Two weekends (and two blizzards) ago, famed Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., delivered a presentation for the Boston College Lumen et Vita Conference entitled “Christ and the Pelican Chick: A Hope Renewed?”

Johnson’s image of the pelican chick was a provocative one. In her presentation, she explained that pelicans typically give birth to multiple chicks at a time. The first-born receives all of the mother’s attention and care. The younger sibling is neglected and sometimes even pushed out of the nest by its elder sibling, where it eventually dies of starvation. In the event that the first-born chick proves unviable, the mother will turn her attention to the younger chick, but more often than not its life is short lived. Its whole purpose for existing seems to be to serve as insurance for its older sibling. (For a similar story centered around a human family, see Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper.)

As Johnson noted in her presentation, that such a situation occurs in the world God created poses a real challenge to traditional views of God as not only all-powerful but also perfectly loving. Most of us can understand the evil we experience on account of sinful human actions, even if we lament it. Its cause is clear to us, and God seems remote from that cause. What is incomprehensible to many people is that suffering like that of the pelican chick should occur in the natural order God created independent of human sin. In this case, it is much more difficult to maintain God’s innocence.

Johnson’s response to this challenge was to point out that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, suffers with the pelican chick and with all who suffer in this world. We may not be able to understand why God would allow such suffering to happen in the first place, but neither can we accuse God of being indifferent. Rather than remaining at a safe distance, God entered into the fray and exposed himself to all the pain and violence that creatures experience. Even when it started becoming clear to Jesus how his life would end, he did not diverge from the course he had set. Rather than flee from the human condition, he took his place beside all those who have been crucified on the cross of history.

There is something oddly consoling about this response. In my experience, people who have endured great suffering are seldom consoled by rational explanations. Job, whom we heard about in this past Sunday’s first reading, certainly was not. To have others explain to them that their suffering is a test of their faith or the result of human choice or a part of God’s master plan for humanity’s ultimate happiness does not ease their pain. What does help (as much as anything can) is knowing that they do not suffer alone. Whether it is God entering the sinful world or a friend entering one’s own home, it helps to have someone there beside us, even if (and sometimes especially if) they never say a word.

In the brief time allotted to her, Johnson did not go much further than this. However, I would argue that she left something important unsaid. The pelican chick’s story does not end with its starvation outside the nest. Even if it’s true that God suffers alongside the chick, we would be mistaken to think that’s all God does. Indeed, Jesus’ story did not end with his execution outside the city walls. He rose from the dead on the third day, and this fact carries significant implications for those who continue to suffer in this world.

In his letters to the Corinthians, Paul rejoices, “in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died” (1 Cor 15:20). Jesus’ resurrection is good news for us “because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also” (2 Cor 4:14). God did not come into the world merely to suffer with us, though this was necessary for our salvation. First and foremost, God came into the world for the same reason that God created the world—to give life and, indeed, to share God’s very life with creation.

“But what about the pelican chick?” we might ask again. What about the poor, oppressed, and marginalized in our world? If we look back through the story of salvation history, we see that God has always shown special concern for the least among us. In one story after another—Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, Joseph and his brothers, David and his brothers—God sides with the underdog. In the words of the Magnificat, “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Lk 1:52-53).

To say that God shares in the suffering of God’s little ones is only half of the story. God enters into the midst of suffering, not to remain there, but in order to raise up those who suffer. Jesus lays down his life, not for the sake of some noble but ultimately ineffectual gesture of solidarity, but so that we may live. To focus on either Good Friday or Easter Sunday to the exclusion of the other is to miss something essential about Christian faith.

The challenge of this aspect of Christian faith is that we are still faced with the daily reality of suffering. The fact that God offers the possibility of salvation does not eliminate our present suffering, nor does it extend our earthly life indefinitely. We still suffer, we still die, and for some people that is proof that this Christian talk of eternal life is only so much wishful thinking. However, Jesus never promised anyone that they would live forever just as they had been living. The truth is, God desires something better for us, a new life that is to life in this world what an IMAX movie is to a pencil sketch. That we should not be perfectly content with life in this world is for the best, lest we fail to set our sights on the life beyond death to which God calls us. In the meantime, while we still walk the streets of this weary world, God walks beside us as an assurance that the road ultimately leads, not end to Calvary, but into the reign of God.