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. And they would also take note of a landscape scarred by the greed and warfare of its citizens. They would see perhaps a million Ukrainian women and children fleeing their homeland to escape the bombs and the missiles destroying their lives. They would hear the gunshots in our cities, and the weeping of mothers in every land.
Our world is a puzzling mix of horror and grace. Of gentleness and violence. Of kindness and cruelty. Of selflessness and depravity. Life feels like 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.
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 mocks the notion of a “good” God. I think all his other well-reasoned arguments are just window dressing. 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?” But 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 concerns to management.
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? What would you sentence him to? What would be an appropriate punishment for The Almighty? I have a list for us 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 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 road.
Would that end our complaints against him? Would that slake our lust for accountability? We know it would not.
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 a 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 jumped into deep pleasant pools formed by volcanic rock, like giant seaside hot tubs 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 felt lost 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. Why is there so much beauty in this place?
I came across this memorial on a hilltop in the desert. It was erected by some Marines for a fallen comrade. It is sparse, yet it represents so much of the beauty and barbed wire that make up our lives. War and violence, blood and pain, loss and grief. But also friendship and love, sacrifice and honor, family and community. Tears and smiles and sadness and fellowship and embrace.
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 overthrew his enemies. It is the King of the Kingdom of Heaven laying down his life for his friends. It is the purchase of a New Creation that is both on its way and, by faith, already here. It is the final triumph of beauty over barbed wire.
“Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter in soul?” – Job
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Romans
“If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” Longfellow