Just yesterday I encountered what may be the central question of all humanity regarding God. A person I know was lamenting that a loved one is going through the personality destruction of Alzheimer’s disease. “Why would God allow him to go through this kind of mental destruction? What’s the point of that?” she asked. Few questions are this genuine and legitimate. It could be asked in several ways now. Why are so many people in America unhoused? Why are so many children in detention camps right now in the United States? Why are so many people the victims of violence? Why did 20,000+ children have to die in Gaza? Why hasn’t cancer been eliminated? Why are suicide rates so high? If God is love and God is powerful, why does God allow these things to happen?
Yeah, I know…there are endless philosophical and theological explanations for this. But when the suffering and injustices are yours, do the explanations really help or matter?
During the Holocaust, Jewish philosopher and activist Elie Wiesel was interred at the Buna subcamp of the infamous Auschwitz concentration center. Along with all camp inmates, he was forced to witness the execution by hanging of two men and one boy. The men died instantly upon being dropped. But the boy was light enough that his neck did not break, and he thrashed in agonizingly slow strangulation for a half an hour. As the camp witnessed his horrific suffering, someone near Wiesel asked in rage, “Where is God now?”
As he recorded in his book, NIGHT, Wiesel said the only answer he could come up with was this: “Where is He? Here He is – He is hanging here on this gallows.”
In the years since, many have debated what it meant for Wiesel to say these words. It could have been an expression of his own despair; maybe even a feeling that, given the utter horror and destruction of the Holocaust, God must be absent or even dead. Or it could have been a clinging hope, that God abides in some radical way with those who suffer. Maybe it was an expression of both. Personally, I cling to the latter. I see that as the more central impact of Jesus’ crucifixion, higher in importance than paying the price for sin. For me, that’s less explanation than a hopeful statement of location.
How is it for you? Where is God when life is at its unjust and cruel worst? Was Elie Wiesel right? What do you think he meant when he said what he said?
Something to think about in these days. I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.
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