You’ve watched it happen. The kindest person you know loses someone they love. A friend who’s done everything right gets the diagnosis nobody wants. A child suffers in a way no child should ever suffer. Somewhere underneath the grief, a question rises. It starts quiet, then grows louder. Why?
If God is good, and God is powerful, why does the world look like this?
A Question Scripture Doesn’t Avoid
The Book of Job shows that bad things happen to good people, and suffering is not always a punishment from God. Lutheran teaching explains that God’s plans are often a mystery that humans cannot fully understand. Instead of giving up, these hard times can be faced with less reliance on ourselves and instead, complete trust in God’s love. Even when Job questioned God and felt totally hopeless, God never abandoned him. In the end, the story reminds us that God saves us through faith and grace, given freely, never earned. Additionally, the Psalms are full of voices crying out, asking why the wicked seem to prosper while the righteous suffer.
Notice what scripture does here. It does not tell us suffering happens for a reason in some neat cosmic plan. It does not tell Job that everything will make sense someday if he just has enough faith. Scripture instead gives us permission to ask, and it refuses to pretend that pain is anything other than what it is.
We do not believe God causes cancer. We do not believe God orchestrates car accidents to teach lessons. We do not believe suffering is punishment, or that good people who suffer must have done something to deserve it.
What we do believe is harder, and stranger, and more honest. We live in a world deeply marked by sin and brokenness. This includes our individual sins, yes, but also the sin woven into systems, into nature itself, into the fabric of a creation that groans for redemption. In this world, even the faithful are not exempt from trouble. Jesus himself promised this. “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33a). He did not say ‘might’. He said ‘will’.
The same Jesus who promised trouble also said something else, “But take courage: I have conquered the world!” (John 16:33b).
The God Who Doesn’t Stay Distant
The heart of the Christian answer to suffering is not an explanation. It is a person. The God we worship did not watch human pain from a safe distance. In Jesus, God stepped into it. He was born into a world of poverty and political violence, watched friends die, wept at gravesides, was betrayed, tortured, and killed.
The Cross is God’s answer to the question of suffering. The question is not why people suffer. The question is where is God in the earth’s suffering? The answer is that because God loved this world that he came down, experienced horrific death on the cross, rose on the third day, ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to dwell with us, in us. Jesus overcame the finality of death so that we can have life in him and with him.
What This Means for You
If you are hurting right now, you do not have to make sense of it. You don’t have to tell yourself to “just get over it”. It’s ok to not be ok. You are allowed to grieve. You are allowed to be angry. You are allowed to tell God all about it. Actually, God already knows, but invites you to share all of your sorrow. God invites you to ask any questions you like.
What faith offers is not an explanation that makes the pain disappear. It offers a God who refuses to leave you alone in it, a community of people willing to sit beside you in the hardest places, and a hope that even now, somehow, suffering and death do not get the last word.
The story of Easter is not that the Cross didn’t happen. The story is that even the Cross could not end God’s love for the world.
A Closing Prayer
Lord, Like Mary, we come to You with questions, the ones that keep us up at night and shake our faith. Thank You for welcoming our questions instead of turning us away. Draw near to us as we seek You through Your Word, through prayer, and through the guidance of Your Holy Spirit. When we cry out, “How can this be?” remind us that You are a God who restores broken things and that no situation is beyond Your reach. May our questions bring us closer to You, and may our faith grow deeper in the seeking.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.