Narnia 1: Grief

When it comes to suffering, Christians' standard move has always been directing people to the Book of Job. No, the pain you are going through is not a form of punishment. But God didn't explain to Job, and probably will not explain to you either. In the end, Job had his life back to order. I sometimes wonder how many of us have that happy ending. Many sufferings on Earth still only end in death.

While I think the Book of Job addresses the problem of suffering intellectually, it never really comforts or consoles. It doesn't tell us how God feels about our suffering, our pain. I believe many people have problems with Christianity because they think our God seems coldblooded.

In the TV series "Lucifer" S1 E9, Lucifer made friends with a priest, but the priest sacrificed his life to save a kid who was involved in drug dealing. Lucifer was mad at God; he yelled at Him:

You cruel manipulative bastard! Is this all part of your plan? It’s all just a game to you isn’t it? Eh? Well, I know punishment and he did not deserve that! He followed your stupid rules and it still wasn’t good enough. So what does it take to please you? Break your rules and you fall, follow them and you still lose? Doesn’t matter whether you’re a sinner. Doesn’t matter whether you’re a saint. Nobody can win so what’s the point?

I believe this is a sentiment that a lot of people share during seasons of grief and suffering. And it hits hard for Christians especially, as we are always told that our God delivers, our God saves.

I've been there, angry at God for the pointless suffering that I was going through. I accepted it a little bit more as I learned from a book that God still has to respect human freewill, so some man-made tragedy still bound to happen. But that doesn't show how God feels about it. In darkness and in struggles, what we usually feel is that God is distant and He does not care. He just watches up from the sky, and let us cry, alone, cold and helpless.

One of the big challenges of being a Christian after the first generation is the fact that we are not seeing Jesus in person. We had the Scripture recording Jesus weeping at Lazarus' first funeral, because He had compassion for the mourning people. The first generation disciples could touch Jesus and saw His expressions. We are left with just plain text and perhaps a lot of our own imagination.

We are told that God is a compassionate God and He mourns with us. I could never feel that until I got to chapter twelve of The Magician's Nephew:

But when he had said "Yes," he thought of his Mother, and he thought of the great hopes he had had, and how they were all dying away, and a lump came in his throat and tears in his eyes, and he blurted out:

"But please, please—won't you—can't you give me something that will cure Mother?" [...] now, in his despair, he looked up at [Aslan's] face. What he saw surprised him [...] For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.

First time in my life, I finally felt in my bones that God cares. Maybe I was not looking up at His face, and that's how I missed it. But knowing that God cares is what keeps me close to God. Because it makes all the pain and suffering all the more bearable. There are reasons He cannot take them away, but He is not idly watching either. His heart is as broken as mine, and He is grieving with me.

C. S. Lewis was not only apt in theological writing. He understood human emotions, and he understood God's heart. For a long stretch of time I could not feel God at all, and it was sheer willpower that forced myself to keep believing in Him. C. S. Lewis succeeded in revealing the very caring heart of Jesus through the Narnia series. Many people complained the lack of subtlety as it's way too obvious what the series Narnia is about; but some people like me are really really dense and we just need to get hit by this kind of two by four. Since it was very artistically done, I have no complain.