The Helpless God

Much suffering have we seen from the media these past few days. In just a matter of two weeks, our world has changed and the Philippines no less. We have seen the dramatic rise of the number of the cases of the Corona virus everyday, the number of deaths resulting from them, the growing number of PUIs or Persons Under Investigation, and PUMs or Persons Under Monitoring. These cases continue to rise to this day all around the world especially in Europe and the United States, now overtaking China’s reported cases.

But suffering neither stops nor is limited to the contagion itself needless to say the plight of the entire citizenry is also of great concern. The lockdowns or community quarantines waged by the government to contain the virus and to avoid possible further local transmission is no way different from the load burdening the people of God.

We have seen suffering in many faces, the street dwellers getting arrested for loitering around and not having a shelter, the senior citizens queuing to markets and grocery stores for long hours only to find out everything was amassed by hoarders, the families who may not afford to hoard or buy something for the day because they were not able to save money just because they did not have stable jobs before the lockdown, the people who struggle to go and sell their crops despite the threats just to have something to eat, the children who by now cry in desperate need for food and many more.

In the midst of all these miseries, we will most certainly come to the point of asking, Where is God through all these?

Is he punishing us?

Is he letting his people die?

Is he not able to control this pandemic?

Has he turned a blind eye to these sufferings?

Has he turned deaf?

While the image of a punitive God is spread all around the old testament; God punishing Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19) for their grave sins, punishing the Egyptians for enslaving Israelites (Exodus 9), Job felt he was being tested and punished by God the he says: "He opens their ear to instruction, And commands that they return from evil.” (Job 36:10) and many more.

Old Testmanent has portrayed God as a Father disciplining his Children (Proverbs 3:11-12). Deuteronomy 8:5 exhorts "Thus you are to know in your heart that the LORD your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son.” The Book of Psalms are prayers about the appeasement of God’s wrath and they are also words to console the stricken humanity. Psalm 118:18 speaks “The LORD has disciplined me severely, But He has not given me over to death.” This imaging of God in the Old Testament of course finds its ultimate foundation in the vanishing of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden as the punishment for the fall (Genesis 3). The first punishment of God to humanity is vanishment, the withholding of his countenance from us.

But the wrath of the punitive God in the Old Testament has been completely wiped out in Jesus Christ for “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Ephesians 5:2. The vanishment of Adam and Eve has become a communion in Christ. The Punishment of God has been wiped out forever by the Cross.

Because of Christ on the Cross, there is no such thing as punishment anymore. The Cross is the eternal punishment that has paid everything for us. Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s Mercy, he is the eternal payment.

This Eternal Payment to the sinfulness of humanity, your sins and mine, is a victim. On the Cross, Jesus is not the superhero but the super victim; bruised, condemned, broken and crucified. This Eternal Payment is a helpless God. A helpless God…A Super victim. (Villegas)

When we doubt his divinity, when we doubt his love for us remember that at Good Friday he is a helpless God.

Bruised…

Broken…

Killed…

Butchered…

God can saved humanity from Corona Virus in an instant. He is all powerful. But remember that he could have saved human race from sin in an instant and take the cup of suffering from Christ but he did not. He did not.

The self-emptying act of God belongs to his infinite capacity to be glorious, to be great, to be full, to be wonderful, to be powerful, and to be highest of all. But he also has the capacity to empty himself. We call this the Kenosis. The Self-emptying love. “Jesus, who though in the form of God did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at. Rather he emptied himself and took the form of a slave being born in human likeness.” (Philippians 2:5-7).

God wanted human participation in the economy of Salvation because by then it would raise up our dignity and pride as humanity. The for instance this analogy:

A prisoner would find pride in himself when he breaks out from the prison cell on his own merit than when, say, someone else opened the prison doors for him. This prisoner, who has no fault and is unlike the rest of the prisoner is the one who restores the dignity of the rest of the prisoners.

Christ, who is without fault, was imprisoned into human condition to be the one who sets human race free. He is the human participation in the economy of salvation. And in his participation, he became a man, a helpless God.

God has the capacity to end this pandemic but remember that human beings had the capacity not to create the virus on the first place. It was humanity which caused the disarray of the order of creation. It was humanity, with his enormous capacity for discoveries and freedom that opted alter the course of history. And it is well within the capacity of human beings to choose who to lead them through it and emerge victorious.

The war against COVID-19 could be won by God easily. But this war, just like other wars requires human participation, human innovation, human concern for one another, rightful human decisions and rational human leaderships.

So where is God?

He is at the frontlines of this battle, inviting us to put on a fight and confront this pandemic head on with him.

Shall we win this fight for God and for the human race? Let us!