Devil's Advocate

Devil’s Advocate

Mark 15:33-37

February 9, 2020 • Mount Pleasant UMC

Bertrand Russell was one of the most famous atheists in the last century, and he would often engage people about issues of faith, particularly Christian faith. At a party once, when he was ninety, Russell was talking with a woman and eventually, as it usually did, the conversation turned to faith and belief. “Mr. Russell,” the woman said, “you are not only the world’s most famous atheist; you are maybe the world’s oldest atheist. You will die soon. What will you do if, after you die, it turns out that God exists? What will you do if you come face-to-face with this God whom you’ve defied your whole life long?” Russell said he would point his finger at God and say, “You, sir, gave us insufficient evidence!” (Ortberg, Know Doubt, pg. 105).

Insufficient evidence. Most of us probably don’t think about needing evidence from God until a difficult time comes along. When I was a kid, one of our playmates was a boy named Matt. He lived just outside of town and we would ride our bikes to his house or he would rise to ours; we also went to the same church. Until the unthinkable happened. Matt’s dad was killed in an accident in the woods, and Matt and his mom Carol withdrew from everyone and everything. Matt didn’t come over to play anymore and they no longer came to our church. I later learned that Carol loudly blamed God for her husband’s death and no matter what anyone said or what happened, she could not forgive God. She couldn’t believe in a God who would take away her husband so suddenly. Carol’s problem wasn’t necessarily insufficient evidence; in her mind it was strong evidence against God.

Doubt. It creeps up on all of us. Last week we began this series of sermons on doubt and as I said then, doubt is not the enemy of faith. Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Unbelief is the opposite of faith. Doubt is often what spurs us on to greater and deeper faith if we will let it, though sometimes that path is a long one. Often the path is not clear from the beginning. John Ortberg says, “Honest doubt is the devil’s advocate that honest faith requires” (103). And sometimes that “honest doubt,” that “devil’s advocate,” is experienced through God’s strange silence. It’s that silence we’re going to look at today, through the lens of the crucifixion of Jesus.

Mark is the shortest of the Gospels, probably the first one written, and he usually gives us just the basics of what we need to know, but none of the Gospels give us much detail when it comes to the crucifixion. Most of what we think we know about this horrible form of execution comes from other historical sources (and, oddly enough, from the Old Testament) because the Gospel writers all know that their first readers already know the horror of crucifixion. It’s been said that no one painted a picture of the crucifixion until everyone who had actually seen one had died, it was that horrific to look at. No one who lived then wanted a picture of it on their wall. Basically, all any of the Gospel writers say about Jesus is, “And they crucified him” (15:24). In the movies, there is always dramatic music, swirling clouds and maybe even thunder and lightning. But do you notice that in the actual Gospel accounts, there is none of that? No thunder. No lightning. No fits of rage in the heavens. In fact, Mark tells us the most prominent thing about the day was the three hours of darkness. And, most likely, when it got really dark, it got really quiet. As I listen to what the text actually tells me, I tend to picture something more along the lines of absolute stillness, absolute silence. Maybe a groan or two here and there from the three men on the crosses, but otherwise, it’s a horrific and frightening scene outside the walls of Jerusalem. Silence and darkness, for three hours (cf. Card. Mark: The Gospel of Passion, pg. 183).

Now, I thought we might try to experience that this morning: turn off the lights and sit in silence for three hours. But then I was afraid you would all sneak out or doze off. So let’s try it for just thirty seconds. We’re going to turn off the stage lights and make it mostly dark in here and ask you not to say anything or get up and move for thirty seconds.

THIRTY SECONDS OF SILENCE & DARKNESS

Now, as painful as that was, imagine that for three hours. And add to that the pain Jesus is experiencing as he hangs on the cross—nails through his wrists and feet, unable to breathe, hanging naked before a solemn and silent crowd. And the worst part of all—silence from God the Father. Jesus is God the Son, and with the Father and the Spirit, he has existed from eternity. The Trinity is a perfect community—one God, three persons, in eternal communication and fellowship. That’s about as good as I can explain it, because it defies explanation—but then again, if we could understand God fully, we wouldn’t need God, right? So, try to picture this: the God who has forever been one is somehow…not at this moment. God the Father somehow turns his back on God the Son. For how long we don’t know. Was it for the entire three hours? Could it have been for the whole six hours of the crucifixion? Was it just for a moment? We don’t really know, but it was enough that it caused Jesus, in his native Aramaic language, to break the silence. At the end of the three hours, Mark tells us, Jesus cries out “in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’” Mark thankfully translates for us: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (15:34). Jesus is quoting Psalm 22, but this is a long quote for someone who can barely breathe. Imagine the strength it took for Jesus to shout this out. He wants us to hear him. He wants those standing near to understand him. Now, some preachers will say that Jesus was using a metaphor here, that it isn’t possible for the Father to actually forsake the Son. But Jesus is in the worst pain anyone can imagine at this point. He doesn’t have time, energy or desire to resort to metaphor. And I’m just one of those crazy guys who thinks that maybe Jesus said what he really meant, that what he said was true. And what was true is this: somehow, in some way we don’t understand, God the Father turned his back on God the Son. Jesus was alone. Jesus experienced the silence of God. It’s horrifying to contemplate, but the question that haunts me in this story is this: if it happened to Jesus, why should I think that it won’t happen to me? Why do I think I would be exempt from the silence of God?

Sometimes we experience the silence of God because we lack of proof of God’s existence. That’s what Bertrand Russell was getting at. We might also experience it through unanswered questions. I mentioned last week how Steve Jobs was put off from faith because of starving children around the world. He had questions that no one in his faith community wanted to deal with and his choice was to walk away. Agnes made a different choice. Agnes had fallen deeply in love with Jesus, and early in her journal, she wrote things like, “My soul at present is in perfect peace and joy.” She left her home and became a missionary. She gave everything she had to God—and then God left her. Or at least it seemed that way. For the next fifty years, with one notable exception, Agnes tried everything she knew and prayed every prayer she could to try to sense God’s presence, but she could not. She wrote in her journal about the spiritual dryness and how much she missed God, but she continued to serve. There were days she felt like she was “faking it,” but she continued to serve because she knew the goodness of God. Even in his apparent silence, even in the midst of her questions of where God had gone, she knew he was good. Agnes lived most of her life in the silence of God, and when this was discovered after her death, her journals became a source of inspiration to many who finally found they could admit to experiencing that same silence. Agnes, or as she’s better known, Mother Teresa, came to realize that her craving for God was evidence that he was still there. Never doubt in the darkness what God has shown you in the light. He may be silent, but he is still there. Honest doubt is the devil’s advocate that honest faith requires (cf. Ortberg 104-109).

A second way we engage with the silence of God is through the problem of evil. It is the question humanity has wrestled with since at least the time of Job in the Old Testament, and actually probably from the time of creation. It is obvious there is pain and suffering in the world. Children go to bed hungry, people suffer from cancer and even worse diseases, young people die before they begin to live, the world suffers from so-called “natural disasters,” and on and on we could go. Then there are those things that people do for which there is no other word than “evil.” And into those situations, someone inevitably steps and asks a question like this: “If God is all-loving and all-powerful and all-good, why is there so much suffering and so much pain?” Why doesn’t God step in and just end it all? Why doesn’t God just make it all better? It’s fascinating to me that this question is sort of just a Christian problem. Other faiths have other ways to deal with it. Hinduism, for instance, just says that any suffering you go through is simply “bad karma” left over from your previous life. So your suffering is your fault, or the former you’s fault. In Buddhism, suffering and pain are an illusion; it you were truly enlightened, pain would not affect you. You would just rise above it. But for the Christian, we have to deal with this question. Sometimes it seems like God ignores our pain. Why doesn’t he fix it (cf. Ortberg 113-115)?

To answer that, we have to turn back to the cross, to the place and the time when Jesus experienced hell. The common image for hell is tongues of fire and flames burning everywhere, but that image owes more to Dante’s epic poem The Divine Comedy than it does to Scripture. The only clear definition of hell in the Bible is the absence of God. Hell is where God is not, and hell is the punishment for sin. When we steadfastly refuse to turn from our sin, we choose an eternity without God. Whatever else it may be, hell is the absence of God, and I should point out that God does not send people to hell. We choose to go there or not. We choose to absent ourselves from God’s presence or to be in God’s presence. C. S. Lewis put it this way: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell” (The Great Divorce). On the cross, Jesus chose to experience hell. In those three hours of darkness, sin in its most undiluted form penetrates his soul until he becomes sin itself (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus, the Son of God, stands under the judgment of God, for you and for me. God forsakes him when he becomes sin for us, because God hides his face from hell (cf. Card 183; McKenna, Communicator’s Commentary: Mark, pg. 316).

The cross is proof that Jesus suffers with you and me. God is not an “unmoved” force; he is in the suffering and in the pain with you. Though he may seem silent, he is not far away. In the cross, he took on himself all the pain and the sin and the brokenness so that it will not forever affect us, so that he could stand with us in the suffering. In the silence, in the suffering of the cross, God is doing his best work. He is saving the world in the suffering of Jesus. Now, I can’t begin to explain exactly how all that works, nor do the Gospel writers really try to explain it. They just tell us that’s how it is. And they tell us there is nothing God won’t or can’t redeem. Because he gives us free will, suffering does come. Pain happens. But in every situation, God is there and he will not abandon us. He does not stand far off and watch us suffer; he holds us in the pain. The cross reminds us that suffering can be redeemed, that hope can come. Because Jesus was forsaken, you don’t have to be. Jesus went through hell so that we don’t have to.

So what do we do when it seems God is silent? The faithful through the ages have done what we in our day and age seem unable or more likely unwilling to do: we hold on through the silence. Jesus didn’t stop talking to the Father just because it seemed he was silent; he stayed in the conversation. He quoted the psalms and cried out in a loud voice. He used every bit of strength he had to hold on. Well, yeah, we say, but he was the Son of God. Yes, he was, but he was also fully human. If anyone was going to despair over the silence of God, it should have been him. After all, he knew more than anyone else ever did or ever will what the presence of God is like. Still, he held on. He prayed. He stayed in the conversation. Or maybe we need a more “down-to-earth” example? Then do what Mother Teresa did. When it seemed God was silent, she stayed in the conversation by continuing to serve. She wiped faces, she picked up lepers, she cared for “the least of these” because she knew that’s what Jesus would do. She continued to pour our her heart to God, even though she didn’t feel like he was there because she knew he was. Her feelings did not dictate her actions; what she knew of God directed her. She held on, she stayed connected to the community of faith and she trusted the one who had saved her. She didn’t understand the silence, but she also didn’t demand an explanation. She trusted God and what he was doing in and through her. When we’re faced with the silence of God, our call is to hold on through the silence, to trust God and refuse to let go. And we may need to let someone else be strong for us. That’s part of what Pastor Rick was talking about a couple of weeks ago. One reason for being part of a small group is that, when the doubt comes and the silence seems deafening, we have others who will be strong for us when we can’t be. We need people in our lives who will remind us that the worst thing is never the last thing and that even in the shadow of the cross, the hope of resurrection is guaranteed.

Still people want to use the presence of evil and God’s apparent silence as evidence that he does not exist. John Ortberg tells about a friend of his named Sheryl, who one day was at a salon having her nails manicured. As she and the beautician began to talk, the conversation turned toward matters of faith and God’s existence. The beautician said, “I don’t believe God exists.” When Sheryl asked why, the woman replied, “You just have to go out on the street to realize God doesn’t exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can’t imagine a loving God who could allow all these things.” Sheryl didn’t want to start an argument, so she didn’t respond. The beautician finished her job and Sheryl paid and left the shop.

Back out on the sidewalk, Sheryl saw a woman who was filthy and had long, stringy, dirty hair. After looking at the woman for a moment, Sheryl went back into the beauty shop. “You know what?” she said. “Beauticians do not exist.” The beautician was somewhat amused. “How can you say that?” she asked Sheryl. “I am here. I just worked on you. I exist.” Sheryl said, “No, beauticians do not exist, because if they did, there would be no people with dirty, long hair and appearing very unkempt like that woman outside!”

The beautician answered, “Ah, but beauticians do exist. The problem is, people do not come to me.” Exactly (Ortberg 117-118). Sheryl’s point was made for her. The problem is not that God doesn’t exist. The problem is that people don’t come to him. We do everything we can to ignore him. And he won’t force his way into our lives. He waits for us to come to him.

Now, let me add one more practical word here: if someone feels like God is silent in their lives currently, it does not help to tell them why you think that is. Many years ago, I shared from the pulpit one Sunday that I had been experiencing a spiritually dry time and I learned two things from that time of sharing. One, people generally don’t want to hear that their pastor is struggling and two, other people have all sorts of ideas as to what you did wrong to cause the silence, the dryness. I received an email that week telling me all the ways in which I had caused God’s silence in my life. Now, that person might have had some points, but what would have been more helpful, and the Biblical model, is that we walk with the person who is struggling. There was nothing anyone could do to change the silence Jesus experienced on the cross; what he needed, even what he had needed the night before in the garden of Gethsemane, was just for someone to be there, to pray with him, to watch and wait (cf. Mark 14:32-42). I think that’s our calling for our friends who are going through a spiritually difficult time: watch, pray and wait. Walk with them; don’t judge them. Believe me, they’re probably doing enough judging of themselves! Watch. Wait. Pray. Be there. 

According to Mark’s account, after the soldiers abused Jesus all they could, he took his last breath and died. In part of the passage we didn’t read this morning, there are several things that happen. The curtain of the temple is torn from top to bottom; there’s a whole sermon in that single event. But it’s the next thing that happens which draws my attention this morning. Mark says that a centurion, a Roman soldier, one of those who had helped crucify Jesus, sees how Jesus dies and he says, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (15:39). This is a battle-hardened soldier, “used to killing humans the way one might kill flies” (Wright 216). He has sworn an oath of loyalty to his emperor, a man who goes by the title “Son of God.” It’s possible he has been with Jesus and the other two men ever since the chief priests turned Jesus over the Roman authorities. It’s likely he saw how Jesus responded at every turn: as he was falsely accused, unfairly condemned, brutally beaten, then mocked and humiliated as he walked from the palace to Skull Hill. Perhaps he helped actually nail Jesus to the cross, but most certainly he has watched as Jesus spoke brief sentences from the cross, as he was mocked by passersby, and as he suffered through the intense silence. This soldier stands there, probably covered in blood from the three men he helped to execute (Card 184; McKenna 317-318) and his attention is unswervingly drawn to the man in the middle, the one who stayed faithful through the silence. When he saw the way in which Jesus died, the Roman centurion believed: “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (15:39). As N. T. Wright puts it, “The Roman centurion becomes the first sane human being in Mark’s gospel to call Jesus God’s Son, and mean it” (Wright 216). And if a Roman centurion, who witnessed brutality and suffering in ways we can’t imagine—if he can believe in a good God, what holds us back?

Maybe there are some here this morning who feel like God has been silent. Maybe it’s something that’s happened fairly recently, or maybe it has been a long time. I’m not going to ask you for a show of hands, so relax. But I do want to lead us in a time of prayer, listening prayer, that will hopefully quiet our souls and allow us to listen for God. Sometimes, I believe, it’s not that God isn’t speaking; it’s that we’re too busy and our world is too noisy for us to hear. But whatever the situation is, I know that our approach must be to stay in the conversation and to learn a deeper trust. So, we’re going to spend a bit of time in prayer, even in some silence, and if coming up front to the kneeling pads is helpful for you, you’re invited to do that. If you want someone to pray with you, as always there are prayer team members available who would be glad to do that; just either ask them or put your hand up and someone will come to pray with you. But whether you choose to pray in your seat or here at the steps, I invite you to place your hands, open palms up, in your lap as a sign of being ready and willing to receive whatever God has to give you this morning. So let’s go to God in a spirit and attitude of prayer.