Madeleine L'Engle

I read A Severed Wasp by Madeleine L'Engle and I thought this passage was really interesting and thought provoking...


(setting: the main character is listening to her friend Felix preach...)

"The psalmist sings that he has never seen the good man forsaken, nor his children begging for bread. But good men and their children go hungry every day. And we come to the ancient question: If God is good, why do the wicked flourish, and the innocent suffer? They do; the wicked flourish, and children die for malnutrition or drugs; there is continuing war and disease and untimely death, and we cry out, Why?!
"And God answers by coming to live with us, to limit himself willingly in the flesh of a human child-how can that be? The power that created the stars in their courses contained in an infant? an infant come to live with us, grow for us, die for us, and on the third day rise again from the dead for us.
"And what did this incredible sacrifice accomplish? Nothing. On the surface, nothing at all. More than half the world is starving. The planet is torn apart by wars, half of them in the name of religion. We have surely done more harm throughout Christendom in the name of Christ than we have done good. Rape and murder and crimes of violence increase. We are still grieving over the tragic death of Bishop Juxon. So what is it all about? How can it possibly matter?
"I don't know how it matters; I only know that it does, that when we suffer, God suffers, and he will never abandon the smallest fragment of his creation. He suffered with us during his sojourn as Jesus of Nazareth. And from the moment of Creation on, he suffers when any part of his creation suffers. Daily I add to his suffering and only occasionally to his gladness. But he will not give up on me, no now, not after my mortal death. He will not give up on any of us, untitl we have become what he meant us to be.
"I know this. I do not know how it will be done, but I know that it will be. I know that my Redeemer Lives, and that I shall see him face to face. Amen"