There are no easy answers to the suffering in the world. I have plenty of questions for God when His Kingdom – a new heaven and a new earth – is completely realised. What I do know with all my heart, though, is that there’s a reason we call the Christian story: the Good News. There’s a reason I tell anyone who wants to hear why this Easter season is so life-changing. That reason is a person – Jesus Christ. God identifies with all our pain and suffering because his Son Jesus suffered the worst that humanity could throw at him on that first Good Friday. He suffered that unspeakable death on the cross so that each one of us might have the opportunity to know God intimately and live lives of true freedom and justice. As my friend and former Archbishop Rowan Williams writes: ‘..wherever you are, however lost you are, however much darkness there is around you, you have not gone beyond the reach of God.’
For me, what we remember about Jesus this Easter changed everything. His death on the cross and glorious resurrection gave to mankind a true and certain hope for the future. Not just a hope, but a promise. A promise that one day all will be well. As Revelation 21: 4 declares: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” I’m holding Jesus to that promise. It’s the only hope that I have.
There’s a beautiful scene at the end of the latest live action Disney blockbuster, Beauty and the Beast. As the curse is lifted on the beast and he is turned back into a prince, his palace is slowly bathed in a new and wonderful sunlight. Friends and family are reunited. That which has been broken is fixed. It’s a picture of resurrection and for me, what the Kingdom of Heaven will be like. It reminds me that one day all will be well. All will be restored by the God who loves us.