When I was in seminary, I spent a year serving under a chaplain at one of the major hospitals in Atlanta. Once a week I had to walk past the halls of the neonatal intensive care unit. More than once I wondered: where is God?

Maybe you have looked at the suffering of the world around you and wondered the same thing.

John begins his gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh and lived among us." (John 1:1, 14)

And this Word hungered, and thirsted, and bled, and died.

This speaks to a mystery at the heart of the Christian faith — that God was fully present in Jesus.

It's hard to get my mind around that. But there is something beautiful in it.

Last week I mentioned Jesus' last words from the cross in the Gospel of John: It is finished…

Even after years of study, I admit there are aspects of our theology around the cross I don't fully understand. But I hold this close to my heart: we worship a God who knows what it is to suffer — who, in Christ on that cross, is forever with us in our suffering.

God is with those who serve on the front lines, in refugee camps and war zones. God is with the mother holding her child in the ICU. God is with the lonely, the hungry, the heartbroken.

I'm reminded again of Jesus' last words. No longer can we think we suffer alone. That way of thinking is finished.

Prayer: We thank you for your love for us, O God. We thank you for becoming as we are, for walking as we walk, suffering as we suffer. Be near to the brokenhearted and to those who need you most. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

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