Frances Young in her book, BROKENNESS & BLESSING: TOWARDS A BIBLICAL SPIRITUALITY , makes a few comments on a Christian attitude toward suffering that I think are worth us considering.
“…we should remind ourselves of the post-Enlightenment tendency to view suffering, atrocity, and so on as grounds for atheism. The current assumptions of our culture include the notion that all ills can be removed, death can be indefinitely postponed, and all risk can be eliminated, if we can only find the right formula. … The media encourage us in our refusal to face our vulnerability, mortality, and creatureliness. The presupposition is that bad things shouldn’t happen, or certainly shouldn’t happen to good people; and since they do happen and the world is imperfect, there cannot be a God. Indeed, the world is so dreadful, as it impinges on us in our living rooms on the small screen, that trying to put it right or make sense of it seems beyond us – as compassion fatigue sets in and we find ourselves lost and insecure, confronted with a world so threatening that the most noticeable reaction is the creation of comfort zones.” (p 30)
The notion that death is somehow foreign to humanity is certainly found in the Christian interpretation of the Genesis 3 fall of humanity from grace into sin and death. The Orthodox understanding of this story is the notion of ancestral sin which introduced mortality into the human condition. The Resurrection of Christ is God’s own defeat of death and promise of eternal life for all humanity. However, Christianity has been very real that sickness, suffering and sorrow are part of the human condition and will continue to be so until God establishes His Kingdom on earth. This is no doubt a test of Christian faith as we struggle with why God allows His creatures to suffer, especially when we consider innocents, children, infants or even animals who have not sinned. Atheists tend to point to the suffering of humanity as a sign that there is no Intelligent Designer for the universe. Christianity (like Judaism and Islam) remains realistic that in this life we will experience the ravages of disease, injury and illness while constantly seeking the mercy of God to give us the faith, hope and strength to deal with the suffering we encounter.
In Christianity it is the suffering of humanity and our mortality which are reasons for the incarnation of the Son of God at Christmas.
“Yet the experience of being physical beings lies at the very cusp of the ambiguity of our human condition. Vulnerability, corruptibility, and mortality are characteristic of the physical, natural world – ‘Change and decay in all around I see’! The Fathers were highly sensitive to this reality, but they saw this mortal, natural existence, with all its passions and joys, pointing beyond itself to that full-bodied living which is God’s ultimate purpose. The physical senses are analogous to the spiritual; physical love is stimulated by beauty, and the beauty of God evokes spiritual love: ‘My God, how wonderful Thou art!’ For the Fathers, ‘anagogy’ meant the spiritual journey upward through analogy.” (p 114)
Unlike Ray Kurzweil’s singularity in which he sees humanity as escaping the limits of the body by ultimately converting our consciousness into electrical impulses on the Internet, Orthodox Christianity believes our physical bodies are part of God’s plan for us and salvation. Our bodies despite the limits of physicality, illness and mortality, are made not only to bear divinity (Theotokos) but to become united with divinity (Theosis). Suffering in this view does not overcome our humanity, but rather our spirituality – namely our union with Christ – overcomes our mortality. See my blog Transcending Biology: Theosis vs. Singularity.
Notes from Christmas Sermon 2008
The teenager and Virgin Mary is pure and holy and yet finds herself pregnant. She certainly knows the Torah and the righteous demands of how a woman impregnated by someone other than her husband is to be punished. The Torah, the Scriptures, are very clear. And if all she has to rely on are the Scriptures, she is in trouble. And yet she has heard the word of the Angel Gabriel, and accepts the pregnancy because she has been faithful to both God and to her betrothed. The Scripture alone would not have been enough to guide her.
Joseph the Betrothed is a righteous man. He has studied Torah and knows the Law of righteousness. He contemplates what to do with this pregnant teenager to whom he is betrothed. And he is a just man and righteous, but also kind and merciful. He knows what the Torah, the written word of God says about the likes of Mary. But he is also moved by the mercy taught so clearly in the Torah. He decides to quietly divorce Mary and not make a big deal or demand justice or public penance or punishment. His mercy exceeds what Torah expects of him. And yet, even in this God has some other word to him - don’t follow Torah, take the pregnant teenager as your wife. Don’t be afraid, for all of this is the will of God. And Joseph the old man wizened by years of listening to and obeying Torah is open to the promptings of God and keeps Mary as his wife while contemplating what it could all mean to set aside Torah in order to obey God.
The magi too apparently know of the scriptural prophecies of a Messiah King to be born, but it is not scripture but the stars which lead them to Bethlehem. They too are open to the promptings of the Spirit and discern not only the stars but their own dreams to obey God.
least in its origins Christmas was a Christian Feast focusing on the birth of Jesus the Son of God and Messiah. And yes there is good evidence that the Christians intentionally placed the Feast of the Nativity of Christ on December 25 to compete with pagan festivals of the Winter Solstice and the Invincible Sun. Nevertheless, the Feast is a Christian theological feast, even though for the most part our culture and society endeavors to remove the theology to make Christmas into a winter festival acceptable to all. As Christians, our best way to keep the Spirit in Christmas is to keep it as a Trinitarian Feast – a Feast which upholds the theology of God the Father, and God the Son/Word and God the Holy Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit which came upon the Virgin Mary and impregnated her with the Word of God Jesus, Who also is the son of God the Father. It is the Trinitarian truth about Christmas that gives the Holy Day its power and meaning.
Wishing you a most blessed Christmas Feast Day!
“Eve was a virgin, without corruption. By conceiving through the word of the serpent, she gave birth to disobedience and death. The virgin Mary conceived faith and joy, when the
Christmas for St. Athanasius is about God healing human nature which had become corrupted by sin. God had already given the Law and sent the prophets to tell the world to stop sinning and how to live properly. If all that was needed was that humans stop sinning, Christmas would never have been necessary. For us Christians, we can look at Christmas and ask, “What was the purpose of the Incarnation? What was the problem or evil for which God determined the birth of Christ was the solution?” Christmas is the undoing of what had happened to humanity and to our relationship with God ever since the sin of Eve and Adam in
“O how infirm is my spirit. A little wind can blow it out like a candle; but the spirit of the saints glowed with fire like the burning bush, fearless of the wind. Who will give me such fire that I know rest neither by day nor by night from love of God? The love of God is a consuming fire. For the love of God the saints bore every affliction – it was love of God gave them the power to work miracles. They healed the sick, restored the dead to life. They walked upon the waters, were lifted into the air during prayer, and by their prayers they brought rain down from heaven. But all my desire is to learn humility and the love of Christ, that I may offend no man but pray for all as I pray for myself.”
Kingdom and about His Church. Anne Field in her book,
sons of God (1 John 3:1), that we have been saved from sin (Matthew 1:21) and that we must live for God and not sin; not for flesh and blood, not for the world which lies in evil (1 John 5:19). What does the Incarnation of the Son of God require of us? It requires of us to remember and hold in sacred honor the fact that we are born of God; and if we have sullied and trampled upon this birthright with our sins, we must restore it by washing it with tears of repentance; we must restore and renew within us the image of God which has fallen and the union with God and blessedness, truth and holiness which has been destroyed. ‘Now God became man, that He may make Adam a god.’” (


