As human beings, we ask ourselves questions that come from the reality that we have to live. One of the most disconcerting experiences in human life is that of suffering. The mystery of pain makes us doubt many times of any meaning that we want to give to human existence. It is what Job, in today’s first reading, feels in his dramatic experience of illness, loss of property, and loneliness. How not to identify with the words of Job in this world full of people who go through similar situations? It may even be our own situation. Where is God? Why God silent in the face of so much misery and sorrow?
Evil is one of the strongest arguments against the existence of God. Today the readings from the Word of God confront us with evil and suffering. They do not offer us easy solutions. Nor do they state theories. Yet they give light. The Word of God, especially the Word-of-God made flesh, does not shy away from coming face to face with the mystery of evil. Jesus, as we see in the Gospel, understands his life as a mission at the service of life, of health, of hope, of good. His preaching and mission heal, liberate, offer a humanizing horizon. And it is a task that must reach everyone. For this reason, he has left it as a commission to his disciples, as Paul explains in the second reading.
Pain is not wanted by anyone. Nor by God. The Word of this Sunday does not theorize about evil, it shows an incarnate God who draws near and has compassion. A God who, in Jesus, has experienced it and who fights it. That's why people look for him. What about you ...? Are we looking for him?
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