Divine Absence and Divine Comedy

Between Agnosticism and Deism

To be honest, there are days where I feel 49% agnostic and others days where I wonder if I’m a cryptic deist.

There are those are the days when I feel like the character of Thénardiers in the musical Les Miserables where the thieving urchin sings:

It's a world where the dog eats the dog
Where they kill for bones in the street
And God in His Heaven
He don't interfere
'Cause he's dead as the stiffs at my feet
I raise my eyes to see the heavens
And only the moon looks down
The harvest moon shines down!

Often it feels like we are stuck on this godless rock, just waiting to eat each other up, trying to take what we can, do what good or evil we can, but it’s all meaningless nonsense so what is the point?

Otherwise, there are times when I feel like I’m one of the disciples in the boat with Jesus in the midst of a great storm and we rouse him saying, “Master, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mk 4:38). God is there, but he’s like a kid with an ant farm, or else he’s just doing his best. He’s there, but he’s not helping!

What drives these kinds of thoughts? They are really the product of feelings of God’s absence or feelings of the absence of God’s love.

What stops me falling of the edge of faith? Well, several things:

(1) Jesus loves me and gave himself for me (Gal 2:20).
(2) To whom shall we go if Jesus has the words of eternal life (John 6:68-69).
(3) The utter worshippability of Jesus (Revelation 5).
(4) I remember, in the style of Psalm 77, what God has done for me before.
(5) Christianity is why I know I live in a moral universe and meaning is real.
(6) It is either Christianity or a weird mix of hedonism and nihilistic poetry.

Nice points I know, but it’s not always the best comfort when you feel like the world is falling apart around you. Theology is not an instant cure for fears, tears, trauma, or terror.

When God Feels Distant

The experience of divine absence is real. Everyone goes through it. It’s the dark night of the soul that we all walk through at some point. You find that experienced by people in the Book of Psalms or the Book of Lamentation. People, even in the Bible, wondering if God has abandoned them, ignored them, no longer cares, or is not even there.

The famous poem Footprints in the Sand by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the hymn “It Is Well With My Soul” by Horatio Spafford all deal with the same issue, managing faith and feelings of God’s absence.

Why does God allow us to have moments of divine absence, to question his presence, peace, power, and love? Why does God let us feel abandoned?

I think it is because when we do suddenly experience God’s presence after a time of doubt and despair we are doubly surprised and our faith is chastened and changed for the better. I call this part the divine comedy.

God delights in surprising us the most when we feel his presence the least.

A 1980s French Kids Cartoon

As a kid in the 1980s, I loved a French cartoon called Robo Story, about a girl called Blueberry and her dog Loufi who crash lands on the Green planet. On the Green Planet, there are good robots called the “Robos,” who were a dysfunctional group based on stereotypical characters, including one called “Robot Hobo” who is comical as much as useless. There were also bad robots, called the “Wrigglers” who took commands from a supercomputer called the “Reverd Reverence,” and they are always trying to catch Blueberry.

Every time the Wrigglers get close to catching Blueberry, a mysterious robot called the “Robot Magician” appears to save them, but then vanishes just as quickly. Nobody knows who he is, where he is from, and why he comes and goes.

Anyway, in the final episode, Blueberry and Robot Hobo get into the Wrigglers base and Robot Hobo is able to destroy the Reverd Reverence. Blueberry and her dog are then put on a space shuttle to go back to her home planet, yet before all the other Robos board, the shuttle is accidentally launched with only Blueberry, her dog, and Robot Hobo on board.

Blueberry is sad that the other robots are not with her, and she is particularly sad that the Robot Magician did not join her for the ride home. It is at that point that Robot Hobo reveals himself as the Robot Magician. He did not come and go, he did not abandon them, he was there the whole time.

Me, as a ten-year-old, was amazed. The Robot Magician was not capricious, did not abandon anyone, did not rock up only in the nick of time, he was always there for Blueberry. This was the most memorable cartoon experience of my childhood. It even inspired a character in my novel Iskandar which is LOTR type of story. The Robot Magician was there the whole time!

Divine Comedy on the Road to Emmaus

I submit that in Luke 24 we have a story of divine absence and divine comedy.

In the story, two followers of Jesus, Cleopas and another one, are on the way to Emmaus, fleeing Jerusalem after the ordeal of Jesus’s arrest and crucifixion. They are in despair and doubt. They thought Jesus was “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people” and “was the one to redeem Israel.” But he was condemned to death and crucified and some women were running around claiming he was still alive. It looked as if they had backed the wrong horse of the apocalypse. Jesus was dead, gone, no more. This meant no kingdom of God, no restoration of Israel, no prophetic promises will come true.

But then the two disciples meet a stranger who is going the same way, who is comically obtuse and ignorant about recent events (imagine someone leaving Dallas wondering what all the fuss is about when JFK was assassinated). Their perplexity doubles when the stranger offers an innovative re-reading of the Scriptures so that all this - crucifixion, empty tomb, weird appearances - might actually be part of the divine plan! When the two disciples sit down with the stranger to share a meal at a nearby village, I always picture the unnamed disciple saying, “You know Cleopas, there is something strangely familiar about the way that our new friend here reads Scripture, and breaks bread, it reminds me of …” Then kaboombalunga - to use the technical term - the two travelers realize that Jesus has been with them the whole time. It means Jesus is alive, he was not a fake or fraud, the women were not making stuff up, and the great hope for Israel’s redemption is back on!

What seems like divine failure becomes divinely funny and leads to a rejuvenated faith.

Divine Comedy and God’s Faithfulness to Us

Divine comedy means there is no divine abandonment; divine hiddenness yes, but then a moment of being surprised by God’s presence, power, and love.

Sometimes Robot Hobo is the Robot Magician.

Sometimes the ignorant stranger on the road to Emmaus is the risen Lord.

Sometimes the footprints in the sand are not yours, but Jesus carrying you.

Sometimes Jesus sits with you in a dark room and you don’t know it until he turns the lights on.

God’s faithfulness means we can feel abandoned, but we never are abandoned.

God can be hidden, but is never far from us.

God has promised, “‘I will never leave you or forsake you.” So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?” (Heb 13:5-6).