Jesus suffered
and died for us. (Hebrews 13)
Dear Pricilla,
The thing about these European wars is that they are wars between Christian nations. Even communist Russia calls on the Russian Orthodox Church to pray for victory. As Abraham Lincoln said of our Civil War: “Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. … The prayers of both could not be answered. …The Almighty has His own purposes.”
That does not mean we do not take sides. Since Jesus “suffered and died,” we take the side of the victims—the Ukrainians and Zelensky, their brave president. It does mean that we must be careful, as Lincoln warned, not to drag the Almighty into our agenda and our purposes. God has His own purposes.
Which leads us to a more difficult question, “Why does our loving God allow such injustice, violence and suffering? If God really is Almighty, why doesn’t God put a stop to such wars and violence?”
Lent is the season when the church turns to our Suffering Savior
who “suffered, outside the city, in order to cleanse the people by His
own blood” (Hb 13:12). On the Cross, God enters into our suffering.
The writer to the Hebrews points out that Jesus suffered “outside the city.” I
wonder if that means, all Powers and nations, tribes and ethnicities that call
on the name of God must find Him outside of their control—their ideology, politics,
or claims to righteousness? Easter Morning does not cancel the Cross; but
rather makes the cross The Cross—that place, outside the city, were God is to
be found.
