"Human history is one prolonged and painful limping. We invariably step with one foot on the rock of justice, and with the other, we sink into the mire of deceit and self-delusion." - Daniel Hristov, the End of the Jesus Era (Part One)
About two years ago, I wrote about humanity at its worst and some rare moments of its best in a pandemic crisis that struck us in the wake of our COVID-19 outbreak.
Two years on, some people think that we can't be any worse with war in Ukraine, flood in Australia and a resurgent pandemic that sends large cities like Shanghai into a total lockdown, all of which compound the economic shock waves that will be felt by generations. Yet, it is far worse if we look beyond the recent reality seared into the forefront of our human psyche by mainstream media.
A sweeping scan of the situation elsewhere in 2022 alone shows the world is grim in:
- Sudan, where political tension and unrest drove people away from homes amidst regional drought. If you think an inflation rate of 8.5% in the US is bad, it is skyrocketing here with 388%.
- Syria, where economic crisis compounded a decade of war. If you think the cost of living is steep in developed countries like Australia, COVID-19 and economic coallpse have increased the average price of essential food items by 236% here.
- Myanmar, where violent deadlock left millions in need as they flee conflict ever since the memorable events of February 2021. A cycle of armed clashes and violence caused significant displacement of over 440,000 people since February in addition to an existing 370,000 who fled homes perviously.
- South Sudan, where regional conflict combined with climate crisis. If you think the recent flooding in Australia's east coast led to record high insurance claims, forget about insurance here. In a country infested with conflict, disease, starvation and natural disaster shocks, including floods, over 7.2 million people faced IPC3 level crisis and 100,000 faced IPC5 level catastrophe levels which toppled the existing issues of food security (that's over 60% of the population).
The list goes on and that's in the span of a millisecond in millenniums of human history over millions of years.
A cynic might say all this is part of the chaos, calamity and the cycle of human history. A cynical Christian might say that the world was broken as early as in Genesis after Eden's fall. God's wrath was splashed across multiple books of the Old Testament with repeating disappointment in His chosen people. In the words of Moses in 8th century BC recorded in Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Torah, plagues, disasters, wasting hunger, burning consumption and bitter pestilence ravaged the earth with death and sickness. At around 30 AD, Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives and said to his disciples that "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows... you will be hated by all nations because of me...but he who stands in the end will be saved" (Matthew 24:7-13).
A songwriter Brian Morykon once said that "When bad things happen, personally or globally, our ideas about God can be placed into a crucible and put into a furnace. The greater the pain and the more inexplicable the injustice, the hotter the heat... Some ideas get burnt up, some come out more true, few emerge unchanged." But not all are put through trials and tribulation like Job and come out with blessings to treasure from the experience we look back upon with growth. Our world is in constant turns and turmoils in between moments of fleeting goodness. So Brian went on to question when the world is burning, what should we ask for, and does it make any difference. Does the mailbox of heaven have to reach a certain capacity for the ruler of our universe to extend a hand of mercy to those who sufffer?
We often see in people that the sufferings in this world can bring up existential questions of why it is so. Many Christians may turn to prayers to find ways on how we can enter into such suffering that is perhaps redemptive and healing. Whilst all of us are different and each method may have its own merits, I wonder if we may forget what is at the heart of Christianity in times of suffering from time to time? Pain is everywhere but what do we make of it?
Fitting for a day like this on Good Friday (or perhaps more fitting with the name Holy, Great, Long or Black Friday) is our reflection about the Cross and what it embodies at Calvary. Inspired by a great writer and preacher at a special Sydney Anglican church, I think all should think twice about this renowned symbol of Christianity just as he who wrestled with this for the semon today. Even the best of us can't and shouldn't detach ourselves from what was a deeply disgraceful and distatefully ugly scene at the Cross. All the more ugly that suffering in this world came from what's within us.
As Michael Jensen has eloquently put it, we see in the Christ's crucifixion a deconstruction of humanity, pulling apart not just a body but the quality of being human with an attempt to rob away any and all dignity and honour in so doing. Suffering is far more than the experience of physical pain as the executionists of Christ stripped him of his humanity and slowly tortured him to death at the Cross. As I've written two Easters ago, those who were crucified historically often die by asphyxiation whilst trying to pull onself up in order to breathe against the gravity of one's own bleeding body through punctured wrists and ankles nailed against the cross. It's the worst form of dying. In Christ's case, his crucifixion was crowned with mockery and degradation - "He claims to be a somebody so let's remind him he's a nobody" as Michael has bluntly pointed out. The ugliness and shame of the Cross cannot be downplayed because what happened at the Cross looked a lot like "a deconstruction of a human being by other human beings". Another of the many examples of "men's inhumanity to a man". Acknowledging these atrocities allows us to address these realities of the human condition.
The Cross was a brutal place and was intended to be so. Yet, how strange is it that this became a symbol of God's love for us. "The crown of thorns made as a bitter and nasty sign of what Jesus wasn't turns out to be the brilliant pointer to who Jesus actually is. The king who rules by dying for the sake of his people... For it was this moment of extreme Godlessness in human history, the most awful desecration, the least holy thing you could image that was also the moment of God's most intense presence to human beings".
As it was powerfully put by Michael, in this act of utter hatred, God dislays the depth of his love. Though we intended this day for evil, God intended it for good... The worst we can do does not outfrank the good of our holy God - just as we said no to God, God said yes to us.
So the Cross is a terribly ugly symbol of how hellish we are and can be, as well as how deeply we (can) shame and disgrace one another. Yet through God, who himself was in Christ, our shame and disgrace were borne and atoned by the man who died for us - bearing our shame and disgrace but atoning for our sins. So the Cross extroardinarily became something beautiful when God's divine purpose and miracle transformed it to become a sign not of shame but honour, not of ignominy but of glory, not of hate but of love. And it is here that we found in the Cross God's humble love for us to send the only son into the broken world of humanity. Not that we loved God but that He loved us.
Just as this broken world is littered with dead bodies past, present and future across the vast expanse of time through war, disasters, genocide, and human atrocities and a myriad of other causes, in sickness and in death will the earth endure as God relented from destruction in Genesis but saved us in Christ instead. We see this now and we see this at the time of Roman cross that stood for everything unjust in the world - be it hatred, violence, oppression, murder and genocide - as an instrument of total torture.
Perhaps the prospect of a new heaven and a new earth may fuel the faith of some who look forward to the passing of the first heaven and the first earth - a vision of John's that may appeal to some with its Holy City, the new Jerusalem that will shine with the glory of God with its brilliance like that of a precious jewel like a jasper, clear as crystal with twelve gates upon which will be written the names of the twelve tribes and without a temple as God will reside in it (Revelation 21:10-23). Yet, I wonder in the spirit of God's love as response to human horror that showed what men are and can be, whether that love alone which He has for us would simply suffice?
Ironically, Voltaire once wrote that "this system of All is good represents the author of nature only as a powerful and maleficent king, who does not care, as long as he carries out his plan, that it costs four or five hundred thousand men their lives and that the others drag out their days in want and in tears. So far from the notion of the best possible world being consoling, it drives to despair the philosophers who embrace it. The problem of good and evil remains an inexplicable chaos for those who seek in good faith." Yet it is in the ebbs and flows of the chaos, calamity and the cycle of human history that we see men's magnitude of sinfulness and God's love at the Cross.
For nothing speaks more of God's way in love when Christ died and atoned for our sins at the Cross.
