Psalms 22, 95, 40, 54; Wisdom 1:16 - 2:1, 12-22 or Gen. 22: 1-14; 1 Peter 1:10-20; John 13:36-38, 19:38-42

I recently had the opportunity to hear the lecture of an eminent scholar of the New Testament. His knowledge of scripture and how the New Testament was created was awe-inspiring. But in the question-answer session following the lecture, a woman asked if he was a believer. "No," he replied, "I am agnostic." He went on to explain that it was not his erudition that had compromised his once born-again faith. It was suffering. How could an active God, a good God, allow suffering? I was saddened and troubled by his personal revelation, because it prods me to ask the same questions about suffering and those times when God doesn't seem to care about suffering or hear our prayers. David is suffering intensely when he cries out in Ps. 22 "My God, my God, why have you forsaken 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. . ." That sense of abandonment, the feeling that God isn't listening, creates an angst that seems impossible to bear. Jesus, knowing of His impending horrible death, felt that agony in the garden of Gethsemane and on the cross, when He repeats David's cries. Abraham, too, must have suffered greatly, in Genesis 22, as he was preparing to sacrifice his only son Isaac. And Peter, too, when in John 13: 36-38 he learns that he will deny the Lord he believed he was willing to die for. I feel abandoned and weak in suffering. I do not want to suffer, and it hurts me to see the suffering of others.

I, a sinner, would stop it if I could. So why doesn't God? I know that I cannot know the answer -- does that make me agnostic if I recognize that I can't expect to understand? But no; I cling tightly to my faith, repeating David's words in Ps. 40: "I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry" and expecting that "weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning (Ps. 30)." Just as it did to David, to Abraham, and to all of us through Christ's resurrection