God our Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth, is Almighty. "The Lord God
Omnipotent reigneth." Here also are two words and two thoughts, not
one alone. God is Almighty in the sense that His power is supreme and
irresistible. This is wholly true but it is not the thought that
stands in the forefront either in Holy Scripture or in the creed. It
is there in the background, where sheer force must be and ought to be.
The prominent thought, however, when we profess our faith in God the
Father Almighty is the thought of His wise, holy sovereignty. He is
the Ruler of all, the Master of all, of Himself and of all persons and
things. Not by might but by persuasion He is content to exercise His
Dominion over men. So God governs the world and in His government we
find the model for the true government of men. Force has its use only
where freedom has failed. It is not God's power but His patience that
excites our wonder and at times our perplexity. We are puzzled because
He does not intervene more directly with His outstretched arm, but
waits on man's agency and allows such latitude to man's self-will and
blindness and cruelty. It is the price of our freedom. This we know
and more we do not know as yet. But we can trust our Father for what
Jesus Christ was God is.
We know therefore in the story of the Cross and of the Resurrection
that while sorrow and suffering and disaster are not removed from human
life, God does not stand apart from them and unconcerned. All who pass
along the way of sorrows and into the valley of death may find in
Christ, that is in God Himself, the sympathy of One Who has passed that
way before, and the strength of One who has conquered death and all its
powers.