Suffering is a question that often comes up when we begin to speak about the justice of God. To understand how best to respond to suffering, we need to come to terms with the injustice of the world around us, the randomness of its suffering, the meaninglessness that it seems to impose. This evening we spend some time thinking about why God’s just punishment of mankind seems to unjustly distributed.

And then we’ll think about some principles for dealing with people for whom suffering is not a theoretical question, but a present reality:

• Don’t provide a solution, offer sympathy
• Learn to lament
• Be there first