From grazed knees to cancer ward heart-break, suffering confronts us all. It's part of the fabric of human existence.

Some, confronted with the apparent meaninglessness of human pain, decide we must live in a godless universe. We're on our own to make the best of it.

Christians hold on to something different. They believe in a God who is love. How come?

It is too easy here to fall into pat, too-easy answers. Some are so keen to get God "off the hook" that they scramble for "explanations" and dismiss suffering too easily.

But Christian faith doesn't start there. It doesn't start with answers; it starts with a person - God. A person who came deep into the misery and meaninglessness of human suffering.

God hasn't sat on a cloud somewhere, looking down, saying "what a mess". In Jesus, God became human and experienced the depths of human suffering.

Jesus' death on the cross gives us clues which - as we think them through and let them sink in - can begin to take us towards some answers to the problem of pain.

It shows us that a big part of human suffering is caused by human evil. When God came to earth He was murdered. It doesn't say much for humans.

But most of all, Jesus' death shows that God comes close, shares our pain, soaks it into Himself and offers, though His resurrection, a new hope, a way into a new life.

It's not so much an answer as an invitation.

See also: Tough Questions: Hasn't science disproved God?
Tough Questions: What about other religions?
Tough Questions: How can you prove God is there?

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