To think that only yesterday
I was cheerful, bright and gay
Looking forward to
Well wouldn’t do
The role I was about to play
But as if to knock me down
Reality came around
And without so much,
As a mere touch
Cut me into little pieces
Leaving me to doubt
Talk about God and His mercy
Or if He really does exist
Why did He desert me
In my hour of need
I truly am indeed
Alone again, naturally
It seems to me that there are more hearts
broken in the world that can’t be mended
Left unattended
What do we do? What do we do?
Alone again, naturally
Now looking back over the years
And whatever else that appears
I remember I cried when my father died
Never wishing to hide the tears
And at sixty-five years old
My mother, God rest her soul,
Couldn’t understand why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken
Leaving her to start
With a heart so badly broken
Despite encouragement from me
No words were ever spoken
And when she passed away
I cried and cried all day
Alone again, naturally
Alone again, naturally
- except from Gilbert O'Sullivan's Alone Again, Naturally
Gilbert O'Sullivan's song came up in a movie the other day. I swear I hadn't heard it in years. It came out when I was a little kid and even at a young age, that song moved me. However, my recall of the song as an adult, seemed more like a song about self-loathing, until I heard these lyrics again when it was played in the movie I watched. I think I confused it with another sad song that came out about the same time as his. Those are some of the most poignant lyrics I have ever heard. You would have to be dead for those words not to resonate with you. Reality has a way of taking the steam out of young aspirations. And part of that reality involves loss and loneliness. And it makes you doubt God's existence. This is the only persuasive evidence against God's existence....and it is existential, not academic.
I'm not knocking academics. I have a deep interest in philosophy and apologetics. What I am talking about is more experiential. With regards to academics, there are great arguments that point to the truth of Christianity. Our universe came from something. Something doesn't come from nothing. Time and space can't cause themselves. Nature can't cause itself. It's far easier to believe the finely tuned conditions of the cosmos was designed, rather than it being mere luck. Consciousness doesn't emerge from mere matter. Some things are absolutely right or wrong, pointing beyond ourselves, and are not simply social conventions or evolutionary responses for survival. Historically speaking, Jesus' resurrection from the dead is the best documented event of all antiquity. So far, all criticisms against it aren't historical but philosophical (philosophical naturalism). The history is very good.
Yet all of these arguments are academic. Gilbert O'Sullivan wasn't singing about the Kalam Cosmological Argument.
If you were to pry into the heart of me, in say 1993 (or to a lessor extent, last week), or anyone else on this planet with doubts, you will find a person that has been deeply wounded. Perhaps we were rejected or humiliated by an individual or group. Maybe a child died. It could be a spouse of many years simply walks out without explanation. Or maybe the company went under, house foreclosed and find yourself at the local truckstop every morning to get the kids ready for school. Fathers, mothers, grandparents, husbands, wives.....all crying from their hearts, "Why is this happening? Where are You? Why have You abandaned me?"
In the song, the guy has dealt with being left at the alter, suffering an enormous setback professionally, the pain it caused and the fact it happens to so many that it seems overwhelming to be able to do anything about it. But even at a personal level, with his parents, is hopeless to do anything about the heart break of a lonely widowed mother, let alone a stranger. His tears aren't just the passing of all these unfortunate events, even though that is part of it. His tears are those of a deeper despair. His complete helplessness and hopelessness in an existence that seems more like a cruel joke than something underguirded by a good and loving God. He asks where God's love and mercy were, if He even does exist.
Where is God in the midst of this heartache? To be honest, Gilbert O'Sullivan, in this simple song, has provided so much more persuasiveness and power to an argument against God's existence than Richard Dawkins has in his entire curriculum vitae. I can only speak for myself, but having been a skeptic, I can tell you that although I was sort of familiar with all the arguments against Christianity and theism in general, my real doubts about God's existence were alot more in line with that song than a collection of arguments. Personal hurt, either caused by others or by natural events or both at once tend to be more persuasive to our immediate situation than any debate. I would go so far as to say that may be Dawkins real argument against Christianity and theism in general. All of the less than adequate philosophical meanderings about causes too complicated to explain complicated effects is really him lashing out at God in what seems to be a brutal world. It's just disguised so we can see, not a wounded man, but a confident and enlightened prophet of the times. Read this excerpt and judge for yourself:
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. Jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic-cleanser; a misogynistic homophobic racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal…
I realize its alot more prejorative than O'Sullivan, yet could concievably be tacked on as the 4th verse. I think the 'fictional' adjective was written with more viceral force than 'infanticidal'. Again, could be wrong, but seems that way to me.
Where Is God?
When we have experienced unexplainable despair and alienation, where is God? Does He understand? Why doesn't He intervene? The problem is existential, but any answer has to address both the mind and the heart. You can never take heartache lightly. And a simple theological theorem to explain it all is the most uncompassionate thing to do...akin to medical malpractice, but spiritual malpractice. People aren't algebra equations or products waiting to be stamped 'inspected'. Reality isn't a unbalanced equation. On the other hand, a response that is purely experiential has no content. And without content, any such response is totally worthless. Jim Beam is a much more useful response to pain and despair than one that doesn't at least appeal to the mind at all. Unfortunately, the church community is contaminated with both kinds of responses to wounded hearts.
Does that Bible provide any answers? The world has been warped and distorted with deviations from our ideals of how it should be, for a long, long time. Something tells us that death is really abnormal. It certainly hurts us to lose loved ones. Pain and suffering are no different. We know enough to instinctively know that things are not the way they were originally intended to be.
Have you read the entire book of Job? What a painful read. Here's a guy that is faithful and devoted to God, allowed to have his cattle destroyed, family killed off and his body covered in sores. From about chapter 3 to 38 we get to witness diatribe after diatribe of a man in pain and suffering, crying out to God for answers. We also get to witness Job's religious buddies and their diagnosis of Job's problems as well as their advice on how to deal with it. That is, until Job has enough of it. I am sure we all have some acquaintances like Job's friends that are always full of 'helpful' advice. It's a painful read. But out of nowhere, God breaks in and responds to Job. He never directly answers Job's questions, but asks Job to stand like a man and be ready to answer a few questions of his own. In essence, God tells Job that although he has suffered, he's in absolutely no position to form enough judgement on the circumstances to warrant any questions, but only continued trust. I don't do it justice, but it must have been scary enough for even a sore-covered man to sort of say, "I see. Never mind." Yet at the end, Job's health is restored, he owns cattle again and starts a new family. The book ends almost abruptly this way.
It seems that although Job's specific situation is remedied, the bigger issue of suffering, even for good people, goes unaddressed.
We have Abraham waiting for a child. God promised. None seems to come. He gets tired of waiting and sleeps with his wife's Egyptian made-servant, spawning his son Ishmael. God lets Abraham know that knocking up a sweet, young Egyptian maidservant was not going to work out as well as it would have had he simply trusted God and waited. And it didn't. Finally, beyond old age, God finally reveals its time and Sarah will give birth to a child. Sarah thinks it's funny and laughs. It's so far fetched and absurd. So, the child's Hebrew name was 'laughs' or Isaac. Before Isaac is even 16, God requests Abraham to take Isaac to the mountain and sacrifice him. After waiting till you are around 80 years old for a child, finally get the child you waited for, then to find out you are commanded to kill him, has to almost make you suicidal. Abraham's trust in God was really radical. The author of Hebrews tells us that Abraham probably thought if Isaac was killed, God would give him his life back, simply on the promise that God made Abraham that his seed would be through Isaac.
But an angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, 'Abraham! Abraham!'
'Here I am', he replied.
'Do not lay a hand on the boy', he said. 'Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.'
Abraham looked up and there in the thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, 'On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.'
Again, Abraham's specifics are what they are, but the name of that mountain refers to something not yet complete
The Hebrews were enslaved for nearly 300 years. They cried out to God to rescue them from the cruel slavery inflicted upon them by Egypt. No answer. For nearly 300 years they suffered and were casualties to a greater Egypt. They had about given up when God chose Moses, a renegade wanted for murder, with an embarrasing speech impediment, to lead His people out of Egypt. The least likely candidate, insecure enough to convince God to have his brother do most of the talking on his behalf, leads millions out of Egypt and into the desert. For forty years they wandered on a trip that should have taken 2 weeks. An entire generation had passed before they entered the land He promised them. From that time forward, the Hebrew people celebrated their deliverance with the Passover, slaying a Passover lamb for the meal.
Again, on a much larger scale a people has found specifics met, but a much larger issue emerges again.
The Hebrews choose a tall, strong and confident Saul as King. God chooses a 13 year old shephard boy as King. This shephard boy sparks a jeolousy in Saul that leads him to plot the boy's murder. God delivers the boy from Saul's hands, makes him King and promises him that through his line, there will be a king that rules forever. Although Israel and Judah rebel, fall into incredible deterioration leading up to military defeat and foreign captivity, the proimise was still remembered.
Prior to the destruction, one of their greatest prophets had this to say about the promised Messiah:
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely, he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
About seven-hundred years later, John wrote that the Word, that was with God and was God, became flesh and dwelt among us. His own creation didn't recognize Him or accept Him.
Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour?' No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!
As Jesus drew His last breaths, He quoted the Psalmist by saying,
"My God, my God, why have you foresaken me?....
Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent....I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.
He was beaten, scourged and nailed to a tree, by the very ones He came to save. But the ultimate suffering He experienced was a spurning from the very Father He knew intimately and eternally; a suffering of such magnitude that no human being will ever know. Physical pain, to the point of death is something several human beings have unfortunately had to experience. However, complete and total alienation at this level and at this point of a cruel and painful death was the ultimate sacrifice. For what? For whom? It could be that God never directly answered Job because Job had no idea what God was going to do, Himself, for Job and everyone who reaches out. It seems pretty clear that the naming of that place where Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac was God's forshadowing Abraham, and all who read the text, what God would actually provide...His Son, His only Son. The blood of the first Passover Lamb was shed and painted above the entrance way of every Hebrew home, so that they would be spared from the coming wrath that shook Egypt and the house of Pharoah. It's no surprise that the prophet John, in the wilderness, would see Jesus and immediately recognize Him as the Lamb of God, to take away the sins of the world.
Jesus is on every page. Jesus is God's idea in every situation. The world is a very messy place and we are some messy people. I'm not talking about the persona we portray to anyone watching. I'm talking about the person we are when no one is around...the person in our thought world. To suggest that God Himself comes to provide our redemption and pay the entire penalty to obtain it is love on such a cosmic scale, now even suffering makes a little sense. It helps to know that even though I still hit rock bottom, He knows the feeling better than I do.
Jesus,
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have supremacy
We still experience death, but it has no power anymore. For those who place confidence in this momentus act of love, we suffer no real loss and any loss we experience right now is something that has first passed through nail-scarred hands. We believe in Him because He rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of all our wrongness, brokenness and despair.
Here's the existential reality for me. Before I entrusted my life to Him, I was fairly happy on the periphery, but completely full of despair at the core. In fact, all my energy was to seek as much diversions I could to generate as much consolation and contentment I could, to take my mind off of the core reality. After I entrusted my life to Him, I was essentially happy at the core, even if I was dealing with a lot of crap on the periphery. No longer nervously strategizing for diversions to avoid the emptiness, I simply fall on my knees and ask for His comfort, wisdom, confidence, patience....as much of His reality as He chooses to dispense. And because of what Jesus did, I can ask with total confidence. He provides a way for an imperfect and finite guy like me to approach the Almighty without any worry or concern from His part.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may recieve mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
The only way to verify the existential part of this response to our problem is to simply try. Believe in the work of His Son, on your behalf. Ask Him into your heart and to change your life. An existential reality is completely unverifiable unless you experience it yourself. There is no other way to test Jesus' teaching without trying them and finding out for yourself whether or not He's the One, or simply another guy speaking for himself. It's just something you have to do yourself. I can tell you about Him all day long, but in order to know....really know...you will have to haul off and place your life in His hands on your own. I still deal with the sadness of the O'Sullivan song and I still ask 'why?' to the pain I experience and what I see others dealing with. I have been a lay counselor for several years and the worst part of that job is hearing someone pour out their hearts with agony and you having no way to fix it or even provide anything other than two ears to listen. But at the very core, even at the worst of it, He is there and He is holding me together. He will hold you together too. And if you do that, He will bring you into His Kingdom now, so you can truly know for yourself and then extend that same Kingdom out to others and bring some light into the darkness.
Without this answer, alone again is natural. It is reality. All the friends and family in the world will not change that alienation. All the Party Pix photos, all the neighborhood block parties and all the Extreme Makeovers episodes in all the world cannot hide the reality that this world is full of darkness. And those things are not light. Although these things can be good in and of themselves, most of the time for us they are diversions. He is the light....that shines into darkness and the darkness can't comprehend it.
I can truly say, that no matter the circumstances, I am never alone. And I never will be. Although there is so much more to the Kingdom of God, that in and of itself is absolutely wonderful and something that needs to be shared. So, I am.
