THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF RAVI ZACHARIAS … · Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and exists to engender thoughtful engagement with apologetics, Scripture, and the whole of

THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

JUST THINKING

+WHERE IS GOD IN A CORONAVIRUSWORLD?PAGE 04

WHY AREN’TYOU HELPINGME?PAGE 12

A PERSON OF THE SOILPAGE 14

OUR VIEW OF GODPAGE 24

VOLUME 28.3

Just Thinking is a teaching resource of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and exists to engender thoughtful engagement with apologetics, Scripture, and the whole of life.

Danielle DuRantEditor

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

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HELPING THE THINKER BELIEVE.

HELP ING THE BEL IEVER TH INK .

14A PERSON OF THE SOILRavi Zacharias examines theuniqueness of Jesus and hisministry, especially comparedto Eastern gurus, in an excerpt from his new book,Seeing Jesus from the East.

TA B L E ofC O N T E N T SVO LU M E 2 8. 3

03Editor’s NoteTIMES LIKETHESE

04WHERE IS GOD IN A CORONAVIRUSWORLD?Whether you are a Christianor not, the coronavirus pandemic is perplexing and unsettling for all of us, writes John Lennox. How do we begin to think itthrough and cope with it?

12WHY AREN’T YOUHELPING ME?Once exhausted by griefand fear, Derek Caldwell

shares how he came to discover he was lookingfor God in all the wrongplaces.

JUST THINKING THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

ROBIN RAYNE NELSON/GENESIS

24OUR VIEWOF GODA scene from literature stirs Danielle DuRant

to consider how we arriveat our understanding ofGod, particularly in times of crisis.

30Think AgainAT ALL TIMESRavi Zacharias

RZIM BOOKSTORE

Seeing is indeed believing.In the West, Jesus is usually seen through one lens, that of Westernreasoning and linear thought. As the world becomes smaller and morepeople are brought to our door, a broader view of Jesus is needed, onethat can be grasped by Easterners and can penetrate the hearts andimaginations of postmodern Westerners.

In Seeing Jesus from the East, Ravi Zacharias and Abdu Murraycapture a revitalized gospel message through an Eastern lens, revealingits power afresh and sharing the truth about Jesus in a compelling andwinsome way. Incorporating story, honor, vivid imagery, sacrifice, andrewards, Seeing Jesus from the East calls readers, both Eastern andWestern alike, to a fresh encounter with the living and boundless Jesus.

Order online at rzim.christianbook.com

AVAILABLE NOW!

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 28.3 [3]

As Just Thinking 28.3 goes to press, a pandemic that knows no borders is sweep-ing across the globe and altering the lives of all in its wake—rich, poor, young, old. This novel coronavirus, namedCOVID-19, has rapidly precipitated a paradigm shift of tectonic proportions.The pendulum swing from the “most connected” time in history to social distancing and quarantines has affectedevery sector of society. From Main Streetto 10 Downing Street, from the homelessto world leaders, no one is immune.

“We are living through a unique, era-defining period,” writes John Lennox inhis new book, Where Is God in a CoronavirusWorld? “Many of our old certainties havegone, whatever our view of the world andwhatever our beliefs. Whether you are aChristian or not, the coronavirus pandemicis perplexing and unsettling for all of us.”

A few evenings ago out in my yard, andout of the blue, a hymn came to mind thatI haven’t sung in probably thirty years:

In times like these we need a Savior;In times like these we need an anchor.Be very sure, be very sureYour anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

While the simple song seemed to dragon when I was a young adult, some olderchurch members sung it in earnest. Irecently discovered the lyrics were writtenduring World War II. George Beverly Sheaand Mahalia Jackson sang it before audi-ences across the globe. As the story goes,the shattering headlines of war promptedRuth Caye Jones, a pastor’s wife, to searchher Bible and pen “In Times Like These.”

“Be very sure,” Jones implores again,urging us,

In times like these we need the Bible.In times like these O be not idle.Be very sure, be very sureYour anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

Perhaps “Be very sure” is a declarationof a bygone era. In times like these, as John Lennox suggests, “Many of our oldcertainties have gone.” Inside this issue ofJust Thinking is a selection from his newbook. Other writings wrestle with questionsof heartache and hope when God seems faraway. In the feature article, Ravi Zachariaslooks at the uniqueness of Jesus and histender ministry, especially compared to Eastern gurus, in a lengthy excerpt from his new book, Seeing Jesus from the East(coauthored with Abdu Murray).

In his closing Think Again column—and from his hospital room—Ravi remainssteadfast, reminding us, “The Bible assuresus that at all times God is with us. He is our comforter; He is our healer. He is ourphysician; He is our provider. He knowsbetter than we do.”

So also the psalmist David, who knewgreat blessing and sorrow, enjoins us withthese words of old,

Trust in him at all times, O people;pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Psalm 62:8

Danielle DuRant is Director of Researchand Writing and Editor of Just Thinkingmagazine.

TIMES LIKE THESE{ E D I T O R ’ S N O T E }

[4] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

WHERE IS GOD

The coronavirus is so called because it visiblyresembles a crown (“corona” in Latin). A crown is a symbol of power and authority—and certainlythis virus has colossal power over us humans. It also forcibly reminds us of our vulnerability. It is easy to forget that we humans are mortal. WE ARE LIVING through a unique, era-defining period. Many of our old certaintieshave gone, whatever our view of the worldand whatever our beliefs. Whether you are a Christian or not, the coronaviruspandemic is perplexing and unsettling forall of us. How do we begin to think itthrough and cope with it?

This book excerpt consists of myreflections on what we are experiencingright now. I started writing in March 2020.Things have changed quickly since then

and no doubt will do so again. There will,inevitably, be some rough edges and inade-quacies. For that I apologize.

I would invite you, the reader, to viewthis reflection like this: I am sitting withyou in a coffee shop (if only we could!) andyou have asked me this question: “Where isGod in a coronavirus world?” I put downmy coffee cup and attempt to give you anhonest answer. What follows is part of whatI would try to say to convey some comfort,support and hope.


IN A CORONAVIRUS WORLD?


CATHEDRALS AND WORLDVIEWSIn times of crisis, hope is what we look for.In a New York Times article on March 10,2020, Italian journalist Mattia Ferraresiwrote the following:

Holy water is not a hand sanitizerand prayer is not a vaccine….

But for believers, religion is a funda-mental source of spiritual healingand hope. It’s a remedy againstdespair, providing psychological and emotional support that is anintegral part of well-being. (It’s also an antidote to loneliness, whichseveral medical experts point to asone of the most worrisome publichealth issues of our time.)

At a deeper level, religion, for wor-shipers, is the ultimate source ofmeaning. The most profound claimof every religion is to make sense ofthe whole of existence, including, andperhaps especially, circumstancesmarked by suffering and tribulation.Take such claims seriously enough,and even physical health, when it isdevoid of greater purpose, starts tolook like a hollow value.1

When life seems predictable and undercontrol, it is easy to put off asking the bigquestions, or to be satisfied with simplisticanswers. But life is not that way right now—not for any of us. It is not surprising that,whatever your faith or belief system, the bigquestions of life are breaking through tothe surface, demanding attention.

Coronavirus confronts us all with theproblem of pain and suffering. This, formost of us, is one of life’s hardest problems.Experience rightly makes us suspicious ofsimplistic answers and facile attempts tocome to terms with it.

What I want to try to do here, then, isto avoid those kinds of “answers,” and tothink with you, as honestly as I can, through

some of the ideas that have helped me towrestle with these difficult questions ascoronavirus has begun to change everything.

RUINED CATHEDRALSPain and suffering come from two distinctsources. Firstly, there is suffering as a resultof natural disasters and diseases, for whichhumans are not (directly) responsible:earthquakes, tsunamis, cancers, and thecoronavirus. This leads to the problem ofpain, or, as it is often called, the problem ofnatural evil. This terminology is somewhatunfortunate, since the word “evil” hasmoral connotations and neither earth-quakes nor viruses are moral agents.

Second, there is suffering for whichmen and women are directly responsible:acts of hate, terror, violence, abuse and mur-der. That leads to the problem of moral evil.

Christchurch Cathedral in NewZealand, Coventry Cathedral in England,and the Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany,are powerful and poignant symbols ofthese two problems. These three ruinedchurches bear traces of two things. On the one hand, they show evidence of thebeauty and elegance they once possessed.On the other hand, they are also marred by the deep scars of catastrophe—an earthquake in Christchurch and bombingsin Coventry and Dresden. Each ruined cathedral, therefore, presents a mixed picture of beauty and destruction.

Together they remind us that it isunlikely that there are any easy answers to the deep existential questions that arise from catastrophe. For many at suchtimes, the picture is more than ragged—it is extremely raw. Those of us who standoutside the immediate pain of others run the risk of failing to be sufficiently sensitive to that rawness.

However, there is a difference betweenChristchurch and Coventry. The cathedralin Christchurch collapsed as a result of theshifting of tectonic plates. The cathedralsin Coventry and Dresden collapsed as a


result of war. Some people compared theChristchurch earthquake to 9/11, becauseit sent a similar shockwave around thenation; but there is a major difference.The destruction of the Twin Towers was

not a natural disaster: it was a moral disaster. It was a product of human evil. Earth-quakes, meanwhile, are natu-ral, not moral, catastrophes.

Of course, moral andnatural evil are sometimesconnected. The situation iscomplicated because one canlead to the other: greedy com-mercial deforestation maylead to the proliferation ofdesert, which in turn may leadto malnutrition and disease.But the coronavirus outbreak

seems to be a case of natural evil (althoughmoral evil lurks nearby in selfish panic buying and hoarding of food). Inevitably,conspiracy theorists will seek to put theblame on some human agent. Humans are involved in virus transmission, but notdeliberately or selfishly—and the main presumption is that the virus jumped fromanimals to humans.

That said, there is evidence that theauthorities in China initially suppressedreports of a potentially devastating newvirus. In the Guardian newspaper onMarch 11, 2020, Helen Davidson reportedfrom Hong Kong:

Official statements by the Chinesegovernment to the World HealthOrganisation reported that the first confirmed case had been diagnosedon 8 December. Doctors who tried to raise the alarm with colleaguesabout a new disease in late December were reprimanded. Authorities did not publicly concede there was human-to-human transmissionuntil 21 January.2

Sadly, Dr Li Wenliang, the Wuhanophthalmologist who was hailed a hero inChina for raising the alarm about thecoronavirus in December 2019, himselfdied less than two months later as a resultof catching the infection.

No doubt, there will be recriminationsand counter-recriminations for each coun-try’s reaction to the coronavirus for a longtime to come. But none of that will helpdeal with the crisis, nor help us know howbest to react personally.

How we respond will inevitablydepend to an extent on our perspective.The way coronavirus appears to an elderlyinfected woman, hovering between life anddeath in intensive care, is very differentfrom how it looks to the doctor who istreating her, or to the family member whois unable to visit her, or to the pastor who istrying to help her. Another concern formany of us is whether we have it, or havehad it; and whether we could pass it, orhave it passed, on to anyone else.

We each need to make sense of coro-navirus in three different ways: intellectu-ally, emotionally and spiritually. All areimportant—and together they present aformidable challenge to anyone.

We all wish to have intellectual clarity,and many people will spend hours watching news programs and trawling theinternet in the hope of gleaning some newpiece of information that may help themunderstand what is happening. However,intellectual analysis does not easily penetrate a veil of tears. How does onebring sense—or if not sense then perhapshope—in situations that are devastating,indeed irreversible?

The deep questions flow in an unend-ing stream, and perhaps they are a torrentfor you as you read this: Why has this happened to me, or to them? Why did theyget infected and die and I was spared?Where can I find alleviation of my physicaland mental pain? Is there hope?

This is an excerpt fromWhere Is God in a

Coronavirus World? byJohn Lennox, published

by The Good BookCompany, 2020, and

used by kind permission.


WHAT PAIN DOESHuman experience and elementary medi-cine teach us that pain has an importantrole to play in our lives. First, pain warns usof danger. If, for example, you put yourhand too near the fire, your nervous systemalerts your brain and you feel pain, whichmakes you withdraw your hand and so protects it from injury. We cannot say, then,that pain is all bad.

Second, a certain amount of pain isinvolved in physical development. Forinstance, if athletics, mountaineering orthe physically demanding games ofAmerican football, British rugby and boxing are anything to go by, sports enthusiasts will put up with a great deal ofpain in order to excel.

Third, at a deeper level still, sufferingand pain can contribute to character for-mation. There are many examples ofresilience and fortitude in the face of suf-fering—molding characters of great quality.There is truth in what the Russian authorFyodor Dostoevsky had his characterRaskolnikov say: that he could not imaginea great person who had not suffered. “Painand suffering are always inevitable for alarge intelligence and a deep heart.”3

Parents are often aware of this. Onoccasion, they will allow a child to gothrough a painful experience that theyknow, from their own journey, will profitthem in the end.

I do not claim to know much aboutthis, but let me speak personally for amoment. Some years ago, pain in my chesttold me that something was badly wrong. Iwas rushed into a hospital, where the situa-

tion was deemed so serious that I had to saygoodbye to my wife. Skillful medical inter-vention saved me in the nick of time from amassive heart attack that would, in allprobability, have been fatal. In a sense, Ihad had an earthquake in my heart.

That kind of experience will leave noone unchanged. For me, it taught me a greatdeal. It taught me that I was mortal and thatI was vulnerable; and I now feel that my lifewas given back to me as a precious gift to be treasured. It brought more urgency intomy sense of purpose and calling.

DISASTERS AND WORLDVIEWSAt almost the same time as my near-fatalheart attack, my sister lost her (just) married22-year-old daughter to a malignant brain tumor. If I am going to thank God formy recovery—as I do—what shall I sayabout God to my sister? And what shall Isay about God when it comes to a pandemiclike coronavirus, where we can see no positive dimension whatsoever, only unrelieved disaster?

C. S. Lewis once wrote a letter thatwill resonate with most of us: “It is so [very]difficult to believe that the travail of all creation which God himself descended toshare, at its most intense, may be necessaryin the process of turning finite creatures(with free wills) into—well, Gods.”4

And we could now add the coron-avirus to this concern.

Lewis was a one-time atheist whobecame a Christian in middle age and whoexplored the problems of pain, sufferingand evil in two books: The Problem of Painand A Grief Observed. They both illustratethe fact that our attitude to these deepissues is influenced by our worldview—the framework, built up over the years,which contains the thinking and experi-ence that each of us brings to bear on thebig questions about life, death and themeaning of existence. We all have such aframework, however much or little we havethought about it.

Human experience andelementary medicine teach us that pain has an important role to play in our lives.


James Sire, in a very helpful bookentitled The Universe Next Door, points outthat there are essentially only three majorfamilies of worldviews. First, there is thetheistic worldview, held by the threeAbrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianityand Islam. This teaches that there is a Godwho created and upholds the world andwho created human beings in his image.(Notice that I said “families” of worldviews;there are crucial variants within each category, as any Jew, Christian or Muslimwho takes their holy book seriously will tell you.)

Second, there is the polar opposite ofthe theistic approach—the atheistic world-view, which holds that this universe (ormultiverse) is all that there is; there is nosupernatural dimension. Third, there is thepantheistic worldview, which merges theconcepts of God and the world into oneimpersonal entity.

I am also well aware that there arepeople who take a skeptical or agnostic per-spective. But no one is skeptical or agnosticabout everything, and so deep down mostpeople fit somewhere into one of the threeworldviews just mentioned.

I fit into this picture, too. I have aworldview. I am a Christian, and I shalltherefore try to make clear why I think thatChristianity has something to say about theissue of natural disasters like coronavirus—something that is not to be found else-where. Perhaps you will agree with me, andperhaps not. But I hope after you read thisreflection you might understand whyChristians are able to speak confidentlyabout hope and to feel a sense of peace,even in a world of uncertainty in whichdeath has suddenly loomed closer.

EVIDENCE OF LOVEWe need convincing evidence of the good-ness of God’s character if we are to trustHim. I would therefore ask you at this pointto listen to the core of Christian teaching—

whether you are familiar with it or whetherit is new to you—and to try to understand itbefore concluding that belief in God isinconsistent with the existence of the coro-navirus, or any other pandemic, disease orfracture in the natural world.

Christianity claims that the manJesus Christ is God incarnate—the Creatorbecome human. At the heart of its messageis the death of Jesus Christ on a cross justoutside Jerusalem. The question at oncearises: if he is God incarnate, what is hedoing on a cross? Well, it at the very leastmeans that God has not remained distantfrom human pain and suffering but hasHimself experienced it.

Therefore, a Christian is not so mucha person who has solved the problem ofpain, suffering and the coronavirus, butwho has come to love and trust a God whohas Himself suffered.

That, though, is only half of the story.If that suffering had been the end of whatJesus did, we would never have heard aboutit. But it was not the end. The message thatset Jerusalem buzzing that first Easter—the message that riveted the first-centuryworld—was that Jesus had conquereddeath: that he had risen from the dead andwould be the final Judge of humanity.

The importance of this cannot beoverestimated. It addresses a fundamentaldifficulty that the atheistic worldview cannot cope with—the problem of ultimatejustice. As we are all aware, untold millions

A Christian is not somuch a person who hassolved the problem ofpain, suffering and thecoronavirus, but who has come to love and trust a God who hasHimself suffered.


of human beings throughout history havesuffered grievous injustice, and after livesof misery have died without any redress. Nodoubt, that will also be true of some of themany victims of the coronavirus.

These people did not receive justice inthis life. According to atheism, since deathis the end, there is no next life in which justice could be done. If there is no FinalJudge, there can be no ultimate justice.

But the resurrection declares thatjustice is not an illusion and that our desirefor justice is not futile. The abusers, terror-ists and evil men and women of this worldwill one day be brought to justice. When Ihave tried to make this point to atheists,they often say that the thing to do is to workfor justice in this world. I, of course, agree—working for justice is a Christian duty. But Ialso point out to them that this does not goany distance towards solving the matter ofultimate justice. Atheism, by definition,knows none. Atheism is an affront to ourmoral sense.

By contrast, the biblical view is thatultimate justice is very real. God is theauthority behind the moral law, and He willbe its Vindicator. There will, in conse-quence, be a final judgment, when perfectjustice will be done in respect of everyinjustice that has ever been committedfrom earth’s beginning to its end. Justice isnot a mockery.

When the Christian apostle Paul lec-tured to the philosophers at the AreopagusCouncil in Athens, he told his audience thatJesus had been raised from the dead andappointed Judge of the world—a fact thatguarantees that there will eventually be anultimate answer to the deepest humanquestions.

There is a human tendency to long for justice to be done, but there is also a tendency to react negatively to the messageof ultimate justice, because it raises thequestion of our own position before God. “I couldn’t believe in a God like that,” somesay, even as they protest at moral evil and

accuse God of failing to intervene! Here is the problem with our natural response toGod’s future judgment: we welcome God’sintervention only so long as it is an interven-tion in the lives of others and not of ours.

The fact is that we tend to see the evilin others, not in ourselves. So, when wethink of what God should do, most of uswould hold the view that God should be getting rid of the very evil people around us, but never us.

After all, we are not as bad as all that.The Bible teaches, though, that “all

have sinned and fall short of the glory ofGod” (Romans 3:23). None of us has keptour own moral standards, let aloneGod’s—the Ten Commandments tell usthat all too clearly (see Exodus 20:3-17).Therefore, we all need a solution to theproblem of the sin and guilt that—whetherwe know it or not—comes between us and God.

According to Christianity, that solu-tion lies once more in the cross and the resurrection of Jesus. These events do notsimply give us a way into the problem ofevil and pain and a resolution of the prob-lem of justice. They show us what the nameof Jesus means—“he will save his peoplefrom their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Because ofthe death and resurrection of Jesus, thosewho repent of (which means “turn awayfrom”) their own evil and their own contri-bution to human pain and suffering—thosewho trust Jesus as their Lord—receive for-giveness; peace with the personal God whocreated and upholds the universe; a new lifewith new powers; and the promise of aworld where suffering will be no more.Here Christianity does not compete withany other philosophy or religion—for thesimple reason that no one else offers us forgiveness and peace with God that can beknown in this life and endures eternally.

A Christian, then, is not a person whohas solved the problem of suffering but onewho has come to love and trust the Godwho has suffered for them.


TWO CROWNSSo how can this help us cope with disastersand pandemics?

The coronavirus is so called becauseit visibly resembles a crown (“corona” inLatin). A crown is a symbol of power andauthority—and certainly this virus hascolossal power over us humans. It is invisi-ble to the naked eye, and yet just thinkabout what it has forced many millions—indeed, billions—of us to do and not do.

It also forcibly reminds us of our vulnerability. It is easy to forget that wehumans are mortal. The coronavirus isevidence that both our relationship withcreation and creation’s relationship withus are disordered; and that this is not anaccident.

But hope is found in another corona:the crown of thorns that was forced onJesus’ head at his trial before his execution.

That corona shows us just how deepthe break between creature and Creatorgoes. Earth is God’s creation, not ours. We are not its owner, but we seek to be. We are only tenants and stewards, andflawed ones at that—many of us have madea mess of our own lives and even those ofothers, to say nothing about what we havedone to the planet. There cannot be twoparadises for humans, one in fellowshipwith God and one without Him. The coro-navirus is very rapidly demolishing the illusion that we can build perfection onearth—and turning our initial lackadaisical,even complacent response into real fear,frustration and anger.

In a fractured world, damagedthrough the consequences of human sin,pain and suffering are inevitable.

Perhaps we had hidden from thisreality until coronavirus rampaged acrossthe globe. Now, we cannot ignore it, northe big questions about life and death,which it prompts. Here is C.S. Lewis again:

We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attendedto. God whispers to us in our pleasures,speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone torouse a deaf world.5

Perhaps the coronavirus might func-tion as a huge loudspeaker, reminding us ofthe ultimate statistic: that one out of everyone of us dies. If this induces us to look tothe God we may have ignored for years, butwho wore a crown of thorns in order tobring us back into relationship with Himand into a new, unfractured world beyonddeath, then the coronavirus, in spite of thehavoc it has wreaked, will have served avery healthy purpose.

John Lennox is Professor of Mathematics(emeritus) at the University of Oxford andAdjunct Lecturer at OCCA the OxfordCentre for Christian Apologetics.1 Mattia Ferraresi, God vs. Coronavirus,

The New York Times (March 10, 2020),https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/opinion/coronavirus-church-religion.html.

2 Helen Davidson, “First Covid-19 case happenedin November, China government records show– report,” The Guardian (March 13, 2020),https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/first-covid-19-case-happened-in-november-china-government-records-show-report.

3 Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment(Clayton, DE: Prestwick House LiteraryTouchstone Classic, 2005), 233.

4 See “To Belle Allen” (November 1, 1954) inC.S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis,Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950 -1963 (New York: Harper Collins Publishers,2007), 520. Lewis is not saying here that creatures—humans—literally become God. Heis rather referring to the fact that becoming aChristian through trusting Christ means thatwe are brought into God’s family as his sonsand daughters (see John 1:12-13; John 3:1-21).

5 C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain(London: Geoffrey Bles, 1940), 81.


CONFUSED BY HIS imprisonment, Johnthe Baptist wanted to know if Jesus wasreally the promised rescuer of God’s people.If John did not interact personally withJesus when he was growing up, he surelywould have heard through his parents,Zechariah and Elizabeth, that he wasmeant to prepare the way for Jesus. As ababy in the womb, John had leapt whenMary visited his parents. John was the“prophet of the Most High” who hadalready heard a voice from heaven declareof Jesus: “This is My beloved Son, inwhom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

And yet, John asks if Jesus is the onewho is to come. Prison will do that to you.But so will everyday life.

When I first became a Christian, Ipictured myself standing on top of amountain dressed like the “Man in Black,”Johnny Cash, high above the unright-

eousness below. There are so many prob-lems with this image and what I thoughtbeing a Christian was going to be. Ithought that life would subjectively feelbetter and happier and that I would notstumble or struggle or sin anymore.

There are a few points in my life afterthat where I could have asked Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come?” This is alegitimate question. Sometimes it is anacademic question, but most of the time it is an emotional one (not that the two aremutually exclusive). Emotionally, for me,the easy life that was promised (or so Ithought) did not come. I did everythingright, didn’t I? I went to seminary. I marrieda Christian girl. I had been delivered fromgeneralized anxiety disorder, and I gaveGod the credit for it. I am doing this right.I am one of the good ones. A few years later,after a divorce and in the midst of a severemental health crisis, I stood screaming toGod in an apartment I couldn’t afford,“Why aren’t you helping me?”

A debate raged inside. Are you theone? Is it time to look for another? Butwhere else shall I go, for only Christ has thewords of eternal life.

Like many of my fellow melan-cholics, I love the transcendent God, but I long for the immanent one. Grand aesthetic statements and acknowledg-ments of the God infinitely more wise,more good, and more powerful give memuch hope, but I need the one who wipesmy tears and heals my wounds and holdsme so close that I can’t tell if the pulse I feelis mine or his. And in truth, I need them tobe the same pulse because mine is tootired, frail, and skittish to support itself. Itis the pulse of a radar signal in space, justhoping that someone somewhere out therein the infinite void is listening.

I learned from Martin Luther that Iwas probably looking for God in all thewrong places. I was looking for a warriorking in the sky and missing the long-suf-ferer crying next to me. I wanted God tomake me new, now. I wanted God to takeaway all pain, now. I wanted God to smitemy enemies, so that I might show them

WHY AREN’T YOU HELPINGME?

“Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

By Derek Caldwell


mercy (and gain praise) now. Ultimately, Iwanted an easy life of comfort. I gaveChrist my life—didn’t he owe me?

But it was a reflection on Christmasthat showed me the way out. I had beentrying to stand on that mountain, not real-izing that God had called me to witness theSavior in a manger. I had stumbled into aprison of the mind, locked into anexhausting cycle of hyper self-awarenessand a grief that felt like hopeless fear. All Icould see was my suffering and all I couldhear was God’s deafening silence.

In a Christmas letter to a fiancée hewould never have the chance to marry,Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from his ownliteral prison cell:

Be brave for my sake, dearest Maria,even if this letter is your only tokenof my love this Christmas-tide. Weshall both experience a few darkhours—why should we disguise thatfrom each other? We shall ponderthe incomprehensibility of our lotand be assailed by the question ofwhy, over and above the darknessalready enshrouding humanity, weshould be subjected to the bitteranguish of a separation whose pur-pose we fail to understand....

And then, just when everything isbearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, theChristmas message comes to tell usthat all our ideas are wrong, and thatwhat we take to be evil and dark isreally good and light because itcomes from God. Our eyes are atfault, that is all. God is in the manger,wealth in poverty, light in darkness,succor in abandonment. No evil canbefall us; whatever men may do to us,they cannot but serve the God who issecretly revealed as love and rulesthe world and our lives.1

Jesus did respond to John theBaptist, by the way. He said to John’s messengers: “Go and tell John what youhave seen and heard: the blind receive

their sight, the lame walk, lepers arecleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead areraised up, the poor have good newspreached to them. And blessed is the onewho is not offended by me.”2 Theologianspoint out that the words of Jesus here areallusions back to passages from Isaiah inwhich God rescues his people.3 It is a declaration of who Jesus is (God) andwhat he is doing (inaugurating God’s kingdom). It is a glimpse of the reality tocome. And it is a comfort to John and to us: The God who seems like pure transcendence from our cell is close in hisloving immanence. We may not notice it,but “our eyes are at fault, that is all.”

We are in the throes of a global crisis,a cultural moment in which much hasbeen given up and there is great need forcomfort. For Lent, we typically give upsome comfort or worldly pleasure for fortydays. This year, many of us are inadver-tently giving up more than we ever imag-ined. Let us also relinquish something thatstopped giving comfort a long time ago:Pretense. Old eyes. Old ideas. The falseidea that our lives here are about maxi-mizing happiness and that a lack of thathappiness must correspond to a lack ofGod’s love, goodness, or existence. Jesusdid not just go without food for forty daysin the wilderness. He also put to death thedevil’s temptations of a painless, exaltedlife. Our treasures are not here; they arewith our Father, with “him who is able todo immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.”4

Derek Caldwell serves on the correspondence team at Ravi ZachariasInternational Ministries.

1 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger:Reflections on Advent and Christmas(Louisville, KY: Westminster John KnoxPress, 2010), 5.

2 See Matthew 11:4-6 and Luke 7:22-23.3 See especially Isaiah 35:4-6 and 61:1-3.

Robert M. Bowman, Jr. & J. Ed Komoszewski,Putting Jesus in His Place (Grand Rapids, MI:Kregel, 2007), 203.

4 See Ephesians 3:20.


A PERSON OF THE SOILBy Ravi Zacharias

Through the pages ofScripture, we discoverboth how profound andhow down-to-earth Jesus is. While repeatedlyclaiming titles that areproper only when used byGod, Jesus is neverthelessa person of the soil, onewho comes close to us andto our earthly struggles.

ON CHRISTMAS DAY 2018, the Indianpublication The Wire posted an article byRohit Kumar titled, “How Would JesusHave Fared Amongst ContemporaryIndian Godmen?” Kumar had heard theterm Yeshu Baba while visiting a jail in thecompany of a group of children perform-ing a Christmas program for the inmates.At the end of the program, one of the pris-oners thanked the children for bringingtheir celebration of the birth of YeshuBaba to the prison.


Kumar had already heard other titlesfor Jesus in Hinduism like “Isa Masih,”but he felt this new title sounded morefamiliar and human. He began to compareJesus to a contemporary Indian baba, aholy man or sage, asking himself the ques-tion in the title of the article: How wouldJesus have fared among contemporaryIndian gurus or godmen? To answer thequestion, he decided to read the gospels ofMatthew, Mark, Luke, and John, whichtell the life story of Jesus. He concludedthat Jesus didn’t fare very well by compar-ison with Indian godmen.

Kumar observed, for instance, thatwhile the patronage of the wealthy isessential for any baba, Yeshu Baba seemedto show no favoritism to the rich. Hepointed to the story in Mark 10:17–31 ofthe rich young ruler who wanted to followJesus, to whom Jesus said, “Go, sell every-thing you have and give to the poor, andyou will have treasure in heaven. Thencome, follow me” (verse 21). Kumar com-mented that a modern-day baba wouldhave leveraged the young man’s wealth forhis movement rather than pointing out, asJesus did in verse 25, the incompatibilitybetween wealth and spirituality.

In terms of temple worship, YeshuBaba did not direct the woman in John4:21 to any particular place, saying, “God isspirit, and his worshipers must worship inthe Spirit and in truth” (verse 24)—a starkcontrast to what a modern-day babawould request about where to worship.Yeshu also typically stood with marginalizedwomen of his day (see, e.g., John 8:1–11),treating them as equals and showing themrespect and understanding, a clear depar-ture from the attitudes of his day and, to alesser degree, the attitudes of the modernday. Yeshu further encouraged his disciplesin Matthew 6 and 7 to seek forgivenessfrom each other before making offeringsto God, and he emphasized humility andservice to others out of sight of anyone’sobservation.


Kumar reached a surprising conclu-sion: “Yeshu Baba would have been adisaster as a contemporary Indian godman. . . Pro-service, anti-ritualism; pro-poor,anti-elitism; pro-women, anti-patriar-chalism; pro-freedom, anti-orthodoxy;Yeshu Baba’s career as a godman wouldhave ended before it began.

“Had he been around,” Kumar con-tinued, “he would have most probablyfound no traction at all with the rich, thepowerful and the religious. He might, onthe other hand, have found huge appealamongst the marginalized, the feministsand the liberal. Who’s to say, I might evenhave become one of his followers.”1

India, of course, is full of gurus.ManyIndians, high and low, revere, respect, andadmire their self-attained Knowledge andability to live an honorable life. You canoften see the bony figure of an ascetic

walking along the sideof a road, carrying astaff with a small bagdraped on his shoul-ders. The ascetic’s spiri-tual pilgrimage mightgo on for days. Often a“holy man,” bowl inhand, would knock onthe door of our home inDelhi, hoping for anextra portion of riceand dhal (a traditionalIndian soup). Whiletheir lifestyle is austere,gurus often becomementors for sophisti-

cated businessmen and women and well-educated, highly placed officials.

The teachings of these gurus, or babas,can be shallow or deep. A cynical skepticonce summarized a scenario this way:

I can get you a real following if you follow my advice. Wear either a saffron-colored robe or a spotlesswhite pyjama and kurta [the loose-

fitting trousers shirt worn by Indiansages] and take up the lotus positionwith your eyes closed. Have someash freshly lining your forehead. Iwill bring ten friends of mine whowill sit in your presence, and all youneed to do is come up with about fifteen or twenty one-liners such as,“Your hand must be full but yourhead empty.” “Run and never lookback because you give an advantageto the pursuer.” “Follow the lightwherever it leads, and the prosperityof your shadow will always followyou.” Just come up with some“wow” statements. They will beentranced by your wisdom, and thenext week each one of them willbring ten friends. Within a year, I can make you a millionaire withthousands of followers.2

Such cynicism is often warranted, asmany so-called “wise men” prey on thegullible and desperate in India whohunger for answers and meaning in life. Ofcourse, such marketing-oriented versionsof mystical thought do a disservice to out-standing Hindu thinkers such as SwamiVivekananda (1863–1902), the Hindumonk whose speech caused a sensation atChicago’s Parliament of World Religionsin 1893. He had studied both Western andEastern philosophy, bringing a level ofphilosophical sophistication far superiorto popular guruism.

From the depths of philosophy toshallow popular practices, much Easternthought ranges from the highly sophisti-cated to the crassly commercial. Does itnot strike us as strange that the land thathas exported yoga and meditation is alsosteeped in corruption and oppression? Yet we see this tragic juxtaposition aroundthe world, and with every religion. Theseglaring tensions invite scorn from skepticsand doubt from those seeking reasons to believe.

Excerpted from Seeing Jesusfrom the East: A Fresh Look at History’s Most InfluentialFigure (Zondervan, 2020) by Ravi Zacharias and AbduMurray. Used by permission.


The claims of Jesus are unique andfar surpass the maxims of ethical behavior.They go to the core of life’s purpose. In theland of gurus, Jesus is seen as, at best,another guru. But is he? Or is he some-thing else entirely?

One of my friends is a professor at afine university. Of Jewish stock, he main-tains that it is impossible to read thegospel of John three times in a row andnot be persuaded of Jesus’ extraordinarynature. So I put his challenge to the testand discovered both how profound andhow down-to-earth Jesus is.

In Hindi we have an expression todescribe a “real” person: dharti ka aadmi.It means “a person of the soil.” Jesus’ mes-sage and his understanding heart comethrough again and again in John’s gospel.While Jesus repeatedly claims titles thatare proper only when used by God,3 he isnevertheless of the soil.

Merrill Tenney, the famed biblicalscholar, refers to the gospel of John as astory steeped in irony. He suggests that inthe story of Jesus, we don’t see someone sobeyond the realm of our experience thatwe can’t relate. Instead, we see someonewho came close to us and to our earthlystruggles but still speaks of another king-dom. Tenney comments:

In the life of Jesus Himself irony isapparent. Although He was virtuous,He suffered all possible indignities;majestic, He died in ignominy; powerful, he expired in weakness . . .He claimed to possess the water oflife, and He died thirsting. Heclaimed to be the light of the world,and He died in darkness. He claimedto be the good shepherd, and hedied in the fangs of the wolves. Heclaimed to be the truth, and He wascrucified as an impostor. He claimedto be the resurrection and the life,and He expired sooner than mostvictims of crucifixion usually did, so that Pilate was amazed.4

We must see that Jesus’ crucifixionis more than ironic. It was a shocking,indeed numbing, ending for the peoplewho believed him to be the victor. As thethief on the cross said, “Aren’t you theMessiah? Save yourself and us!” (Luke23:39). Given all of Jesus’ titles, theEastern mind naturally expects a differentending. The downward trajectory of Jesus’story, if one stops short of the glorious res-urrection ending, is nothing less than amonumental tragedy. If, like his disciples,we walk away after Calvary, we will utterthe same forlorn words they expressed:“We had hoped” (see Luke 24:21).

Stories are unfortunately not alwaysread in their entirety. Sometimes we missthe ending. Other times we miss the begin-ning. Reading the five books of Moses orthe historical books of the Old Testament,we see the same pendulum-like swingbetween triumph and tragedy. TheIsraelite kings never lived the same pattern, good or bad, one after the other.Sometimes even the godly ones, such asJosiah, ended badly. There is a jagged edgeto the reality of the Old Testament. It is thegospel—the story of Christ’s advent, teach-ing, death,and resurrection—that providesthe logical end and only lasting hope.

Though we sometimes see anincredibly nuanced similarity betweenreligions, we must not miss the defining

In the story of Jesus, wedon’t see someone sobeyond the realm of ourexperience that we can’trelate. Instead, we seesomeone who came closeto us and to our earthlystruggles but still speaksof another kingdom.


differences. For example, the BhagavadGita is the climax of the Mahābhārata, twosacred scriptures of Hinduism. Much likethe Old Testament’s promise to thegospel’s fulfillment, the Mahābhārata tellsthe story while the Gita gives the fulfill-ment. But in the Gita, “The Song,” whilethe god Krishna talks of duty and sacrifice,there is no supreme sacrifice (other thanthe duty to go to war even with your brother). In the Christian gospel, however,the supreme sacrifice of the Savior dealsdecisively with the war within us.

Tragically, Christ followers too oftenhave watered down this matchless story totransform the Christian message into a“Western faith” of joy, peace, and success.So many of us in the West would rathertalk of the Enlightenment or variousphilosophical movements than about ourown walk in the darkness, or of culturaldrift rather than our own soul struggles.Yes, when tragedy strikes a celebrity orsomeone close to us, we tend to doubt Godand ask, “Why?” But we dare not probe too deeply, busying ourselves instead withmental health awareness and suicide hotlines, which, while good and necessary,don’t get to the heart of the matter.

To be sure, the Eastern mind alsoasks the same question, but not because itdoubts God’s existence. Rather, like Job, itwishes to probe the mystery of personalpain and individual struggle. The Bibleaddresses the individual struggle formeaning largely in the person of Jesus. Hisanswer is not merely in statements but inhimself.

One of India’s greatest movies isMother India, filmed in 1957. It portrays afamily struggling with ever-present pain.Its songs highlight wounded lives in awounded culture. Some of the lyrics display a struggle with fatalism—others,with survival amidst persecution anddeath. Mother India is this great nation’sparallel to Fiddler on the Roof, the story of aJewish family fleeing one home and onepogrom after another to await the Messiah.

John captures this journey by devot-ing more than half of the book to Jesus’suffering path. A wounded culture findsits best answer in a wounded Savior.

Let’s trace who this Savior is.

KNOWING THE AUTHORThe gospel of John begins much likeGenesis, the first book of the Bible: “In thebeginning was the Word, and the Wordwas with God, and the Word was God. Hewas with God in the beginning. Throughhim, all things were made; without himnothing was made that has been made. Inhim was life, and that life was the light ofall mankind. The light shines in the dark-ness, and the darkness has not overcomeit” (John 1:1–5).

This passage does not say, “In thebeginning was a guru, or a sage, or a baba,”which would have been securely in thecomfort zone of the Eastern reader of apantheistic bent. But it would not haveaddressed his or her spiritual hunger. Thispassage introduces us to a Teacher whocomes as a revelation of God himself.

The concept of revelation is far dif-ferent in the East. The Hindu scripturesare divided into the Shruti and the Smriti.The first is best described as, “That whichwas heard,” the second as, “that which wasremembered.” In the Qur’an, the focus ison the one who received the revelation. InBuddhism, the sermons of Buddha formthe scriptures. Eastern sages are moregnostic in the sense that they “know.”They have “received” knowledge through

The Bible addresses theindividual struggle formeaning largely in theperson of Jesus. Hisanswer is not merely instatements but in himself.


various means. Whatever technique theyhave practiced has brought them insight.That is the starting point.

The Bible’s focus, however, is not on the one who received the message—the receptor—but on the one who revealed truth—the Revealer, who is alsothe Embodiment of God incarnate, theculminating revelation. It is not so much“what was heard” or “what was remem-bered” but who did the revealing and whoenabled the receptors to remember. Noteven a prophet is the revelation. It is Godincarnate himself. “In the past God spoketo our ancestors through the prophets atmany times and in various ways, but inthese last days he has spoken to us by hisSon, whom he appointed heir of all things,and through whom also he made the uni-verse” (Hebrews 1:1–2).

John 1 gives us a fascinatingmetaphor of “the Word.” Somebody said to me once, “It could just as easily havesaid, ‘In the beginning was a thought.’” I answered, “Yes, but even that would pre-suppose a ‘thinker.’ ” What we have is themetaphor of language and revelation. Butnotice the shift—God’s word, and God asWord; God’s light, and God as light; God asthe revealer, and God as the revelation;God as the messenger, and God as themessage. God is a communicating God,and God is a self-revealing God. That iswhy we have voices right from the begin-ning of the biblical story, as discussed inthe previous chapter. As Francis Schaeffersaid, “He is there and he is not silent.”5

The background is being set. Light,life, and the message of God are withinreach. As Jesus will tell his disciples, weare now the intercessors through the ulti-mate Intercessor (see John 17). His com-ing was predicted and his life was demon-strably embodied. That life walked andtalked and engaged individuals. Some ofthese encounters appear in John butnowhere else. John tells us he has toldthem to us so we might know who Jesusreally is (see John 20:30–31).

During Jesus’ arrest, Pontius Pilateasked him a pragmatic and politicallynuanced question: “Are you a king?” (seeJohn 18:33). Exposing Pilate’s motives,Jesus asked his interlocutor if this was agenuine question or a setup. But thenJesus went on to say, “My kingdom is notof this world . . . Everyone on the side oftruth listens to me” (verses 36–37). Thegoal of Jesus’ reign is not geographicalconquest. It is not about Hindustan or theHouse of Islam or a Christian country.The rule of God comes to us as individuals,one by one. We invite his reign; we obeyhis voice.

Jesus is the focus. Jesus is God incar-nate. Jesus brings the miracle of light andlife in us because of who he is. In John, thefirst-person singular is used with refer-ence to Jesus a massive 118 times—morethan in the first three Gospels (Matthew,Mark, and Luke) combined. John clearly istelling us that Jesus is more than “YeshuBaba.” He is “Yeshu Bhagwan,” Jesus God.Not merely Jesus Guru; Jesus Savior. It is an all-defining difference. Yeshu Babais a touching and culturally beautifuldescription, but it does not express thevast difference between a baba and thedivine person of Jesus. In the eyes of God,even a guru needs the Savior.

How does John go about unveilingthis mystery and mastery of Jesus Christ?

WHO IS HE?If somebody were to ask me who I am, Iwould give my name. If he or she were toask me for more information, I would givemy heritage, my vocation, my family back-ground, etc. I would never think of givingmyself the prerogative of being a guide tomankind. “I am,” for me, is followed byother qualifiers and defines my relation-ships.

With Jesus it is transcendentally different. For him, the message of each “Iam” in John is as deep as it is broad. Theseincredibly powerful “I am” metaphorsexpand our grasp of his person and mission.


• “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35).

• “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).

• “I am the gate for the sheep” (John 10:7).

• “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11).

• “I am the resurrection and thelife” (John 11:25).

• “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6).

• “I am the true vine” (John 15:1).

• Then the most staggering claim of all: “Before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58).

That last claim motivated Jesus’opponents to kill him. He did not “come”into being. Jesus was claiming that it isimpossible for him not to be. He is theeternal “I Am.” The child was born; the Sonis given (Isaiah 9:6). Yet the Son eternallyexists. His coming was not a reincarna-tion; his coming was the incarnation.

HIS TESTIMONIALS—SO THAT YOU MIGHT BE SURELest we miss the point, the gospel of Johngives us not only titles, claims, and storiesabout Jesus’ identity; it also provides anintensity of argument. The very ideas ofthe Logos, the Word—the logic, the concepts—are all connected to reasoningand propositional truth. John offered evidence for Jesus’ authority and authen-ticity because he wanted the reader notjust to believe but to know that Jesus’claims about himself are true. This is not agnostic “knowing” available only to thefew. It is available to all who seek to knowthe truth.

Because truth is of paramountimportance, claims of truth must be sup-ported. The veracity of the message andthe messenger is of primary importance.

There are at least five witnesses inScripture to validate Jesus’ statements.

1. The witness of his works.

The works or the miracles Jesus per-formed testified to one greater than amere man.

As noted by Nicodemus, “No onecould perform the signs you are doing ifGod were not with him” (John 3:2). It isfascinating that Nicodemus doesn’t merelyrefer to miracles but to “signs”—indica-tors to those who knew the Scriptures.

Another time, the religious authori-ties challenged Jesus to provide a sign toprove his authority. He replied, “Destroythis temple, and I will raise it again inthree days” (John 2:19). His detractorsquestioned how something that had takennearly fifty years to build could be rebuiltin three days. The disciples rememberedthis too, after he rose from the dead “onthe third day” (Luke 24:7–8).

2. The witness of his Father.Jesus’ works left his detractors perplexedas they tried to explain away what he wasdoing. So they switched gears and criti-cized him for working on a Sabbath. Butthey were in for a shock when Jesusreached even higher for his authority. InJohn 5:17, Jesus said, “My Father is alwaysat his work to this very day, and I too amworking.” In the fourth gospel, Jesusnever refers to God as “our Father.” It iseither “my Father” or “your Father.” But“my Father” was clearly a claim that wasso personal his accusers said he called Godhis own Father.

Jesus’ clearest affirmation from hisFather came at his baptism, when theSpirit of God descended on him as he waspraying and a voice from heaven that washeard by others said, “You are my Son,whom I love; with you I am well pleased”(Luke 3:22). In John 8:14–18, Jesus alsoclaims that the Father’s authority is hisown authority. Their judgments arealways in sync, one with the other. God’s


affirmation of Jesus as his Son and Jesus’many references to God as his Fathertogether demonstrate the uniqueness ofJesus’ claim. Even if we refuse to acceptJesus’ words about himself, we cannotescape the Father’s affirmation.

3. The witness of the Scriptures.Although some of the other gospel writersgive us more prophecies about Jesus, Johngives us at least eighteen references to theOld Testament. These include a variety oftexts, ranging from the Pentateuch, theWisdom literature, and both the Majorand Minor Prophets, including a very sig-nificant prophecy from Micah 5:2: “Butyou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though youare small among the clans of Judah, out ofyou will come for me one who will be rulerover Israel, whose origins are from of old,from ancient times.”

These three “witnesses”—the attes-tations of Jesus’ works, his Father, and theScriptures—were clearly claimed by Jesus.They are powerful enough. And after the resurrection, two other significantwitnesses were added.

4. The witness of the descent of theHoly Spirit upon the disciples(Acts 2:1–12)—witnessed by large numbers.

5. The witness of the sudden boldness of the disciples (Acts 2:14 and throughoutthe rest of the New Testament)—demon-strated through the disciples’ teachingand conduct.

Those two witnesses round off theobjective support of who Jesus was. Butwe must also look at the subjective evidence. After the death of his son, Yale philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorffcommented, “When we have overcomeabsence with phone calls, winglessnesswith airplanes, summer heat with air-conditioning—when we have over-come all these and much more besides,then there will abide two things with

which we must cope: the evil in our heartsand death.”6

Jesus helps us deal with these twogiants—the evil in our hearts and death.Let us look at the witness of his presencein the life of one who believes in him.

THE WITNESS OF HIS PRESENCE—A SUBJECTIVE APPROPRIATIONFrom the Eastern point of view, two thingsimmediately stand out from the precedingtestimonials. No one ever made suchclaims of stupendous proportions whilebearing the marks of humble humanity.What is it about Jesus that makes theseclaims possible? As I read them, myEastern mind goes to work. What do hisclaims say about me?

• I am living in darkness.• I am destined for death.• I am like a lost sheep

looking for my home.• I read about many bad shepherds.• I am merely a branch in

search of roots.• I struggle with finding the way;

I am often beguiled by a lie; and life simply seems a drudgeryone day after the next.

• There was a time when I was not; then there was a time when I came to be.

Just this last point is worth focusingon for a moment.

My mother was a very private person.But after she moved to Canada, she wouldoften talk of her younger days. One time,she told my wife of the time when she hadbeen formally engaged by her parents to aHindu man from another city. My mothercame from a nominal Christian home, sothis news came as a surprise. But as thewedding date got closer, no invitationswere sent or arrangements made. Finally,the day of the wedding came and wentwith no ceremony. So my mother mus-


FIVE WITNESSESBecause truth is of paramountimportance, claims of truth mustbe supported. The veracity of themessage and the messenger is ofprimary importance. There are atleast five witnesses in Scripture tovalidate Jesus’ statements.

1. The witness of his works.

2. The witness of his Father.

3. The witness of the Scriptures.

4. The witness of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples.

5. The witness of the sudden boldness of the disciples.



tered the courage to ask her mother whathad happened. My grandmother verycasually answered, “Oh, that marriage isoff; he died of heatstroke some weeks agowhen he was riding a bullock cart in hisvillage.” This put her daughter, my moth-er, into a state of shock, even though shehad not wanted the marriage.

Now here’s an important point forthe purpose of our discussion. If thewoman who became my mother hadinstead married that Hindu man, I wouldnever have been born. There would neverhave been a person with my DNA. Thisfact impressed on me the inescapabletruth that all of us are contingent beingswho at one time never existed and for whom the possibility existed of nonbe-ing. My birth was not necessary. It just happened to be.

But that reality is not true of Jesus.There never was a time when he was not,in his essence. “I am” was his ultimateclaim. So if Jesus is who he claims to be, he not only gives me answers; he, in hisperson, is the answer.

THE LONGING FOR LOVE AND THE FEAR OF THE WORDEverything in the gospel of John points towhy the author is called “the disciplewhom Jesus loved” (see John 13:21–30;18:15–18; 19:26–27; 21:7; 21:20) andwho in turn loved Jesus. There is a nerv-ousness in India with the word love. In anEastern home, it is common to hear thisstatement: “My father has never told methat he loves me.” This does not mean thatlove is not there. During my entire lifebefore my mother’s death, I never onceheard my dad tell my mother he loved her.My sister is married to a former Hindu.When her father-in-law was dying, heexperienced a deathbed conversion. Atthat moment of settling his destiny, hecalled the family to his side to tell them hehad just committed his life to Jesus. Then

he asked his wife to come closer, saying toher, “In all the years I have known you, Ihave never called you my sweetheart, but Iwant to do that now.”

To a Westerner who sprinkles“honey” into every other sentence as hespeaks to his wife, this Eastern culturalcharacteristic is incomprehensible. Asidefrom young people who are trying to bemore open about how they feel, talk of lovein India is mostly confined to the movies,where it is given free rein. This theme oflove has played hide-and-seek for a longtime in the East. We seek it and then hide it.

So to open the Bible and read thatGod actually loves us is a breathtakingconcept that invades an emotionally barri-caded culture. Scripture presents a lovingSavior who is unafraid to tell us that he loves us and that we can have a lovingrelationship with our Creator. He defineswho he is and sustains his truth claims byevidences that have transcended time.This is the true “Yeshu Baba.”

Ravi Zacharias is Founder and Chairmanof Ravi Zacharias InternationalMinistries in Alpharetta, GA.

1Rohit Kumar, “How Would Jesus Have Fared Amongst Contemporary IndianGodmen,” The Wire, December 25, 2018,https://thewire.in/religion/how-would-jesus-havefared-amongst -contemporary-indian-godmen.

2 Shared in a conversation with a friend who is a Christian from a Hindu background.His brother, an atheist skeptic, had set up this scenario to him.

3 See, for example, “bread of life” (6:35), “I Am” (8:58), and “the good shepherd”(10:14). There are many more in John.

4 Merrill Tenney, John: The Gospel of Belief: An Analytic Study of the Text (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1948), 52.

5 See Francis Schaeffer, He Is There and He IsNot Silent, 30th anniv. ed. (Wheaton, IL:Tyndale, 2001).

6 Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 72–73.


This article appeared in a similar form in the Winter 2003issue of Just Thinking. See the Afterword for further details.


MANY CONVERSATIONS and experiencesfrom years past are long forgotten. Yetthere are some that remain as vivid as theywere decades ago. We may not rememberall the details, but they still whisper to usin their beauty, weep to us in their sorrow... and even startle us from our sleep.

As an aside, I completed this articlelate one night and awoke the next morningto the terrible news of the Space ShuttleColumbia disaster. Like many of you, Iremember where I was when theChallenger was lost: I was watching thelaunch in my college writing lab with myfellow tutors. I cannot fathom the lossessustained in such tragedies and pray insome way these feeble words might pointto the source of all hope.

OUR VIEWOF GOD

“Our minds canshape the way athing will be,because we actaccording to ourexpectations.”—Filmmaker Federico Fellini1

By Danielle DuRant


A FACELESS FIGUREAlthough I haven’t read F. Scott Fitzgerald’sThe Great Gatsby since I was in theeleventh grade, I recall a disturbing motifthat Fitzgerald weaves throughout hisnovel. The recurring scene is an advertis-ing billboard with the eyes of Doctor T.J.Eckleburg looming behind yellow glasses.Writes Fitzgerald,

But above the gray land and thespasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of DoctorT.J. Eckleburg. The eyes of DoctorT.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose…. [H]is eyes,dimmed a little by many paintlessdays under sun and rain, brood onover the solemn dumping ground.

The valley of ashes....2

Equally disturbing is what this signpoints to: under “Doctor Eckleburg’s per-sistent stare”3 lies a garage where tragedysoon unfolds. A faceless physician looksover “the valley of ashes,” and he is incapable of responding or being moved.

Of course, the Bible speaks of “thevalley of ashes” in numerous instances.This description is associated with theKidron Valley surrounding Jerusalem,where David fled from his rebellious sonAbsalom, and King Josiah, under God’sreform, ordered the burning of vesselsmade for pagan gods.4

George Wilson, the disturbed garageowner in The Great Gatsby, identifiesDoctor Eckleburg with God. But surely thischilling picture of an impotent, faceless figure is not representative of the God ofthe Scriptures—or is it?

“Why, Lord, do you stand far off?Why do you hide yourself in times of trou-ble?” cries the psalmist (Psalm 10:1). Thenext ten verses of this psalm of lamentcharacterize “the wicked” who taunts therighteous and arrogantly boasts, “God willnever notice; he covers his face and neversees” (verse 11). Not insignificantly, of the150 psalms, over one third of them areexpressions of lament—a theme foundthroughout the Bible.

Nonetheless, this psalmist will sooninterject words of hope and comfort: “Butyou, O God, do see trouble and grief; youconsider it to take it in hand. The victimcommits himself to you; you are the helperof the fatherless” (Psalm 10:14).

HEARTS AT BAYOne of my grandmothers enjoyed F. ScottFitzgerald’s writing, and we used to chatabout literature often. I don’t remembermany of those conversations, but I doremember one months before she died.“Emily” was her name, but everyone calledher “Sunny,” and that she was—bright,spunky, and good-natured. She marriedand had three children, and at seventy,became the oldest graduate at her university.Yet when she was eight years old, she losther father, whom she adored, just beforeChristmas. At the age of 82, she told methat when her father died, she “learned tostop wanting.”

I don’t recall how I responded—I don’t know that I quite understood. ButI’ve wondered since, how does one learn tostop wanting and go on to live for so manyyears? Certainly, like many of her genera-tion, she just persevered and rarely lookedback. But sadly, though she was a Christian,I don’t know whether she ever sensed God’s comfort in her loss.

Perhaps many of us understand herresponse all too well, for in the place of suchpain, we may feel abandoned by God. So, welearn to stop wanting anything from God or


from others. We may whisper or rage inmoments when our hearts sink into desola-tion: want nothing, hope in nothing, thennothing or no one can ever disappoint you.

However, is such a life truly livable?Loss and longing are inescapable in ourbroken world, and throughout theScriptures, God invites us to bring ourheartaches to Him that He might renewour hope. In fact, the word “hope” andrelated words such as “desire” appear hun-dreds of times in the Bible. “You (God) havegranted him the desire of his heart and havenot withheld the request of his lips,” weread in Psalm 21:2. “Blessed is the man whotrusts in the LORD, and whose hope is in theLORD,” writes the prophet (Jeremiah 17:7).Likewise, the apostle Paul affirms that even in suffering, such “hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured outhis love into our hearts by the Holy Spiritwhom He has given us” (Romans 5:5).

Nevertheless, hope pries one’s heartopen again, doesn’t it? For to hope is toplace one’s trust in someone, and for theChristian, namely in the God who seeminglydeserted him or her. Thus, we keep ourhearts at bay, albeit perhaps unwittingly, all the while believing we are resting inGod’s providence or “the Lord’s will.” Ormaybe we’re not resting at all, but insteadangry and running from God’s presence.

YOUR REAL VIEW OF GODColleague Os Guinness rightly suggeststhat only through such crisis experience isour true picture of God revealed. In histimeless book Doubt, he writes,

Think back to some crisis…. What didyour attitudes then show you of yourreal view of God? Or think back oversome deep personal concern and theway it was brought to prayer. In situ-ations like these we see our realviews of God. What faith is askingalways reveals what it is assuming.5

Guinness describes the strugglingperson in a chapter aptly titled “Faith Outof Focus”:

For some reason or other a believergets into his head such a wrong ideaof God that it comes between himand God or between him and trust-ing God. Since he does not recognizewhat he is doing, he blames Godrather than his faulty picture, littlerealizing that God is not like that atall. Unable to see God as he is, hecannot trust him as he should, anddoubt is the result.6

Then he concludes, “If our picture ofGod is wrong, then our whole presupposi-tion of what it is possible for God to be or dois correspondingly altered.”7

So may I gently ask, when you digbelow your doctrine, what does God looklike to you—really—when you find yourselfin the valley of ashes? Does He appear caring and compassionate, or perhapsunresponsive or dismissive? Does Hematch the portrait of God revealed inScriptures—Wonderful Counselor, MightyGod, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace(Isaiah 9:6)—or perhaps someone else?

This past year I found myself, as itwere, staring again into the eyes of DoctorT.J. Eckleburg, and discovering, to mybewilderment, that this disturbing carica-ture symbolized my picture of God. Intruth, I had seen these distant, emotionlesseyes in a telling dream only a year before. Ieven wrote upon waking that while theyseemed to represent God, “This is difficultto believe because I don’t think I see God in this way”—and most days I can wholeheartedly say that I don’t. However,one evening I perceived that God hadclosed a door, and He had nothing more tosay to me about a certain matter. Suddenly,dread fell upon me. I sat stricken inside mycar for three hours, as darkness descended,numbed by seeming abandonment. It was


as if God walked out the door while I wasstill speaking with Him, dismissing my painand me.

I was raised in a conservative, “Bible-believing” church and was graduated froma leading evangelical seminary where Itook most of my courses in biblical studiesand theology. The arguments for God’sexistence and the problem of evil didn’ttrouble me in the light of the evidence ofScriptures and other conflicting world-views. But there were a few times when Iquestioned God’s goodness. I see now—andthis is critical—that in every instance it was because I perceived Him to be unresponsive, and thus unmoved. It wasn’tthat I thought He was incapable ofresponding, but worse: He was able and yetindifferent to my heartache.

Studying God’s Word didn’t lead meto this conclusion; rather, my experience ofloss did, and over time this “doctrine”shaped my picture of God. The night I satstricken inside my car, though I could citeverses that countered my predicament, inmy heart it certainly seemed God wasunmoved by my pain.

Ravi Zacharias has often said thatwhen we listen to questions about God, we must consider that there may be a deeper existential concern behind theintellectual queries—because behindevery question is a questioner. In otherwords, might a pointed question about evilmask heartache and the real difficulty:Why did God allow this loss in my life?

GOD HAS A FACEIt is not my intent, nor do I believe it is easily possible, to outline step by step how one’s view of God is transformed, andsubsequently, one’s hope in Him. Butsurely, we must begin with his revealedWord. For in reality, unlike the faceless,emotionless Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, the triune God of the Bible has a face—and He seeks after us. Consider Jacob. Goddescended in the middle of night in the

form of a man to wrestle him and blesshim. “So Jacob called the name of theplace Peniel (meaning “the face of God”),saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face,and yet my life has been delivered’”(Genesis 32:30).

God also revealed Himself to Mosesin a burning bush, announcing, “I AM WHOI AM” (Exodus 3:14). By this namesake, Heidentified Himself as the unchanging,faithful and living God, both now andforevermore. God said to Moses, “I am theGod of your father, the God of Abraham,the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,”reminding Moses of his covenant withAbraham and his descendants (Exodus3:6). Incredibly, God intimately associateshis name with mere mortals—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—callingattention to the truth that He desires arelationship with his people.

We see this portrait of a relational,desiring God throughout the Old Testa-ment, whether in his words through thepsalmists’ yearning, Isaiah’s wooing, orHosea’s heartache: “How can I give you up,O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, OIsrael? … My heart recoils within me; mycompassion grows warm and tender”(Hosea 11:8). “I AM WHO I AM” is the Godof the past, present, and future, who hascome near to identify with his people andto call them by name.

The Scriptures declare that this Godwho comes near is, in truth, the God who“made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus”(2 Corinthians 4:6). He is Jesus, who, “uponseeing the people, he felt compassion forthem, because they were distressed anddispirited like sheep without a shepherd”(Matthew 9:36). This Jesus, who when he“saw the city [of Jerusalem] … wept over it”(Luke 19:41). This Jesus who came “to bindup the brokenhearted … to comfort all whomourn, and provide for those who grieve inZion, to bestow on them a crown of beauty


instead of ashes, the oil of gladness insteadof mourning, and a garment of praiseinstead of a spirit of despair” (Isaiah 61:1-3;cf. Luke 4:18-19). This Jesus who asked hisfather “to give you another advocate to helpyou and be with you forever”—the HolySpirit, our comforter (John 14:16).

Although painful, there is a bitter-sweet beauty in brokenness, for in this valleyof ashes stands Jesus, the crucified one,wounded for our transgressions. He notonly walked through this valley but alsocrossed over it for us, triumphing over suffering, sin, and death. And in actualfact, John 18:1 says, “When he had finishedpraying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley”—yes, the valley of ashes. Where was he going? He was on his way to Gethsemane andfinally Golgotha.

Only a suffering God with a face cansee our hearts and respond to us in ourpain and anger. Sadly, if we envision Godas emotionless and impersonal, we cutourselves off from who He truly is andfrom his touch for which we desperatelylong. Might we look into his Word, digunder our doctrine, see what has shapedour picture of God, and invite Him totransform our view of Him, and ultimatelyour hope in Him.

Bible scholar Ajith Fernando encour-ages us likewise:

But this I know: God does comfort.We must go to him in our desperationand cling to him. As we linger in hispresence, we become like a frightenedchild with his head on the lap of hismother. In this position the Lordstrokes our head, like the motherdoes, until our fear and anger sub-side. A ray of light creeps through the dark clouds. We reason, “Godhas acted on my behalf.8

An Afterword: Rereading this article fromso many years ago, I see a younger woman

trying to resolve painful questions fromtrauma, a heartache with no easy solutions.Noticeably absent in my original articlewere three important pieces: the mention ofcommunity, wise counsel, and the promisedwork of the Holy Spirit in the life of a childof God. (I have since added a line about theHoly Spirit toward the end.) All these piecescame together over the years, and I canattest to the wondrous work of God in mylife. When I was unaware and at loss forhope, the Wonderful Counselor was steadilyand quietly mending and healing deepwounds. I pray this testimony offers youhope today wherever you may be in yourjourney with God. He who began a goodwork in you will be faithful to complete it(Philippians 1:6).

Danielle DuRant is Director of Researchand Writing at Ravi ZachariasInternational Ministries.

1 Quoted in I, Fellini by Charlotte Chandler andFederico Fellini (New York: Cooper SquarePress, 2001), 146.

2 F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (NewYork: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995), 27-28, italics mine.

3 Ibid., 27.4 2 Samuel 15:23 and 2 Kings 23:6.

See also Jeremiah 31:38-40.5 Os Guinness, Doubt (Tring, England: Lion

Paperback, 1976), 70, italics mine. This bookhas been reprinted as God in the Dark: TheAssurance of Faith Beyond a Shadow of aDoubt (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1996).See also The Cry of the Soul: How OurEmotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions About God by Dan B. Allender and TremperLongman III (Colorado Springs, CO:NavPress, 1994). The authors, both biblicalscholars, examine the emotions of God we findin the Bible—such as anger and jealousy—andshow how our experience of these difficultemotions can be paralyzing or God-affirming.

6 Ibid., 67.7 Ibid., 69, italics mine.8 Ajith Fernando, Jesus Driven Ministry

(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003), 112.

AS I HAVE previously shared with you,during my recent back surgery, the surgeonspotted something that concerned himenough to take a biopsy and the biopsyrevealed I had cancer.

Our doctors in Atlanta were concernedI couldn’t start treatment until fully heal-ing from the back surgery. However, sincethen we have been able to consult withdoctors at the renowned MD AndersonCancer Center in Houston, Texas. Truly,God did a miracle in getting me here, literally a day or two just before they hadto close to treating any patients outside ofTexas. My doctor, a Sarcoma specialist,feels confident in starting a regimen of chemotherapy and we have begun that.

Since this treatment is coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic, I will remainhere in Houston for the next few monthsuntil I finish chemotherapy. I am so gratefulthat both my wife, Margie, and daughterNaomi can be here with me. God has givenme the best doctor, and I look forward togradually seeing this disease mend.

The Bible assures us that at all timesGod is with us. He is our comforter; He isour healer. He is our physician; He is ourprovider. He knows better than we do.While some nights have been painful, myheart has been at rest that this is all God’splan. I want to get better; I want to be well.I want to be in his will and honoring to Him.

As I listen to the news, I have heardmany commentators and governmentleaders say that we are living in a time ofwar with an unseen enemy, this terriblepandemic that has swept through theglobe. We are facing uncertain times, and Ipray for all those in need.

When I think of war, I think of mydays in Vietnam, where there was so muchuncertainty and fear. When I was twenty-five years old, I was invited to speak there,

{ T H I N K A G A I N }B Y R A V I Z A C H A R I A S

AT ALLTIMES


Ravi Zacharias

preaching in Vietnam with his interpreter,Hien Pham


hosted by my denomination, The Christianand Missionary Alliance.

Two stories from Vietnam remind methat at all times God is with us. On one occasion, I was being driven from Dalat toSaigon by a missionary named GeorgeIrwin. En route, our car started to sputterand chug and died on us. Ironically, minutesbefore, George’s wife, Harriet, had said to allof us in the car, “We are about to go throughthe most dangerous part of the country.”

I wondered why on earth she wastelling us this now. Couldn’t she have waited ‘til we had passed through it?Nevertheless, there we were, stuck on thehighway in the most dangerous part of thecountry, trying to figure out what waswrong with our jeep.

Suddenly, a white car came speedingdown the road. We tried to stop it for somehelp by waving our white handkerchiefs.The man driving the car just swerved itaround us and increased his speed evenmore to avoid stopping. A few minuteswent by, and George tried the ignition againand the car started, much to our relief.

As we drove a couple of miles downthe road, we saw that the white car hadbeen ambushed. The wounded and dyingwere on the side of the road, and the VietCong were running away in the distance.They had been waiting to ambush the nextvehicle to come along, and that happenedto be it. If our car had not broken down, itwould have been us.

God has an appointed time for all ofus. His protection and security is ours ‘tilthat moment comes when it’s “closing time.”

Another story from Vietnam probablystirs my confidence in God’s sovereignty and the power of his Word more than anyother. When I was ministering there, one of my interpreters was Hien Pham, a youngChristian. Sometime after I left, Vietnam felland Hien was imprisoned. His jailers tried to indoctrinate him against the Christian faith and restricted him to Communistpropaganda in French and Vietnamese.

The propaganda began to take itstoll. “Maybe,” he thought, “I have beenlied to. Maybe God does not exist.” SoHien determined that when he awoke thenext day, he would not pray or think of hisfaith anymore.

The next morning, Hien wasassigned to clean the prison latrines.There he found a scrap of refuse paperwith apparent English script. He hurriedlygrabbed it and washed it. Later that night, startled and trembling, he readthese words from Romans 8: “We knowthat in all things God works for the goodof those who love him. … For I am convinced that [nothing] will be able toseparate us from the love of God that is inChrist Jesus our Lord” (verses 28 and 38).Hien wept knowing there was not a morerelevant passage for one on the verge ofsurrendering to a false doctrine.

Hien later escaped the country,again through the course of God’s amazinghand. He has since shared his testimonywith many, confident that “nothing canseparate us from the love of God.”

I have absolutely no doubt that Godstops and orders our steps in his sovereignwill and grace. The Jesus I know and lovetoday I encountered at the age of seven-teen on a bed of suicide. I came to himunsure about the future. I remain withhim certain about my destiny.

When we are face to face with God,we will find out how many were thepotential catastrophes from which Hesaved us. Every pain and wound is part ofhis sovereign plan for us. He is the ultimateguardian over every breakdown. He alonecan be our protection. At all times, God iswith us.

Warm Regards,

Ravi


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