Are You There Lord? ...

When I was a young child we all went to the public school to get a Polio vaccine embedded in a sugar cube. All the other vaccines involved needles. The sugar cube vaccine was my favorite. A few years later my mother would point me to children the ages of my older sisters who were in leg braces. She explained, “They had polio.” I did not understand that at the time.

Today we have a very different plague. I don’t know that we’ve had anything like it since the polio scare. Perhaps that is not even a good comparison. I recall comments about the 1918 flu pandemic from older family members. Before vaccines and modern medicine there was less we could do when people fell ill. There was less we could do to avoid illness, or reduce its severity.

In these times it is easy to ask, “Are You There Lord?” We sometimes ask that in other crises as well. Deaths, illness, wrecks all can cause one to ponder.

I find it helps me to know that instead of taking away all our pains, God becomes one of us and shares our pains. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. God became a sinless human being who is subject even to death. God identifies with us in Christ.

Yes, Jesus dies for our sins. Yes, Jesus is risen to conquer death and assure us the resurrection of the body is real. Yes, Jesus is coming again and will usher in a New Heaven and New Earth.

Yet, at times of pain and loss His great empathy for us, empathy seen in the incarnation, provides great comfort when we are struggling. We have a God who knows what we are going through. In Christ He identifies with us and all our emotions.

(Editor’s Note: This column is written by a different Littlefield pastor for the Leader-News each week. The columns are published on this page on Wednesdays.)