A while back there was a big sign along the freeway proclaiming,

“Jesus is the answer.”  A short distance further along there was another sign asking, ”What’s the question?”  That’s fair. Questions shape their answers. Having answers is only half the solution. Questions and answers together satisfy.  So what’s the question that is answered in the person of Jesus?

The question varies from age to age, from life to life, from day to day. For Martin Luther, living under the frown of an angry God, the question was, “Where can I find a gracious God?” For many people today, I suspect,  the question has changed. “Is there a God, when so many terrible things happen?”  Or,”Is there a God when we’re such grown up, independent people?”

Or perhaps, “ Where can I find God?” And for the Church, an important question has arisen, “Who IS God?” “What does God do?”

Jesus is still the answer. The bible before Jesus is a history of people trying to figure out and understand who God is. Jesus says, “When you see me, you have seen the Father.” To the ones asking, “Where in this torn and technological world can I find God?”, Jesus’ simple lifestyle, his thirst for justice, and his steadfast, sacrificing love are an answer. In his willingness to die on the cross for the sake of humanity, Jesus shows where God may be found today, in suffering love.

For the Church today, the question of God’s nature is a cause of confusion. Who is God? Is God the great puppeteer in the sky pulling strings and causing sometimes pain and suffering, sometimes happiness, health and prosperity? Or is God a heartless giant architect who set the world spinning and sat back to observe? Able to prevent evil but not doing it? Jesus is the answer. Yes, he said,”When you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” We see him going around among us, not causing evil or condoning it, but always present with us when it occurs, feeling it and suffering it with us. Giving strength, growing in his experience and stature (Luke 2:52) but never changing in his steadfast, steady love. Understanding our pain because he was in Christ on the cross.

The cross is where we Christians keep winding up. The immensity of that love was the answer for Luther. It is the answer for us. It will be, I pray, the answer for our children. On the cross, in its shadow, at the foot of it, there we understand God and nowhere else.