The Earth is beautiful. If a visitor from another galaxy were to pass through our solar system, they would be intrigued by the gas giant Jupiter; they would explore the baffling rings around Saturn. But their eyes would, inevitably, be drawn to this beautiful blue and white marble that is drifting alone in a sea of inky blackness. So attractive; so peaceful looking and welcoming. It beckons gods, and men, and angels. But as they drew closer to this place that we call home, they would notice other things; things not so lovely.
They would notice that lightning strikes this planet eight million times each day, sending its inhabitants running for cover. They might notice, (what I once heard an airline pilot describe), the unnerving sight of an earthquake rippling across the surface of the land below. Or they might witness a tsunami as it rumbles ashore and washes away entire villages of sleeping innocents. And they would also take note of a landscape scarred by the greed and warfare of its citizens. They would hear the gunshots in our cities, and the weeping of mothers in every land. And they would not be able to ignore what we ignore every day; the thing we all drive past and pretend isn’t there; billions of graves.
Our world is a puzzling mix of horror and grace. Of gentleness and violence. Of kindness and cruelty. Of selflessness and depravity. It is a never-ending mix of peace and suffering. I once heard Oxford mathematician John Lennox refer to this as “beauty and barbed-wire”. I think that is a perfect description of our lives in this place.
We like to complain about this place. We fear that we are lost at sea, on a ship with no pilot. Only there is a pilot, but the passengers have mutinied and are seeking control. The line between good and evil does not run between heaven and hell. It runs through the human heart. We are not the owners of this place, but we are the managers; the stewards. Many of us do not like the owner because he has allowed such a mess. If “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”; then surly we are all broken actors, on a broken stage. If we could remake this world, if we could start over somehow. What would we do? How can we fix the world when the world is made of us? How do you fix the human heart? We need new hearts, but where do you get one of those?
Many of you want there to be a God because of the beauty; but you reject him because of the barbed wire. One of my atheist friends throws up countless arguments against God. But I notice that the conversation always comes back to evil and suffering. To the existence of barbed wire in our world. It truly animates him as he hurls invectives at the notion of a good God. I think all his other “well-reasoned” arguments are just window dressing. A smokescreen. I would sum up his philosophy as “there is no God, and I hate him”.
Bertrand Russell once asked, “how can you talk about God when kneeling at the bed of a dying child?” I have knelt at the bed of a dying child; I have even laid in bed with a dying child, and my reply to Sir Bertrand is this; How can you not talk about God then? What else is there to talk about at such a time? Who else is there to call upon? The universe? That is precisely the time to take my complaints to the owner of this place.
It seems God is always on trial these days. We want to take from him all the beauty, even as we hang around his neck all the barbed wire. What if you could put God on trial? What if you managed to develop an air-tight philosophical and legal case that made him morally culpable for all that is wrong with the world? What if you were able to convict him? To sentence him? What would you sentence him to? What would be an appropriate punishment for The Almighty? I have a list for you to consider:
He should be made to walk the Earth as a Jew. A member of the most persecuted family in history.
He should be made to live in poverty.
He should be constantly opposed and harassed by men, and by demons.
He should be tempted in every way, as we are.
He should be rejected by his own people.
He should be betrayed by a close friend.
He should be falsely accused and arrested in the dead of night.
He should be abandoned by all his other friends.
He should be tried in a kangaroo court and be convicted of crimes he never committed.
He should be publicly beaten and shamed.
He should then be tortured to death, by his own government, and hung up naked next to a busy highway.
Would that end our complaints against him? Would that satisfy our wrath? Somehow, I do not think so.
I believe we have legitimate complaints about all the barbed wire in this place. I believe our hard questions deserve answers. But for me, given what I know about the barbed wire in our own hearts, the harder question is this: why is there so much beauty?
I have stood on lush green hillsides blanketed with flowers. I have sat quietly in the woods on a still winters’ morning, as a fox passed me by, and chickadees came and landed on me. I have looked down upon the mystical Shenandoah Valley at sunrise. I have seen that same sun rising out of the Atlantic Ocean on the Outer Banks countless times. I have been swimming with manatees in the calm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. I have stood on sandbars far out into that same gulf and picked up conk shells the size of my head. I have jet-skied in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean while flying fish leaped out of the water next to me, as if we were racing. I have hiked beautiful green mountains from the Adirondacks to Hawaii. I have dived into deep pleasant pools formed by volcanic rock, as if God had nothing better to do than to make giant seaside hot tubs for us, filled with crystal clear salt-water and happy little fish. I have seen sea otters frolicking and fishing in Monterey Bay. I have driven down the Pacific Coast Highway and stopped many times to gaze on the endless sea as it travelled thousands of miles just to kiss the cliffs at my feet. I have seen a magnificent waterfall spilling onto the beach in Big Sur. I have stood in the desert at night and was overwhelmed by the sight of more stars than I knew existed. I have met a girl. I have fallen in love. I have held babies. I have watched those babies grow up to make more babies.
I love this place. I never grow tired of it. I think eternal life is the perfect gift for we humans; to be forever seeing; to be forever learning; to be forever doing. And I love the Owner, He has never lied to me.
At the heart of Christianity there stands a cross. It is the ultimate intersection of beauty and barbed wire. It is what happens when men finally get their hands on God. It marks the beginning of the weekend that God checkmated all His enemies. It is the beginning of the end of everything that opposes Him. It is the triumph of beauty over barbed wire.
Our hearts long for beauty. We were made for it. That longing is like an echo in our souls of where we have come from; of what we have lost. G.K. Chesterton wrote “those who have fallen may remember the fall even when they forget the height”. I would never make light of the suffering in this world; it can be overwhelming at times. Nor am I suggesting that this is what philosophy calls “the best possible world”; that would be ridiculous. But I think this must be the best possible way to the best possible world with morally free beings.
All of creation is “groaning” the Bible says. Because it is waiting for us. It is waiting for us to be reconciled to the Owner. He has promised that when that day fully comes then “the Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
Until that day, let’s work together to cut away the barbed wire. And to share the beauty with each other.