From this morning’s Scriptures (Psalm 44), a passage that speaks to us, even if we do not suffer from the same thing that the people for whom it was written did. It deals with the “why questions” we all ask from time to time and wrestles with the apparent silence/inaction of God, who claims to love us:

4 You are my King and my God;
    you command victories for Jacob.

5 Through you we push down our foes;
    through your name we tread down our assailants.

6 For not in my bow do I trust,
    nor can my sword save me.

7 But you have saved us from our foes,
    and have put to confusion those who hate us.

8 In God we have boasted continually,
    and we will give thanks to your name forever.Selah

9 Yet you have rejected us and abased us,
    and have not gone out with our armies.

10 You made us turn back from the foe,
    and our enemies have gotten spoil.

11 You have made us like sheep for slaughter,
    and have scattered us among the nations.

12 You have sold your people for a trifle,
    demanding no high price for them.

13 You have made us the taunt of our neighbors,
    the derision and scorn of those around us.

14 You have made us a byword among the nations,
    a laughingstock among the peoples.

15 All day long my disgrace is before me,
    and shame has covered my face

16 at the words of the taunters and revilers,
    at the sight of the enemy and the avenger.

17 All this has come upon us,
    yet we have not forgotten you,
    or been false to your covenant.

18 Our heart has not turned back,
    nor have our steps departed from your way,

19 yet you have broken us in the haunt of jackals,
    and covered us with deep darkness.

20 If we had forgotten the name of our God,
    or spread out our hands to a strange god,

21 would not God discover this?
    For he knows the secrets of the heart.

22 Because of you we are being killed all day long,
    and accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

23 Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
    Awake, do not cast us off forever!

24 Why do you hide your face?
    Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?

25 For we sink down to the dust;
    our bodies cling to the ground.

26 Rise up, come to our help.
    Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.

While most readers haven’t been overrun by hostile alien powers, at least not the kind the psalmist talks about, I can imagine folks who suffer without warrant making this psalm of lament their own and it speaking to them, especially if they are suffering from serious illness or even with their own mortality. Why? Because they have been overrun by a hostile, alien power, not of human making. And I would imagine that many have asked, or are tempted to ask, the same question as the psalmist who speaks for the faithful remnant in Israel, who are suffering for the sins of that unfaithful nation. Why does God allow us to suffer with the wicked? We’ve been faithful to you, Lord! 

Fast forward to Saint Paul in his letter to the Romans (Ch8):

31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
    we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Notice that Saint Paul actually quotes from Ps 44 above and provides an answer to the unanswered anguished questions of the Psalmist. In the verses before this pericope, he tells us that Christians are blessed and empowered by the gift and Presence of the Holy Spirit in us, the very power that allows us to be faithful Christians in the first place, a gift none of us deserve. Why then do Christians sometimes suffer, especially when they have done nothing to deserve God’s punishment/wrath? 

Like other verses throughout Scripture that address our “why questions,” Saint Paul doesn’t provide a direct answer, presumably because it is way above our pay grade and we are incapable of comprehending what God’s answer would be. Instead Saint Paul provides us with something much better. He promises that nothing in all creation, not suffering or sickness or anything else, not even death itself, can ever separate us from the love of God made known to us in Christ. How can he say that? Because he has the Holy Spirit in him and because earlier in Ch 5, he writes that while we were still God’s enemies, while we were still helpless to free ourselves from the sin that causes us to be hostile and alienated toward God, our very Source of life, Christ died for us sinners to restore our lifeline to the Father and Author of all life. For Saint Paul, this demonstrated God’s great love for us, despite ourselves, and leads to the astonishing statement above that nothing can ever separate us from the love of Christ, which in turn assures us of life eternal, even though our mortal body dies. That ultimately is better than even a promise of physical healing, awesome as that is, because even when we get healed, guess what? We still eventually die a mortal death. 

Please do not read this as platitude or as me being flip or dismissive of real human suffering. It most certainly is not. God answers many prayers, often in astonishing ways. But as Scripture and the Christian Tradition recognize and acknowledge, sometimes our prayer apparently go unanswered and we can feel very much abandoned. In other words, as the psalmist acknowledges in Psalm 23, we are left in a very dark valley and have every reason to be angry and/or afraid. Here, though, is the promise to help us combat that fear and not lose hope or faith. Whatever suffering’s outcome, we who put our hope and trust in Christ are secure in his care and love, irrespective of outcome, and nothing except our willful rejection of that promise can ever make the promise invalid. Nothing. Take that to the bank and be encouraged by it, my beloved.