There is a temptation that creeps into Christian faith, with its talk of hope, glory, and resurrection, of thinking that we must always be creatures of happiness, walking through the world's miseries (and even our own) with a smile firmly planted on our faces, and a cheery word of encouragement for those whom we meet.  A feeling, almost, that to admit things are not entirely peachy is to somehow betray the God we claim to believe in.  

One problem with that is that it can pile guilt upon our other struggles, increasing rather than lifting their weight; the other is that it's a bunch of nonsense.  Nowhere does Jesus say you have to be happy all the time, or be in complete control, or that believing in him requires a belief that all is well in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

This week's readings are Psalm 22.23–31 and Mark 8.31–38.  In this snippet from Mark Jesus says, quite bluntly, 'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.'  There is nothing comfortable, or happy about being crucified. A few chapters later, when we arrive at the crucifixion itself we realise he wasn't being metaphorical either.

As we're there, let's note that psalm 22 has the strange honour of being recited by Christ from the cross,  its opening words, though we don't hear them this week, are the haunting cry, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'.  By reciting it in this moment, Jesus lifts the words from the page and brings them into being in his own body as he dies.  The abstract poetic considerations of the psalmist become the anguished cry of the physically present God.  No metaphors here either.

To follow him, then, suggests itself not as a route that excuses, ignores, or smiles through pain and suffering, but as a route that walks into the midst of it so that God may be present where he's needed most.  I found myself reminded of a story recounted by the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel about a moment watching an execution in a concentration camp, "Behind me,' he writes, "'I heard a man asking: ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer; ‘Where is He? This is where – hanging here from this gallows…’" 

I admit I write from the privileged place of never having faced great suffering, so forgive me if in your experience I have this wrong, but from walking besides others it seems to me that the question 'why' in the face of human suffering is of far less use than 'where'.  Finding the answer to 'why does God let this happen?' may offer some intellectual relief, should we ever be able to resolve it; but discovering that the answer to 'where is God in the midst of this suffering?' is 'right here, with you' may offer a glimmer of something more useful, more comforting, more nurturing to the soul and strength.

The true force and use of Christian hope isn't that it will be alright in the end (that's a given through the reconciliation achieved through Christ), it's that even now, whilst it's not alright, the darkness does not prevail because it cannot drive out the presence of God.  He chose to join us in the depths of darkness so that we may never have to be somewhere, or face anything, without him on our journey towards eternity.

If you're in the dark right now, I pray that you may find his arms around you, and his hands supporting you; and if you're in the light, I pray that you may find a way to be his arms and hands for someone who needs them.