The really hard questions of life…
A brother recently shared this with me: He said, “The hardest questions about life (for Christians) are not the Theological ones (and they can be very difficult) but the existential ones.”
I’m sure by now many of us have seen the video of the Ugandan househelp brutalising the little child left in her care. I’m not yet a parent, but I can tell that any parent in their right mind will not hesitate to rain down fire and brimstone on any person who did 10% of what that househelp did.
This video was the subject of discussion I was having with my friend when he made the point about the hardest questions Christians ask.
When he saw the video, his mind went to his nine month child and he said to me “I told myself there would be no place that girl would go to keep her safe from me”. Of course I’m paraphrasing, but you get the picture. It evokes a strong sense of the need to bring retribution and the worst form of punishment upon this househelp.
And then my friend said his wife sent him a follow up on the video that the househelp was so badly beaten by the child’s father that she was in a wheelchair and had to be fed through a tube. (Now I’m not sure that part of the story is true). But upon hearing it, my friend did say that he felt a sense of calm and peace and some small joy because the right thing had been done. The father had gotten some justice for his helpless child.
And then my friend said he felt this question screaming itself at him, “WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?”
These are the hard questions we ask. The existential ones.
The househelp made in the image of God. A person for whom Christ died. Someone Christ loves and yet, someone whom I, – who likes to call himself a living breathing Christian, filled with the Holy Ghost, – wants to see beaten, punished as brutally as humanely possible (and I would have done it if I was close to her… I would have cast the first stone and proudly done so…) and all this with zero love and compassion in my heart for her.
This is the love and compassion I demand (beg) of Christ when I sin against Him. When I confess my sins. This is the love and compassion I have spoken about when I have taught countless numbers of people about forgiving others as Christ has forgiven us.
After all, all sin is ultimately against God and so her sin is first and foremost against God. And if God, the offended party seeks to bring her to a place of repentance so He bestows her with her forgiveness, using us (Christians) as vessels… then…
But yet, I still want to hit her. Do something to make her hurt as much as she hurt the little child. She sinned against the child, and the family of the child, and me and all of the social media universe. We are all angry!!!
And for many Christians, we are too angry to ask, “What would Jesus do?”.
Jesus wrote on the floor (in the sand) and asked the Pharisees, “Let Him who is without sin cast the first stone”. When they (the raging angry crowd) had all left , He said to her, the adulterous woman, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.”
The hardest questions we ask are the existential ones. How do we establish Christ’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven as he has so demanded of us?
What would Jesus do? What would He do in this particular case?
I’m sure He (Jesus) would forgive. I’m sure He would forget. I’m sure He would lead the househelp to the knowledge of her sin and to her need for salvation. He’d introduce her to Himself, the living Saviour and give her a hope that would give her everlasting life.
Beyond that, He would come and dwell in her heart and make her a new creation. One whose life would be so devoted to Him it would be a marvel for the world.
He most certainly would not hurt this househelp. NO! He’d reach out to her with His love. He’s always doing this.
“But Jesus isn’t the father of the baby”, I argued with myself. No He isn’t. But can the father of the baby love his child more than Jesus does?
These are the hard questions we ask. The existential ones.
Now I’m not saying that she should not be punished for her deed. I’m not saying that she should be hugged and given warm glass of milk. No. Not at all.
There are laws that govern our society. These laws have punitive measures that enforce some order in our society. Without the laws and their punishments our society will descend into anarchy.
But these laws and their punitive detractors are careful to treat the worst of offenders (criminals) with a dignity and a respect for their humanity they do not provide their victims.
So if the laws of every “civil” society reaches out to protect the humanity of the worst criminal offenders, then how much more the Christian?
The existential questions are hard…
But as hard as our existential questions may be, Jesus models the answers for us in his person and character and this is the character and person we are to emulate, after all, why are we called Christians?
