The One Time God Did Not Help

The One Time God Did Not Help

In the wake of recent tragedies and circumstances, it seems that more individuals than ever have questioned how an omniscient and benevolent God could somehow be the Supreme Governor of such a wicked and failing world.  Particularly during this Christmas season, it seems increasingly difficult for the world to accept the existence of a Prince of Peace, when “peace” increasingly seems like an unreachable utopian ideal – marred by wars and “rumors of war”.  Indeed, the choruses of today seem to echo those of yesterdays, in singing the old familiar words, “… hate is strong and mocks the song, of peace on earth and good will to men.”  It is in this world of withering hope that hopelessness has taken root, springing forth into the puzzled and sometimes emphatic questions – “Where was God when _______ happened?” or “Why didn’t  God help?” 

I don’t think it is appropriate for these questions to not be seriously considered, when the circumstances of so many who ask them are serious and have driven them to honestly contemplate their relation to the cosmos.  In considering these many events, it is my personal testimony that God is always there and though sometimes not immediately realized by us, He is always helpful.  Sometimes that help takes the form of immediate providential intervention, but more often, it seems to take the more subtle form of divine guidance and inspiration, of comforting reassurance, or of perhaps consciously allowing us to grow and experience the chisels of mortality, which shape us into something better than we knew we were capable of becoming.  However, to be fair to the critics, there was indeed one time when God stayed his omnipotent hand, and did not help someone desperately in need.

A recent personal experience illustrated poignantly to me personally something about that one moment in time.  Our little Jonathan is now just more than a year and a half old.  He has brought immense joy and light to our lives, and I am particularly convinced that he possesses attributes and characteristics which I did not teach him as his father, but were instilled in him by the Father of us all.  He is especially slow to anger but quick to forgive and forget.  Jonny is an especially peaceful and compassionate child, and there is not a day which passes that I do not feel exceedingly blessed not only for my relationship with Jonny, but for the simple yet significant lessons he so often teaches me.

Recently, my wife Anisa and I traveled to our local pediatrician, knowing that this visit would culminate in Jonny receiving several immunizations.  Jonny was the perfect little patient, and cooperated with everything the physician asked him to do perfectly.  We were such proud parents as we watched our little Jonny boy not only behave ideally, but also show off all of the impressive things he had learned.  However, I personally was not as happy as my son, as I was pained by my understanding of the pain he would soon feel but was completely oblivious to.  When the time came to receive his four shots, my wife and I helped to hold Jonny’s little arms and legs as the nurse quickly administered the painful pricks.  Jonny’s lips quivered as he screamed in terror.  Tears welled up in my own eyes as he seemed to look at us questioningly, wondering what he had done to somehow deserve such unexpected pain. 

There is not a time I have had this experience that I am not reminded of another Father and Son, who together undertook the sacred and supreme act known as the Atonement.  Unlike the rest of us, the babe born in Bethlehem never lost his innocence, but was, as the scripture teaches “a lamb without blemish or fault of any kind.”  His great sacrifice for mankind began long before his Earthly appearance.  Christ, the Jehovah of the Old Testament, would become the Messiah of the New, inaugurating his atoning mission with the selfless and sacrificial words, “Here am I.  Send me.”  Can any parent who has experienced the anxiety and emotional turmoil of their child leaving home, imagine the tears or emotions Heavenly Father must have felt as He would send His Only Begotten Son into the world?  Certainly He who knows the end from the beginning must have known what it would mean for His precious and chosen Son to tread the winepress alone.  Nevertheless, Jehovah the Son of Elohim, condescended to become Jesus, the son of a Carpenter.

On earth He walked the streets of Palestine, healing the sick, raising the dead, and causing the blind to see.  He went about doing good, yet was despised for it.  These acts would foreshadow the healing power which would be made available to all mankind as a result of the single supernal act we call the Atonement. 

                In Gethsemane, Jesus Christ entered a grove of olive trees called Gethsemane, which in Hebrew literally means “oil press”.  It was here, where olives had been bruised and beaten for their oil, that Christ, the greatest of all, would lay prostrate upon the ground, His body wrenching in unspeakable pain and agony.  It was here that He, even God the greatest of all, trembled because of pain and would that He might not partake of the bitter cup and shrink – but nevertheless He did partake.  While his Earthly counterparts lay sleeping, an angel did appear, strengthening Him.  Here, Jesus took upon Himself all of the pains, sicknesses, and infirmities of the world, the crushing blow of which caused Him to bleed from every pore.  His unique parentage allowed Him to feel as a man would feel, but endure as only a God could do.  Though this pain and suffering is incomprehensible to the mind of man, the Father did give His son needed help through the suffering.  Thus, Christ’s great atoning sacrifice began with the Father and Son making it through the night – together.

                Jesus would then arise from drinking the dregs of the bitter cup, only to be betrayed by one of his few Earthly friends.  Others would then mock Him, scorn Him, and spit upon Him.  Their foul saliva would run down His beautiful face – a face which was in the express image of the Father who had sent Him.  He was then beaten – beaten with forty stripes save one, the maximum legal punishment inflicted by the Romans.  Yet Christ, the great lawgiver, was without sin, and was led away as a common criminal according to their foul and adulterated interpretation of the very law He was author of.  Despised and rejected of men, He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter.  As Christ was literally bruised for our iniquities and wounded for our transgressions, He did not so much as utter a word of complaint or retribution.  He literally followed His own admonition to turn the other cheek.  Jesus, who had stilled the might tempests with three words, surely had power to destroy his oppressors, but as a lamb before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.  Surely God wept to witness such wickedness as His Son who had done no wrong was treated so grossly and wrongfully by the people He sought to save.  However, we have no reason to believe that the Father was not with His sinless Son even in these moments, for the time had not yet arrived in which the Savior would face His great and final challenge in mortality.

                Christ would struggle to uphold the weighty implement of His own death as He ascended Golgotha, the place of a skull, to be crucified.  He who had not where to lay His head, found a place between two criminals, and even in this moment of great torment, continued to minister as He assured one of those criminals that He would find a place with Him in paradise.  And then it happened.  Jesus the Christ again felt the crushing pain He had felt in Gethsemane, but this time, there was no angel to strengthen Him.  God did not help, for He could not.  This reality was vocalized by the words of the Son himself, who cried, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  The only being who had never sinned, would now know what it was like for even the most distant sinner to experience the pains and anguish of iniquity, for no man could ever say they had somehow gone too far to escape the scope of the Savior’s understanding.  His empathy was earned, and He would know how to succor His people even when they had distanced themselves from the rescuing help of His Father, so as to be able to incessantly ensure all men “my hand is stretched out still.”  Jesus suffered alone so that we would never have to. 

                This is the one time God did not help.  At least He did not help His Only Begotten Son, who had volunteered himself before the foundations of the world to be the final sacrificial lamb.  Surely legions of angels awaited the command to rescue the suffering Son of God, but the Father and Son knew that even they could not save us.  The Atonement of Jesus Christ was a one man mission. 

I cannot claim to comprehend the complete majesty and significance of this great supernal act.  However, as a father looking into the eyes of his trembling, suffering son, I believe I have grown to understand it just a little better.  I believe I have grown to have greater appreciation for the pain and anguish our Great Heavenly Parent must have felt as He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.  Because of this great truth, God is always with us – ready to help.  Surely as He calls us to come unto Him and follow Him, he is running to meet us and lift us.  I know these things to be true through the gift and power of the Holy Ghost.  And it is because of my witness of the reality of this event, that at this Christmas season, I declare with words of soberness and sincerity, “God is not dead, nor doth he sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on earth, good will to men.”