is an evil, or that often life seems cruel or pointless. But we do not believe that these things are all there is. We believe that God is stronger than death, and that he is with us in all of these events, even the most horrible. We believe, in fact, that God entered into our human life in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, a man like us who lived two thousand years ago, but who in a real but incomprehensible way was also truly God: God-withus. He was God walking with his people, a living and breathing sign that God is On Our Side. Jesus was tortured and put to death, but by taking these things – pain, abandonment and death – upon himself, he changed them forever. He broke death into pieces, and rose again to a life that was richer and more full than the one he had laid down. And this new life – this resurrected life, this life-beyond-the-tomb, this life that death cannot master – he offers to us, now, in all the little deaths and sufferings we experience day by day. Death and suffering are still real, but they are not meaningless. God is there, giving us a life that cannot be destroyed by them. Christians believe that just as Jesus took on death and suffering for our sake – and thus transformed them into a means of giving life to the world – so we, too, can present our own sufferings and pain and loss to God, trusting that in some unknown way he will take them to himself and use them to bring life to the world. At the heart of the world, and of our life in it, is a God who is love, and who loves us. 6
Prayer on the go.indd 6
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