Justice and Unjust Suffering
Getting stopped for speeding is painful. It brings out all the excuses (hopefully just in your head): “I was just keeping up with traffic – I only look fast because of my De Tomaso Pantera’s Italianate styling.” “It’s hard to read a speedometer that goes to 200 mph.” Or the just-plain-dumb “My throttle cable needs to be calibrated.” It’s best to drop the excuses and take your lashes.
But what if people around you were actually going faster or driving more recklessly? What if it doesn’t seem fair? Perhaps speeding hits close to home. Maybe someone you loved was killed by a speeding driver who got away, and now you’re getting a fine for going just 10 mph over. Where’s the justice?
These are the questions that have troubled human hearts for generations. Why do bad things happen to good people, anyway? And how could a loving God allow so much injustice and pain in the world?
If you find yourself wrestling with these questions, perhaps the best resource in the Bible is someone else’s similar wrestling. The full range of human emotions can be found in the Psalms, especially emotions relating to just and unjust suffering:
Angrily invoking God’s wrath on “bad people:” “Declare them guilty, O God! Let their intrigues be their downfall. Banish them for their many sins, for they have rebelled against you.” (Psalm 5:10)
Impatiently waiting for God’s action: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?” (Psalm 13:1-2)
Fear, because maybe you’re not much better than that “bad people” out there: “Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you.” (Psalm 143:2)
The inner battle between thoughts (God is just and hears my cry) and emotions (…but I feel like he’s ignoring me): “O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.” (Psalm 22:2-3)
Psalm 22 was a wrestle that was relevant enough to be quoted by Jesus during his greatest suffering. It begins with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” yet asserts God’s justice over everything.
Because, after all, God’s justice is the only hope you can have. When you feel angry at injustice, your sense of right and wrong has been offended. Yet God’s sense of right and wrong is even more accurate and more powerful, and he’s planning a judgment that will restore righteousness to the people he loves. This is comforting in a spiritual and even intellectual way, but if your heart still hurts, keep reading the wrestling of the psalmist (and later, Jesus) in Psalm 22:
“I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel! For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.” (Psalm 22:22-24)
Praise? Thanks? Of course. The Bible strongly urges thankfulness throughout the period of wrestling with your thoughts and emotions, because thankfulness puts your heart in the right place to begin to understand the role of punishment or suffering.
You can be thankful for:
God’s accurate, divine understanding of justice. Because the other option is a moral justice determined by humans. As countless political bodies have proven, that’s probably not a good option.
Temporary punishment that acts as a correction. Some of the wisest people look at consequences and see life lessons.
Temporary punishment that kept you from hurting someone or hurting yourself (even the 12-step tradition thanks God (or a “Higher Power”) for “sparing me the full consequences of my past.”), in this case, finding yourself between the 351-cubic-inch Cleveland V8 powering your De Tomaso Pantera and the brick wall/traffic divider/vehicle it rocketed you into.
The eternal justice that spares you from eternal separation from God, which is far worse than a traffic violation.
Gratitude, praise, and thanksgiving are central to the Bible’s teachings on human suffering. It’s even in the Psalms, although the Psalmist sometimes goes through a bit of wrestling before getting there. Ah, that’s one more thing to be thankful for: the experience of countless other Christ-followers who have also suffered, and the community that encourages discussion on these topics so no one has to suffer alone.
Any De Tomaso Pantera is capable of serious speed – 10 lbs/horsepower will do that – but cars sold in Wyoming, Nevada, and Montana markets were actually configured differently, since those states all had stretches of lonely highways without speed limits. Technically, you could take your Pantera to one of those highways and enjoy 150-mph speeds without legal consequences. Of course, that only leaves you with your own sense of morality to protect you from other consequences.
