"There is No Cheap Hope", Korea Calling

Text: Luke 23 : 26—28; 33—34; 33—43

In the New Testament, there is no hope
without the resurrection. But hope does not
have to wait for the resurrection. There is no
hope without the cross, either, and hope can
begin in the midst of suffering. Let me make
three observations about hope and suffering in
the light of what the Bible says about the
crucifixion as recorded by Luke.

The first fact of the cross is the suffering,
not the hope. Let me read Luke 23 : 26:

“And as they led (Jesus) away, they seized one

Simon of Cyrene who was coming in from the
country, and laid on him the cross to carry it
behind Jesus- •• And there followed him a great
multitude of the people, and of women who
bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning to
them said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep
for me, weep for yourselves-

One of the best novels about Korea in Eng-
lish is The Martyred by Richard Kim, though
it fails to catch the true spirit of Korea’s mar-
tyrs. It opens in the North Korean capital of
Pyongyang (which happens to be my home
town). The city has fallen to advancing United . —

-A
. — o

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KOREA CALLING

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Nations troops. The South Korean army begins
to set up Tts intelligence headquarters in what
remained of the Central Presbyterian Church,
once the largest church in the country, now
only a shell. There the main character of the
book, a Korean intelligence officer, learns that
the North Koreans, just before their hasty
evacuation, had rounded up fourteen Christian
ministers, shot twelve of them unaccountably
spared two who were left in prison and freed
when the city fell. Essentially the novel is the
search for an answer to two questions. Why
were two allowed to live? And what' really
happened to the twelve martyrs? But a deeper
question is interwoven into the drama of the
search for the truth of the affair.

The young intelligence officer is the first to
put that deeper question into words. He finds
the two survivors. One of them is out of his
mind from his sufferings. The other is hollow -
faced, with feverish eyes and a racking cough.
The survivors say they don’t know why they
were spared, or what happened to the other
twelve. The officer doubts them. Moreover he
is not a Christian. But as he looks at the two
living wrecks in front of him, and thinks of
the twelve murdered men, all the remembered
horrors of the war flash through his mind and
a wave of emotion sweeps over him. He breaks
off the interrogation and turns to leave. Then
he stops and asks one last, hesitant question.
"Your god — " he says, "is he aware of the
suffering of his people?"

Man struggles. Does God care? Man struggles
for life, and peace and justice and truth. But
even when he succeeds, life is suffering, and
peace is elusive, and justice is blind. As for
truth, most of the world is still asking, with
Pilate, "What is truth?” our human hopes hang
on our belief that there are answers to these
questions, and that the answers are rooted in
our faith in God. ^

The novel gives no clear answers. The officer *
asks, "Is your god aware of his people’s suffer-
ing?” And the hollow-eyed minister, still
wrapped up in his own suffering, is silent.

- 'Perhaps that is where most people b£gin-
with a silent, almost ’fatalistic acceptance of su-
ffering, suffering without rational explanation.

It is where our text begins. Simon, innocent and
uncomprehending, has laid on him the cross.
And the women wail, and Jesus turns and says,
“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me,
but weep for yourselves- Why? What had
they done? And there is no answer. But nei-
ther is there any dodging of the fact that human
struggle means human suffering. That is the
first lesson.

But Asia needs no reminder of that fact.

This continent has known more human pain
than all the other continents combined. Japan:
from the Tokyo' earthquake to Hiroshima. In-
donesia and the islands of the sea: and the
greatest volcanic disasters in history. India: I
walked through the streets of Calcutta and I
could feel the pain. China: a year or so ago
north of Peking in one gigantic earthquake a
million -people- died. And the world paid very
little attention. Asia was far away.

The suffering is still more cruel when it is
not so much man against nature but man
against man. The "haves,” for example, cont-
rasted with the “havenots." The thirty poorest
countries in the world, I am told, are all in a
broad band of poverty stretching from south-
eastern Asia across into Central Africa. In Asia
alone live 254 million people who must live on
11 cents a day or less. Eleven cents Why I spend
twice as much for a cup of coffee and don’t
even think about it. 245 million people is
more than live in the whole United States.
And 11 cents a day is $3.40 a month.

And there are the sufferings of the struggle
for justice and for peace. This country of
Korea has had to fight off 287 major invasions
simply to maintain its own independence. War
after war after war, and very little peace.

But the deepest sufferings of all are in man’ s
struggle for truth. "I am the truth," said Je-
sus, and where He is not known there is a
sickness of the soul that is a sickness unto
death. Asia may not know why, but here Asia
suffers most of all, for Asia is the least Chris-
tian continent, at least numerically, in the
world.

"Daughters of Jerusalem," says Jesus, and
he is speaking not only to Jerusalem, not only
to Asia, but to the whole world "Daughters of
Jerusalem, do not weep for me, weep for your-
selves-*-” Not much comfort; not much hope
there. Only the bitter reminder that life is
hard, and that human struggle means human
suffering.

H . But the text does not stop there. If the
first fact of the cross is the fact of suffering;
the second fact is- that we do not suffer alone.
God suffers with us. Let me read on in the
gospel record: Luke 23 : 32, 35.

“Two others also, who were criminals, were
led away to be put to death with him. And when
they came to the place which is called The Skull,
there they crucified him, and the criminals, one
on the right and the other on the left--- And
the people stood by, watching.”

I have been speaking of the sufferings of
Asia. The cross speaks of human suffering
also, - but much more. It speaks of the suffering

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Korea Calling

of God, I think it is peculiarly fitting that out
of Asia’s pain, as filtered through a Christian
mind, should dchne one of the most penetrating
modern insights into the meaning of the cross.

I refer to Kazoh Kitamori, the Japanese theo-
logian, and his "theology of the pain^of God."
Kitamori traces pain beyond man’s suffering,
beyond Jesus’ physical suffering on the cross,
into the very heart of God. "Pain," he says
bluntly, "is the essence of God.”

He has his critics, of course. He has been
accused of the ancient heresy of patripassionism.
He defends himself very well there. But I
wonder, the more I read of the theology of
pain and compare it with God’s revelation of
himself in the Bible, if love is not nearer to
the essence of God than pain. If justice is not
nearer to the essence of God than pain. If
power, and truth are not nearer to the essence
of God than pain. But Kitamori is absolutely
right in reminding us that the Christian hope
is not cheap. The cross is not a sentimental
illustration of God’s sweet love for everybody.
It was agony. Nor is it a revolutionary model
of solidarity with the oppressed. Jesus held out
hope to only one of the thieves crucified with
him, for the missing ingredient, from the Chris-
tian standpoint, in much of our human social
struggle is repentance. God’s pain — to return
to Kitamori — is the price He pays for loving
the unloveable, for hating sin but caring for
the sinner, in a word, the price he pays to
forgive without destroying the line that divides
right from wrong, justice from injustice. The'
price he pays to save is to let his Son die,
and in that pain his love and wrath are syn-
thesized, "for the pain is the act of swallowing
up his wrath." We do not suffer alone. God is
with us, and there lies our hope.

i. The third fact of the cross is that our
hope is in God alone. Not in our struggle.
Not even in his suffering. But in the fact that
He is God. But I do not need to remind Reformed
theologians of that. Let me read on in the
text: One of the criminals turns to Jesus (Luke
23 : 42—43) :

“And he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when ycu

come into your kingdom.’ And (Jesus) said to

him, ‘Today you will be with me in paradise’.

When we are in the presence of the King,
how quickly hope goes to work. Even in our
suffering, it becomes immediately operative.
Note the word "today." God is with us now,
and surges of power and hope lift us up in
the midst of our struggles.

The Korean Independence Movement of 1919
was the most moving mass demonstration
against injustice in modem times. The price of

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Christian participation was that it be non-
violent, and Christians led it. But it was put
down brutally by the troops of the occupying
colonial government. One of its leaders was Yi
Sang-Chae, head of the YMCA, an outstand-
ing Christian and a patriot. He was roughly
interrogated by the Japanese police. "Who is
the head of the movement? Do you know?"
"Yes," he answered. They pounced on him like
tigers. "Who? Tell us. Who is head of the
movement?" "God”, he answered calmly. "God
at the head, and 20 million Koreans behind."
But what if our struggle fails. Is there no
more hope?

He is with us in our struggles, yes. But some-
times more important, He is with us when
we suffer alone. The story is told of a dear
old saint, incurably ill, who was visited by a
younger friend. "You are suffering very much,
I am afraid, " said the younger woman, trying
to be helpful. "Yes," said the older woman,
“but look." She held out her hands. "There are
no nails there. He had the nails; I have the
peace." She pointed to her head. “There are no
thorns there. He had the thorns; I Lhave the
hope.”

No cross; no hope. But there zvas a cross, and
a suffering. And we have the hope!.

Editor’s Note: This is a Sermon by Dr.'
S.H. Moffett to the WARC consultation in
Seoul