Unfairness and Easter

(An excerpt from Philip Yancey's book; Dissapointment with God)

Unfairness is no easier for us to swallow today than it was for Job thousands of years ago. Consider the most common curse word in the English language: "God" followed by the word "damn." People say it not only in the face of great tragedy, but also when their cars won't start, when a favored sports team loses, when it rains on their picnic. that oath renders an instinctive judgement that life ought to be fair and that God should somehow "do a better job" of running his world...
God responded to the question of unfairness not with words, but with a visit, an Incarnation. And Jesus offers flesh and blood proof of how God feels about unfairness, for he took on the "stuff" of life, the physical reality at its unfairest. He gave, in summary, a final answer to all lurking questions about the goodness of God. ( It occured to me as I read the Gospels that if all of us in his Body would spend our lives as he did-ministering to the sick, feeding the hungry, resisting the powers of evil, comforting those who mourn, and bringing the Good News of love and forgiveness-then perhaps the question " Is God unfair?" would not be asked with such urgency today.)...
The primal desire for fairness dies hard, and it should. Who among us does not sometimes yearn for more justice in the world here and now? Secretly, I admit, I yearn for a world "fault-proof" against dissapointment, a world where my magazine articles will always find acceptance and my body does not grow old and weak, a world where my sister-in-law does not deliver a brain-damaged child...
But if I stake my faith on such a fault-proof earth, my faith will let me down. Even the greatest of miracles do not resolve the problems of this earth: all people who find physical healing eventually die.

We need more than a miracle. We need a new heaven and a new earth, and until we have those, unfairness will not dissappear.
A friend of mine, struggling to believe in a loving God amid much pain and sorrow, blurted out this statement: "God's only excuse is Easter!" The language is non-theological and harsh, but within that phrase lies a haunting truth. The Cross of Christ may have overcome evil, but it did not overcome unfairness. For that, Easter is required. Someday, God will restore all physical reality to its proper place under his reign. Until then, it is a good thing to remember that we live out our days on Easter Saturday.

To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nontheless. Even in the wilderness-especially in the wilderness-you shall love him.
Frederick Buechner