Discerning God’s Work in History

by Mark Bateman

In the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, Nazis in a concentration camp are about to execute three inmates, one of them a young boy.

     “Where is God?  Where is He?” someone behind me asked.
     At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over. . . .
     I heard a voice within me answer . . . :
     “Where is He?  Here He is—He is hanging on this gallows. . . .

The same question must have come to the lips of the disciples who had staked their future on Jesus as triumphant messiah.  Seeing him dying on the cross, they may well have asked themselves, “Where is God?  Where is He?”   We may well wonder what answer they heard within themselves.

The Second Holocaust is the designation I attach to the Nazi persecution and attempted extermination of the Jews during the Nazi years of power, 1933 to 1945.   I call it the Second Holocaust because the First Holocaust was another point in history where the question of “Where is God?” could only be answered by “Here He is—He is hanging on this cross.”   Place around your neck a chain on which is suspended the figure of an innocent young boy hanging on a gallows, or place around your neck a chain on which is suspended the figure of an innocent 33 year old man hanging on a cross.  In both cases, the person of faith embraces the contradiction, the irony, and the anguish of a seemingly “powerless” God, and says “I believe.  In spite of this, or even because of this, I believe.”

I emphasize this parallel between the attempted Nazi extermination of God’s chosen people and the earlier execution of Jesus of Nazareth.  I have only been able to nurture my faith by grappling with this contradiction.  It entails not only the Christ who ascended into heaven two thousand years ago, but also his chosen people who live with us to this day.  Ask me to sever my destiny from that of the Jews, and you ask me to sever my faith from its nourishing root and vine.

Their status as God’s chosen people establishes the destiny of the Jews, a destiny involving suffering with ultimate blessing.  Can an non-Jew partake in that destiny?  Yes, a non-Jew can share in that destiny by having faith in God’s Jewish anointed, the Messiah, the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, the deliverer of God’s chosen people.  Jesus is the culmination of God’s plan.  Christians believe that the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, events taking place somewhere around 4 B.C. to 33 A.D. are the crucial, pivotal, and defining events in history.  Christians believe that by means of these events God’s work in history attained completeness.

When I first wrote this essay, I entitled it "God's Intervention in History".  Then I asked myself whether “intervention” was the right word?  No, it is not.  Christian scripture asserts God’s foreknowledge and plan in regard to the working out of the plan of salvation.  History does not unfold independently of God’s will, by mere chance, resulting in a situation where one day God observes the unfolding of history and decides that things are not going in the right direction.  “Did God then say, "Oh, well, I guess I’d better intervene to get things back on the right track.”?  No, that is not the kind of omnipotent God Christians believe in.

How, then, does God interact with humankind?  This is the question the answer to which I have pondered many years.  I have arrived at a synthesis of faith which reconciles in my mind belief in an omnipotent and benevolent creator with the undeniable perception that the world is not perfect.  God created the world.  The “Big Bang” is sufficient to account for creation and reconcile that creation with the viewpoint of science.  With the Big Bang began the evolution of matter.  With the evolution of matter began the evolution of life.  With the evolution of life began the evolution of that pinnacle of created life, man, homo sapiens.  Christ completed God’s plan by becoming incarnate as a specimen of homo sapiens.  Consequently it is hard for a Christian to entertain the notion that the human genome contains the potential for another evolutionary leap, because in that case God’s incarnation as homo sapiens would be rendered obsolete.

In historical terms, God’s intervention occurred on several occasions: 1) when he caused Abraham and Sarah to bring into the world Jacob, also known as Israel, the progenitor of the chosen people; 2) when he revealed himself to Moses and worked miracles to bring about the liberation of Israel’s descendents from Egypt; and 3) when he became a specimen of homo sapiens in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

In today’s world, how is God working in human history?  I believe he is still working through the Jews, his chosen people.  Look at the great ones who have revolutionized human history.  In 1983 I told a Jewish friend that in the field of religion my strongest influence was Jesus, in the field of economics Karl Marx, in the field of psychology Sigmund Freud, and in the field of science Albert Einstein.

“All Jews!”, he exclaimed.

“Yes.”, I said.  “Just think about it.”  Just think about it indeed!

I am not much of a Marxist any more, nor a Freudian.  But it is a fact that great clarifications have emerged from all four of these Jewish minds, and the world has been radically changed by all of them.  And we Christians of course, believe that the change wrought by Jesus of Nazareth is absolutely the defining and momentous revelation in human history, no matter what other insights may unfold as the human mind continues to ponder reality.

What was the nature of the change wrought by Jesus of Nazareth?  The change was this: To those who believe in him, Jesus gives access to forgiveness of sins and to eternal life.  Also, with his death and resurrection begins the Common Era , i.e., the current period when non-Jews who believe in Jesus share in the destiny of the Jews, God’s chosen people.  (Read the Letter of Paul to the Romans, chapters 9, 10, and 11).  These two things accomplished, Jesus could say truly, “It is finished.”

Except for the remaining decision by each individual as to whether to believe or not believe in Jesus, the work of salvation is finished.  It is a centuries-long progression of history in this material world, a history which unfolded and continues to unfold in accordance within the will of God.  Certain milestone moments stand out:

·         the moment when, against all reasonable expectations, old Abraham’s seed fertilized old Sarah’s egg; and Isaac, son of promise, was conceived,

·         the moment when, after realizing that his firstborn son was dead, Pharaoh allowed the children of Israel to leave Egypt,

·         the moment when the waters of the Red Sea engulfed Pharaoh's chariots and ensured the success of the exodus,

·         the moment when the Blessed Virgin Mary said, “May it be done to me according to your word”,

·         the moment when Jesus said, “My Father, . . not as I will, but as you will.”

Having worked his way through this history and having decided to accept Jesus as the son of God, what then does the Christian then do?  It remains for him to seek always to discern God’s will.  The Christian seeker looks within himself, examines his thoughts, his motivations.  The Christian seeker uses all the new insights that human development has achieved through the centuries, the insights of physics and astronomy, the insights of mathematics, the insights of historical research and discovery, the insights of biology, psychology, and neuroscience.   All these insights must then be used in conjunction with the insights of revelation as conveyed in Christian scripture, the accumulated insights of the Christian church as conveyed by the magisterium, and the insights of prayer, labored over in each Christian seeker’s personal garden of agony, a laboratory of self-questioning, critical self-analysis, and ruthless honesty about motives, desires, always with an awareness of the capacity for self-deception.

It may sound quite grim, this “garden of agony”.  It is the only laboratory of faith I have experienced thus far.   But even now I begin to perceive weak rays of sunlight tentatively pushing their way through the windows of my soul.  Near the end of this life, a life forced on me without my consent, I begin now to see existence as perhaps a blessing, not the curse that for many years it seemed to be.  I used to share the viewpoint of philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell, who wrote in amazement that some people counted it a blessing to have been born.  But now I begin to understand that blessing.  I make so bold as to believe, perhaps, that I am indeed born again, first of water at my baptism in 1955 when I was ten years old, and now more recently of spirit.

A few years ago I dreamt that I was working in a dark, cold basement.   (In fact, that is where I am at this moment, as I write this.)  In that dream, outside there were myriads of bright, warm, friendly, joyful people, prancing and dancing in the sunlight while I labored in the gloom of that basement.  Yet my perception in the dream was that my subterranean labor was in some way contributing to the joy of those outside above ground.  It was as if the work I was doing was for them, even though I had no idea in what way they would benefit from my work.  I interpret the dream to mean that my personal garden of agony, if I persist in Christian faith, will allow me to make some contribution to the happiness of those who in the dream seemed so distant, so different.  This interpretation makes me feel good.  Perhaps it only further feeds the delusions of grandeur to which some have said I am prey.   But there is nothing ultimately wrong with perceiving my life in this way, so long as I do everything in the context of thankfulness and subordination to the Lord Jesus.  If I ever realize my dream of benefitting other people, it will be because of the mercy of great Jesus, son of Mary, son of God, and very God himself.