Where in Hell is God?

Text:  Isaiah 43:1-7

            Going through hell:  a messy divorce; an affair uncovered; abuse endured.

            Going through hell:  cracking under the pressure of running a small business in a recession; being bullied by a manager; coping with mental illness. 

            Going through hell:  planes collide into twin towers; a terrorist bomb explodes on a bus and in the underground; shots ring out and Charles de Menezes slumps dead, mistaken for a terrorist.

            Going through hell.  Tectonic plates go head to head violently shaking Haiti.  Buildings collapse.  Lives lost in an instant.   Life cruelly ebbs away from the trapped and injured. 

            Going through hell.  Elie Wiesel survived Auchwitz and wrote a harrowing account of his experience in his book Night.  They returned from gruelling work to find a gallows prepared for an execution.  Two adults and a child stood on chairs and had a noose placed round their neck.  The chairs were kicked over in the sight of weeping prisoners.  One prisoner asked, “Where is God?  Where is he?”  The whole camp was forced to file past the corpses horrified to see that the child had not yet died.  It took half an hour or more for the boy to die and as Ellie past in front of him he heard the same prisoner ask, “Where is God now?”  Ellie heard a voice within speak, “Where is he?  Here he is - he is hanging here on the gallows.”

            Going through hell:  personal tragedies; natural disaster; human cruelty.  Where in hell is God?  Is he punishing us?  Are we suffering the consequences of our own actions?  Or has God nothing to do with any of it - do these things ‘just happen’? 

            Some Christians have no problem saying that the tsunami of 2005 or the Pakistani earthquake was punishment upon Islamic fundamentalists.  Even now, some Christians are saying the Haitians are being punished by God for their evil deeds.  This is a crass assessment for most of us. 

            It is easier to recognise our own part in the hells we create.  Extreme weather occurrences may be caused by human activity and are a consequence of our abuse of God’s creation.  We also know that too much drink damages liver function, smoking raises the chances of lung cancer, and a high fat diet increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. 

            Isaiah did not hesitate to say that God had created the hell of exile experienced by his people.  But this was not the capricious action of a cruel parent punishing a child for not tidying up their room or having their elbows on the table.  God acts against his people because justice is bought with a bribe.  The widow and orphan, the poorest in society, went unprotected.  Those entrusted with justice stooped to murder in order to suit themselves.  God’s call to turn from evil goes unheeded (Is. 1:16-26).  God’s people have looted and now he has given them to the spoiler.  They have robbed and are given over to thieves.  Even the conflagration of war did not have the desired effect in turning the people’s heart to God (Is. 42:24-25).

            A God who punishes is both disconcerting and comforting at the same time.  On the one hand, we do not like the idea of a God who inflicts bad things on us.  On the other, we do hope that God will mete out justice to those who’ve done wrong (we usually don’t include ourselves in this desire). 

            Is there any hope for this punished people living in exile?  The LORD speaks to his people.  Nestled in the centre of his message three words:  “I love you.”  The hell of his people ignoring his ways and words and being sent into exile is framed by all-encompassing love.  They are precious, held in his loving gaze, honoured so much that he is willing to pay top price for them, to give the most powerful and wealthy nations in exchange for them. 

            The Lord says, “I love you.  I created you, Jacob.  I saw you grasping your brother’s heel, elbowing your way into first place, a nation seeking to be like other nations (Genesis 25:22-26).  I formed you, Israel.  When you saw the silhouette of a man and wrestled with him through the night you came to realise it was me.  Such determination!  You wouldn’t give up the fight for a blessing, even with a dislocated hip joint.  I named you Israel:  the one who strives with God (Genesis 32:22-32). 

            Do not fear.  Though my white hot anger, the fury of war and raging fire does not turn your heart to me, I will not obliterate you.  I have redeemed you.  I have bought you back from the enemy.  I cannot annihilate the one I have created.  Dislocate a hip, yes, but not destroy.  I cannot leave you to your fate.  After all, I have called you by name.  You are mine.  I’m not fickle.  Once mine, always mine.  None can rob me of you.

            When you’re going through hell do not be afraid.  When you ask, ‘Where in hell is God?’ know this:  When you pass through the waters you will not be alone.  I will be with you.  Do you remember your fear as you stood on the shores of the Red Sea hemmed in by Pharaoh’s army and the water?   I was with you in the fiery-cloudy pillar, darkness to them and light to you.  I was with you in the fiery-cloudy pillar leading you through on dry ground and clogging their chariot wheels.

            When you pass through the rivers the torrent will not drag you under.  Do you remember how I was with you as you gathered on the banks of the Jordan River (Joshua 3)?  I was with you in the Ark borne by priests standing in Jordan’s edge so that you could walk across on a dried up riverbed.

            When you walk through the fire of judgement you will not be burned.  The flame with not consume you.  I blaze against injustice burning away the evil things you do.  I am a fire that refines and shapes you into the kind of people I created you to be (1:24-26).

            In this hell that you are going through, know that I am present with you.  “For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.”  I AM WHAT I AM - I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE.  I belong to you as you belong to me.  I am the Holy One of Israel and will be true to my covenant of love in creation.  All the great nations…the powerful nations…the wealthy nations…the exotic nations…Egypt, Ethiopia, Seba…these I created.  But I am willing to give these nations as a ransom - as payment - to get you back.  I’m will pay a high price to buy back you back.

            Do not be afraid, for I am with you.  My love affair with you means that I will never abandon you to your doom.  I will enter your hell.  I will be with you through the waters and in the fire.  I am in your hell leading you out to freedom.  I will command east, west, north and south to release you.  The scattered will be gathered to the great homecoming of all those whom I have created.”

            Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.  I am with you.  I baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  I rage against injustice and inequality.  I consume that which does not bear good fruit. 

            Do not be afraid.  I am with you.  I step into the waters of the Jordan.  I look into the murky river.  I sink in baptism into the suffering caused by wrong-doing.  I enter into the hell of human sin. 

            Do not be afraid.  I am with you.  As the Holy Spirit descended on me and the voice called me by name, Beloved Son, Pleasing One, so I call you by name.  You are my beloved.  I’m pleased with you.  I am with you in your hell to bring you to new life, the wholeness - the Shalom of God.”

            Where in hell is God?  “Where is he?  Here he is - he is hanging here on the gallows.”  In the cross God whispers, “I love you.”  In personal tragedy, natural disaster, human cruelty, God whispers, “I love you.”

            Simon Barrington-Ward in his book “The Jesus Prayer” sketches the lives of two people who have discovered God in hell.[1]  He writes of an American priest who has a parish in a deprived area.  He works amongst the poor and homeless and as he does he silently prays, “Jesus…Mercy.”  Prayer shapes his ministry.  He even prays while he watches television!  On one occasion, as he was prayerfully watching a program on Sierra Leone and was so deeply moved that he went with his wife to set up a home for children who had been injured both physically and psychologically during the conflict.  Prayer had drawn him to be with the Sierra Leonians in their suffering.

            Barrington-Ward touches on the life of St. Silouan, a Russian monk who lived from 1866-1938.  He entered the community on Mount Athos at the age of 27.  During those early years in the monastery he experienced sin and demonic darkness to such an extent that he was deeply distressed.  He cried out for the assaults on his soul to stop and felt that God was saying to him, “The proud always suffer.”  St. Silouan wanted to know how his pride could be removed from his life and heard the reply, “Keep Thy mind in Hell and despair not.”  He listened to the voice and prayed through the darkness of feeling cut off from God’s love.  He came to see that this struggle with evil was not only his alone but that of the world.  By praying in the hell of sin’s darkness God’s grace was being received not only in his own life but in those around him.  He prayed through the bleak, bloody years of the World War I and the rise of Hitler who was preparing for the slaughter of the Holocaust.  A man deeply aware of suffering and grief was possessed by peace.  Through prayer he stayed in hell and there experienced God’s mercy and grace. 

            Rabbi Lionel Blue in his Thought for the Day, on 4 January 2010, recounted the words of his friend, the late Rabbi Hugo Gryn:  “In Auchwitz you could even live without bread, though not for long; but you couldn’t live a day without hope.”

            Jesus is our hope in hell.  Do not be afraid.  I am with you.