Saturday afternoon and I was watching the telly. It was the 1943 version of Jane Eyre with Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles. I was completely lost in it. Hardly moved a muscle in two hours. I was reminded of something my now deceased brother used to say that the only decent films ever made were in black and white! I wouldn’t go that far but certainly this old movie was essentially faithful to the darkness at the heart of the original novel. Cruelty, neglect, madness, deception all feature before in the end we see the triumph of love.
Jane is one of those people to whom bad things happen. Orphaned at an early age, taken into the home of an uncaring aunt, sent to a school where the rod was never spared, eventually finding her way in the world but deceived by the man she loved. It is just one blow after another falling on a vulnerable life. And yet probably not untypical of the nineteenth century - or maybe any century with not always the happy ending Jane was granted.
Think about Job and how he was stripped of everything that gave him status and satisfaction in the world. He loses property, family and finally his health. Every blow falling on a bruise. He comes to mind when I think of some people I have known. At one level you accept that we are all prone to suffering but why so much for some? I remember being struck dumb when I heard that Joni Eareckson had been diagnosed with cancer. I really did say in my heart: ‘Lord, isn’t quadriplegia enough without this?‘ But then I see Joni’s attitude, sharing her confidence that she is still in the hands of a God who loves her, who considers her worth the death of His Son.
These were the truths that in the end resonated in the heart of Job. He realised he would never have all the answers but he received an assurance that God is sovereign, that He is in control, that He is working in and through suffering according to His good and loving purpose. That is the assurance we find in the sufferings of Jesus. With Him it was one thing after another. Blows falling on a bruise. The inner torment of Gethsemene, the abandonment of friends, the mockery and the whip and then the horrendous torture of Calvary. Nothing of God there would be an understandable response. And yet God was present and working out His purpose for the good of us all.
It is faith in this God which sustains those we might judge as having had more than their ‘fair share’ of misfortune. The Iolaire tragedy in 1919 had far reaching effects on the people of Lewis and Harris. At least 201 men returning from war service on New Year’s day lost their lives as the vessel Iolaire struck rocks known as ‘the Beasts of Holm’ just yards from shore. The writer Ian Crichton Smith, a native of Lewis and an atheist, marveled that an event like this should have been the death of faith on the island. Instead it grew stronger. The reason lies in the nature of the God who calls for faith, the God who has spoken to the world of His love in the death of His Son.
