. Yet our movies are filled with romantic longings, visions of other worlds, the hunger for transcendence, and love stories between vampires or other worlds where there is a greater unity of life and being. In other words, we face a massive contradiction between what one set of experts tells us is real and what many artists compel us to hope for and reflect on. And somewhere in the middle are our own, normal, day-to-day lives.

Chance and choice: is that it? Does all of life come down to this? A roll of the dice, the power of freedom, and the lottery of life? Many centuries ago, an honest voice cried, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). Why? He was reflecting on
life. He was seeking happiness. He sought justice, he sought satisfaction, he sought the meaning of it all. And his journey was conducted under the sun—in other words, he looked at life from within life. It was as Derek Kidner called it “a world without windows.”

However, his observations do not end there. This book opens us to another perspective, one in which there is a God, and a God that sees, knows, and acts. The book does not descend into some simple resolution of life’s hard problems nor its on-going ambiguities. But what it does do is add something. It adds a presence, it includes a perspective, it invites reflection: If there is more to life than meets the eye, more than can be measured or managed by the senses, then this indeed makes a big difference today.

With such a difference, weight or weightiness would be restored. Absence would be filled, space would be occupied, and meaninglessness confronted. As Nietzsche wrote, “He who has a why to live for can
bear almost any how.” This is a far cry from the new atheists who invite us to shed the childish and wicked delusions of whys and hows and accept emptiness. But what if when the God who is there and is not silent is a God of grace, a God of love, and a God of justice? To those empty, confused, or seeking, the unbearable lightness of being can be met in the abundance of his fullness, a gift by the way of grace, not effort!

Stuart McAllister is vice president of training and special projects at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Pilgrimage

In the early fourteenth century, Geoffrey Chaucer penned The Canterbury Tales, a sometimes bawdy, often hilarious, and always sharply critical satire on the religious folk of his day. The “tales” of the pilgrims make up the content of the story. Despite their common path of pilgrimage to Canterbury, Chaucer’s Christian characters are largely examples of the corruption and dissolute living that had overtaken virtue in the church of his time. However, in the case of “The Parson’s Tale,” Chaucer gives us an extended prose narrative intended to instruct the pilgrims in Christian morality. This tale, by contrast, represented the kind of Christianity Chaucer espoused, and so he gives the Parson the last word.(1)

The Parson’s Tale presents a theological treatise on repentance and how to overcome the “seven deadly sins” with the virtues of the spiritual life. In particular, the parson offers magnanimity as the virtue to combat the vice of acedia. Acedia was
considered one of the most serious of sins. It manifested itself in spiritual despair, and more significantly embodied the temptation to give up caring about anything truly important. The early Christian monastics believed that acedia led to spiritual impotence and smallness of heart. Spiritual impotence would allow vice to flourish and virtue to languish, not because vice was purposely chosen or intentionally entered into, but because spiritual lassitude desiccated one’s concern to be virtuous.

Is it any different in our own day? Despair distracts many spiritual pilgrims from finding their way, and maybe even some Christian pilgrims from following the way of Jesus. Author Kathleen Norris warns that acedia “is known to foster excessive self-justification, as well as a casual yet implacable judgmentalism toward others,” and readily lends itself to this process of spiritual apathy.(2)

Magnanimity, by contrast, is found in a person who is generous of spirit, caring,
and gracious in forgiveness. Chaucer, through the voice of the Parson, warns that “a great heart is needed against acedia, lest it swallow up the soul.” A great heart is a magnanimous heart full of generosity and graciousness, eager to forgive. Acedia, on the other hand, makes hearts small, consumed not with care for the things God cares for, but devoured by things that do not matter at all.

Acedia further makes it easy for me to pluck the speck out of my sister’s eye while I ignore the log in my own. This propensity to see others as the primary problem, while elevating one’s own self is a clear sign that acedia has taken root in one’s life. On the contrary, magnanimity, as Norris notes, “requires creativity to recognize our faults, and to discern virtues in those we would rather disdain. Forgiveness demands close attention, flexibility, and stringent self-assessment, faculties that are hard to come by as we careen blindly into the twenty-first century, and are
increasingly asked to choose information over knowledge, theory over experience, and certainty over ambiguity.”(3)

Like the Parson’s Tale, Jesus shared many tales; parables regarding the virtuous life. Jesus was inviting those who heard his story to respond by living a kingdom-life here and now. When invited to the house of a Pharisee one evening, a woman who was known to be a sinner entered the house and wept at Jesus’s feet, anointing them with her tears and perfume, and wiping his feet with her hair. But in Jesus’s day, a man would not allow a woman to touch him, let alone a woman who was a known sinner. The Pharisee who invited Jesus knew this, and he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet he would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching him” (Luke 7:39). Jesus then tells the tale of two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii and the other fifty. Which of them, Jesus asks, when forgiven their debt, would love the moneylender more? The
Pharisee replies that the one who owed more would love more. Jesus then delivers the last line of the tale: “For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47).

Jesus understood how magnanimity pushed beyond a small, acedic heart. There will always be idle pilgrims on the way to vacant Canterburys missing the true heart of the pilgrimage. But those who respond to the tale as told by Jesus find their hearts opened and enlarged, discovering on the way that the pilgrimage of magnanimity has pointed toward home in the Kingdom.

Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

(1) Ed. Larry Benson, “Explanatory Notes,” in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Riverside Chaucer, Third Edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 956. (2) Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me (New York:
Penguin, 2008), 116.
(3) Ibid.

Judge and Jury

Over a period of several weeks of precious elementary school recesses, my circle of fellow fourth-grade friends set aside dodge-ball matches and swing-sets in order to go to court. There had been a rather serious disagreement between two of the girls in our larger group of friends and sides were being drawn as quickly as notes could be passed between desks. Before things got any worse, the humanitarian among us reasoned that we had to intervene. It was decided that we would create a makeshift courtroom to get to the bottom of the mess. One of my friends was appointed judge; others were chosen to be witnesses or note-takers, prosecutor, defendant, or bailiff. I don’t think we thought any of it was half as silly as it sounds now. In our minds we were doing what adults did to get at the truth. In the end, however, it became one of those defining moments where one wakes from the innocence of childhood to find the world not as simple as first thought and the human
heart capable of horrific things. The experience is strangely reminiscent of William Golding’s stranded children in The Lord of the Flies.

In our courtroom I was called to be a witness. I was to tell the judge what I saw and what I knew to be true. I did so, and it felt like we were getting somewhere. But then another witness was called who insisted that she saw something completely different, and that I, in fact, was lying. I was heartbroken and confused. Sides were drawn, cases sharpened. As the days went by we became increasingly frustrated and vindictive. What we thought would be a simple solution that would lead us to truth and resolution became a hurtful, tangled mess of motive and slander and manipulation—so much so, that a teacher intervened and our courtroom was forever adjourned. Among other things, I decided I could not go into law.

I was reminded of this childish scene recently while reading the eyewitness Mark’s account of the trial of Christ before
the council of religious leaders. Seized from the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was taken to the courtyard. Peter followed from a distance and watched among the guards as the trial unraveled. Mark imparts, “The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any. Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree. Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days will build another, not made by man.’ Yet even then their testimony did not agree.”(1)

What kind of a courtroom would this make? The expert witnesses from the same side are contradicting each other. The only thing they seem to agree on is that Jesus should be on trial. And yet, like a prosecuting attorney with an airtight case, the high priest exclaims: “Answer these charges!” In the middle of the chaos of conflicting words
and motives, the high priest stood up and faced Jesus: “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” Jesus was kind for not replying: “If you don’t even know, why should I have to make sense of all of that?” But Jesus remained silent and made no answer.

In the midst of courtrooms such as these, it seems appropriate to pause in that silence. For though accusing crowds put him to death more than two thousand years ago, he has been on trial ever since. Like the court scene I was a part of as a child, we continue to place him before our makeshift gavels and make a mockery of truth and testimony. I know many moments when armed with fiery questions I have forced God to take the stand. My words likely made as little sense as Jesus’s accusers that day.

But the culminating events of Jesus’s life on earth depict a very surprising turn of judge and jury. From the waving of palm branches to waving fists demanding crucifixion, our trials of
God are fickle. But what if we discover, as did many within these crowds, that it is we who live our lives before the courts? Like Peter, we might follow Jesus at a distance, looking in on a great trial, sometimes participating, sometimes denying him, sometimes seeing our role and with a shock of recognition, falling on our knees, and finding ourselves in a court reversed: the Judge before us, and our advocate—the one we’ve accused—entering our plea. Might it be in such a position that we make our verdict.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Mark 14:55-59.

Something Understood

In an essay titled “Meditation in a Toolshed,” C.S. Lewis describes a scene from within a darkened shed. The sun was brilliantly shining outside, yet from the inside only a small sunbeam could be seen through a crack at the top of the door. Everything was pitch-black except for the prominent beam of light, by which he could see flecks of dust floating about. Writes Lewis:

“I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it. Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving in the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90 odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences.”(1)

Each time I come to the gospel accounts of the woman with the alabaster jar, I notice something similar. “Do you see this
woman?” Jesus asks, as if he is speaking as much to me as the guests around the table. With a jar of costly perfume, she had anointed the feet of Christ with fragrance and tears. She then endured the criticism of those around her because she alone saw the one in front of them. While the dinner crowd was sitting in the dark about Jesus, the woman was peering in the light of understanding. What she saw invoked tears of recognition, sacrifice, and much love. Gazing along the beam and at the beam are quite different ways of seeing.

The late seventeenth century poet George Herbert once described prayer as “the soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage.” At those words I picture the woman with her broken alabaster jar, wiping the dusty, fragrant feet of Christ with her hair. Pouring out the expensive nard, she seemed to pour out her soul. Fittingly, Herbert concludes his grand description of prayer as “something understood.”

The woman with the alabaster jar not only saw
the Christ when others did not, Christ saw her when others could not see past her reputation. “Do you see this woman?” Jesus asked while the others were questioning her actions past and present. “I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much.”(2) Her soul’s cry was heard; she herself was understood.

There are many ways of looking at Jesus: good man, historical character, interesting teacher, one who sees, one who hears, one who loves. At any point, we could easily walk away feeling like we have seen everything we need to see. When in fact, we may have seen very little. The risk of looking again may well change everything.

Jill
Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 212-215. (2) Luke 7:44-47.

How Can I Believe in God and Pain?

“How do you expect me to believe in God,” asked Woody Allen, “when only last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of my electric type-writer?”

For a while now, at least in the Western world, the existence of any form of pain, suffering, or evil has been regarded as evidence for the non-existence of God. If a good God existed, people reason, these things would not. But they do and, therefore, God does not.

My job takes me around many different parts of the world in order to answer people’s questions about the Christian faith. I find it fascinating that I have never been asked this question in India, a country that certainly knows a lot more about suffering than many of us in the West. I find it even more intriguing that Christians who write books in situations where they have known unspeakable torment because of the gospel do not normally raise this as an issue for themselves either. Why?

There are so many ways
in which questions concerning pain can be raised. It can be raised because of personal loss and suffering or because of a personal interest in the issue of theodicy, to name but two. However, regardless of the way the question is raised, it normally comes down to a moral complaint against God. “How could you allow this to happen?” The complaint is against God’s moral character. “Can I really trust God if I see this happen?” But if you are sure that you can trust God, regardless of the pain you find yourself in, there is no temptation to turn you away, as you realize God is the only one who can help.

Firstly, let’s deal with the argument against God’s existence. Ravi Zacharias has dealt with this thoroughly in his book Can Man Live Without God. If you argue from the existence of evil to the non-existence of God, you are assuming the existence of an absolute moral law in order for your argument to work. But if there is such a law this would also mean that there is such a God,
since God is the only one who could give us such a law. And if there is such a God to give us this law, then the argument itself is flawed, since you have had to assume the existence of God in order to argue that God doesn’t exist. It is an attempt to invoke the existence of an absolute moral law without invoking the existence of an absolute moral law giver, and it cannot be done.

Secondly, we must also ask the question: What would it take to create a loving world void of evil? A world in which love is capable of meaningful expression and experience would also imply a world in which there is choice. If someone tells you that they love you, those words mean something because they are freely given. If you learned that someone had told you they loved you but that they had been forced to say it, their words would not mean very much. Thus, if we want to speak of a loving world, we must also speak of a world in which choices are exercised. And in such a world, there is also the possibility of choosing a course of action that is not loving, i.e. evil.

While these observations are helpful in getting at the heart of contradictions often behind the questions of God and suffering, I do not think they get at the heart of the questions as people most commonly ask, namely: Can I trust God even when faced with great evil? Is God morally trustworthy? Can I trust God even if I don’t understand what is happening?

These are profound questions, and whole books could be written about them. But I will offer one more thought. Maybe the reason we question God’s moral character when bad things happen is that we live our lives largely independent from God on a daily basis. In other words, we struggle to trust God in times of trouble because we do not really trust God when things are going well. Maybe we struggle with suffering so much in the West because we are so comfortable most of the time that we feel we don’t need God. We do not rely on God on a daily
basis, and so we do not really know God. When suffering comes along, therefore, it is not so much that it takes us away from God, but that it reveals to us that we have not really been close to God in the first place.

As I said earlier, I have never been asked questions about God and suffering when I am travelling in countries riddled with the realities of it. In fact, when I visit churches in parts of the world where they are faced daily with horrific affliction, I normally leave inspired. They trust God in everything, even when things are going well. When times are hard, they cling to God because they have already learned to trust. They have learned that God does not change, even when our circumstances have.

Michael Ramsden is European director of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in the United Kingdom.