The Suffering God - New Provoketive Article

I recently wrote an article for Provoketive Magazine that I think fits well with Holy Week. Excerpt:

Coming from an evangelical background, I was taught that the only thing the cross represents is Jesus paying the price for our sins. I never thought of the cross as a symbol of God identifying with human suffering. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. If Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, then that means God was hanging on that cross in agonizing pain. Think about that for second: Elohim the creator, the great I AM, hanging on a cross, rejected, humiliated, and dying.

As someone who has struggled with depression and anxiety since early childhood, this was a message I needed to hear. Even though it has been called ‘the common cold of mental illness,’ depression has a funny way of making me feel completely alone. No one else can possibly understand what I’m going through. If I try to put it into words, it won’t make any sense. But if God knows human suffering first hand, then maybe I’m not so crazy after all.

You can read the rest here.