Dear Friends,

God was starving to the point of death. God was beaten. God’s very bones were exposed.

There must have been a reason.

.

I don’t believe in that God either

There’s an atheist meme that shows God sitting in a La-Z-Boy up in heaven, watching human suffering on a TV screen and eating popcorn. Atheists willing to send a meme like this to a Christian may not realize that such a meme only weakens their argument….because it completely sidesteps one of the central themes of Christianity, namely, a God Who is a suffering Savior.

Don’t believe in a God who aloofly consumes human suffering as entertainment? Cool! I don’t believe in that God either.

If this isn’t street cred, I don’t know what is

I have been asking you for the past few months, my friends, to give God some credit. Don’t demand detailed explanations for those gut-wrenching instances of human suffering before you are willing to follow Jesus as your Lord and drink His living water. Instead, accept those unanswered questions, for now, in light of the credit He has so undeniably earned.

We’re saving the crucifixion itself for later, but today, we’re going to look at instances of physical suffering in Jesus’s life which make it clear that Jesus loves us, independently of whether we can explain why God suffers a parasite to get into a child’s eye and blind him.

Jesus, the God-man, didn’t come down here to sit in a La-Z-Boy, eat popcorn, and watch us suffer. Oh, He did come down to consume something; not a bowl of salty, buttery popcorn, but the Cup of the Holy Father’s wrath against sin.

[Mat 26:42 KJV] 42 He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.

As we look at the extreme suffering that Jesus endured, we should ask ourselves…is Jesus Christ a far-off popcorn God or a very present God?

Autophagy

Descriptions of what happens to the human body as it starves to death are not pleasant to read…and that’s the whole point.

[Mat 4:2 KJV] 2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

As an aside: You know those agonizing pictures of starving children you have seen on TV or online? I hadn’t thought about this before, but that’s probably what Jesus looked like after 40 days of fasting. This is no popcorn God we are dealing with.

Death has occurred after 45-61 days of starvation in at least some cases (1). So, Jesus’s forty day fast was quickly closing in on the terminal phase. I won’t go into all the gory details, but one thing that happens in starvation is that the body begins to consume itself in a process known as autophagy. In the later stages, even the heart is on the menu; in turn, heart failure can be the actual cause of death by starvation (1).

Stop for a moment and ponder the irony with me. The One Who owns the cattle on a thousand hills…

[Psa 50:10-12 KJV] 10 For every beast of the forest [is] mine, [and] the cattle upon a thousand hills. 11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field [are] mine. 12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world [is] mine, and the fulness thereof.

…was starving to death in the wilderness. No, He wasn’t consuming popcorn; rather, He was consuming His very own organs due to lack of food. So, I ask again:

Is this a popcorn God, or a God Who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities?

Blindfolded, slapped, punched, and whacked

It is hard to fathom as I write this, but it’s true. The Living, Executive Word of God, who spoke the universe into existence, was subjected to some of the most painful and humiliating treatment imaginable, even before the cross. To try to bring out the irony of this whole story, we will mix in some imagery from Revelation, using italics.

Let’s see, where do we start? At the high priest’s house, they made a depraved game of blindfolding Him, hitting Him, and asking Him to use His powers to tell who hit Him.

[Luk 22:64 KJV] 64 And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?

Yes, the One with eyes as a flame of fire was blindfolded.

Matthew provides a bit more detail:

[Mat 26:67 KJV] 67 Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote [him] with the palms of their hands,

I looked up buffet on the blueletterbible.org concordance tool, and the first definition was to strike with the fist. So, they punched the Prince of life! And in our modern vernacular, smiting with the palm is of course known as slapping.

Yes, the One with the sharp twoedged sword coming out His mouth was punched and slapped.

Of course, the Roman soldiers got a shot at Him too. They led him into the common hall, AKA the “Praetorium” in Mark 15:16 (you can learn all about this term on Wikipedia, but I’ll just make this side comment: The Bible is not a fairy tale or a myth), and decided to have a little fun:

[Mar 15:19 KJV] 19 And they smote him on the head with a reed, and did spit upon him, and bowing [their] knees worshipped him.

(By the way, I already commented on the spitting; expand the series outline at the top of this post and click the previous post about Mouth Abuse)

Yes, the One with head and hairs that were white like wool, as white as snow, was mocked and His head was whacked.

He wasn’t watching human suffering on a TV screen. In fact, He couldn’t see anything as they blindfolded and beat Him. So, I ask again:

Is this a popcorn God or a compassionate God?

Horribili flagello

As far as physical pain, though, I don’t think any of the abuses above compare to scourging. I discovered the following information at the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR; comprised of institutional members such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale) (2):

“Because of its brutality flagellation was feared: it produced deep wounds and could even lead to death. Unlike Jewish law, which had a maximum of forty lashes, Roman law did not provide for limits. Flavius Josephus offers accounts of flagellations carried out in Palestine where the strokes were delivered with such strength that they exposed the victim’s innards. He also confirms that scourging was a prelude to crucifixion.”

The article also mentions less severe Roman punishments such as whipping, and contends that we don’t have good evidence pointing to exactly what instrument was used on Jesus. Well, I submit the following prophetic verse as strong evidence that He was in fact subjected to flagellation (described as “horribili flagello” by Horace (2)):

[Psa 22:17 KJV] 17 I may tell all my bones: they look [and] stare upon me.

In this verse, the word “tell” is in the same sense as “bank teller”…it means He can count His bones. Now, how would He be able to do that? Because they had exposed His innards, as mentioned in the ASOR quote above.

(And if you are not convinced this is a prophetic verse, simply read all of Psalm 22 and see if that does it for you.)

Yes, the One holding the keys of hell and of death, Who shall rule the nations with a rod of iron, was scourged.

He wasn’t watching human suffering on a TV screen. Rather, He was looking at His very own bones sticking out of His mutilated body. So, I ask again:

Is this a popcorn God or a self-sacrificing God?

And to top it off

As if the foregoing tortures and humiliations weren’t enough, they made a cruel production out of mocking Jesus’s kingship over the Jews (this title, by the way, was first mentioned in the New Testament by the wise men following the star in Matthew 2:2):
[Mat 27:28-30 KJV] 28 And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. 29 And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put [it] upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! 30 And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head.
We already mentioned Jesus getting whacked on the head with a reed…well, moments earlier, He was holding that reed as part of the soldiers’ obnoxious make-believe.

The most physically painful part of this scene has got to be the crown of thorns, though. I know it was very painful, and I wonder if it made blood run down his face and body. In any case, I just marvel at the way He behaved with a crown of sharp thorns on His head, while nailed to the cross. He still comforted the dying thief. He still made sure His mother was taken care of. He still asked God to forgive His killers. Surely, this was no mere man. Or, in the words of the centurion: “Truly this was the Son of God.”

Yes, the One Whom John saw wearing many crowns, Who had on his clothes and His thigh written the name KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS, suffered a painful and humiliating crown of thorns to be put on His head.

This is the radically unjust agony and shame He endured for you, my friend. So, I ask again:

Is this a popcorn God or a Man of Sorrows God?

His banner over me was love

Since the church/saints are portrayed in multiple places in Scripture as the bride of Christ (Revelation 19 among others), I will borrow a verse from Song of Solomon to convey Christ’s posture towards you, dear children of God:

[Sng 2:4 KJV] 4 He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me [was] love.

That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? And I’ve tried to pack this blog post full of irrefutable demonstrations of that love.

No, God is not sitting up there scarfing popcorn and watching us suffer…but there IS a banquet coming, my friends (Revelation 19)! He won’t be eating alone; we, the eternal church, His spotless bride, will be celebrating with Him!

I know you’re hurting. I know you have questions for God that I cannot answer. But I’m begging you: don’t let those hard questions, which you may get answers to later, obscure some simple, comforting truths that you can embrace now:

JESUS FEELS YOUR PAIN, HE CARES, AND HE LOVES YOU!!!!

Links:

1: Medical News Today

2: The scourging of Jesus