Reflections
PASTORAL LETTER – September 2026
Pain and Bliss
The mainstream media is perceived by some people as synonymous to can anything good come out of Nazareth (John 1:46) because of the barrage of bad news we see on television. Over the last six months global news has been heavily dominated by unpleasant reports. For example, geopolitical conflicts and escalations, in particular the U.S. – Israel military campaign against Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz; the ongoing deadly strikes and attritional warfare between Russia and Ukraine.
Another example is climatic disasters, earthquakes, and wildfires – the unprecedented summer heatwaves triggering a massive, destructive wildfire across Southern Europe, France, and England where many people have been evacuated from their homes and become homeless. In some parts of Asia, earthquakes, and severe flash floods and storm from monsoons and typhoons have caused several displacements and deaths. A third example is in health and humanitarian crises – notably, the Ebola epidemic in DR Congo, and the increasing need for critical aid access in Gaza and some parts of the Middle East.
It hit home that our world is broken on all sides and needs transformation when the focus of the bad news shifted from what is happening at macro levels in distant part of the world to micro levels, more personal and more resounding. On Friday the 14th of August, yet another bad news was reported that Jason Arday, the ex-Cambridge professor was found dead in his home in Battersea South London. As a show of lament, doubt or even lack of belief in an all-powerful, all-loving, and all-wise God, one may ask, where is God and why is this happening? I wonder what questions the family of Jason Arday and many others are asking now……
As you read this reflective letter, perhaps you too are asking some questions of God about things, more personal, that had happened or is happening in your life. In the words of Simone Weil – “affliction makes God appear to be absent for a time, more absent than a dead man, more absent than light in the utter darkness of a cell.”
You see, Jesus Christ who in the power of Almighty God performed several miracles, healed many, fed thousands with limited food, and raised the dead felt the absence of Almighty God when he cried on the Cross – quoting Psalm 22:1 my God, my God, why have you forsaken me (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34). It feels like God goes into hiding when affliction comes; when people are unleashing the wickedness of evil in them on another, causing the other to suffer greatly until life is sucked out of their mortal body, it feels like God does not interfere in the affairs of humankind or is in wrath when the earth suddenly quakes and the seas rise in rebellion.
The Cross of Christ points us to a hard truth that the Almighty God is here and always will be. God is the only being that is present in the triple darkness of a womb and in the dead silence of the grave. God is all around you even now! Life experiences teach us that pain and suffering is built into life on earth, owing to freewill and more. Perhaps, God allows us to discover who we truly are, in times pain and bliss. The Christian message indicates that in the eyes of God, pain is passing but bliss is lasting, and God desire us to pass through the pain quickly into eternal bliss, just as parents must let their children grow and develop though a process of failing and passing which brings both pain and bliss. After the pain of the Cross, Almighty God raised Jesus Christ and brought him into eternal bliss.
One thing we must pay attention to, is our role in another’s pain and bliss and their role in ours. As we grow and develop both in age and wisdom, I hope that we will continually see that we are in this world to live like Jesus Christ, loving one another as Christ loved us, and come to the realisation that we are nothing without Almighty God, and our life is a mere handbreadth (Psalm 39:5). To have life is to be vulnerable, and it is in this vulnerability that we are humbled to question our humanness (sometimes without knowing we are) and meet God.
Maurice