I have been working for a couple of years now on horrendous evils and the atonement. This has involved extensive reading in some of the most horrific realities of human existence, both large-scale historical events and individual, mostly anonymous and private experiences of spellbinding horrors. The more I read about extreme psychotic illness, Holocaust suffering, political torture, unspeakable grief, nightmarish tragedy, and grotesque abuse, the more I see the faces of those whose suffering renders us speechless. And the more I see them, the more I trace their stories from page to page, the more I hear (and fear) Cicero’s perceptive words: “If we are forced, at every hour, to watch or listen to horrible events, this constant stream of ghastly impressions will deprive even the most delicate among us of all respect for humanity.”

One day I’ll write something about how this extensive time of reflecting on horrendous evils has affected me and has shaped my labors as a minister, but I can say at least this much now: The reach of the Fall is wide and painfully deep, and the face of Sin is not one to be smirked at, made light of, dismissed. Appearances notwithstanding, hungry evil does not nibble; it devours and savors every bloody morsel of its conquest. The Gospel, then, must reach as far as that. If the “good news” is a mere peddling of superficial goods – a better name, better sleep, better wife and kids, better anything – then that is good news only to those untouched by horror. If it is not good news to those caught in the jagged teeth of Evil’s extremities, then it is not good news. Yet here is something of the glory of the true Gospel. Only at the extremities of evil do we begin, and yet only begin, to peer into the depths of the love of the One who “descended into Hell.” At the edge of that abyss, that which at first makes us recoil ultimately offers the only true rest from an often nightmarish existence.