Is man worth it?

''For God so loved the world'' begins the best-known verse of the New Testament. But today, most of us spend so much time wondering about what is right for us that it never even occurs to us to spend a single moment wondering if we are right for God.

Atheists often sneer that God, even if He exists, is not worthy of their approval, let alone their worship, due to His many manifest failures in their eyes. Surely, they often argue, surely an all-powerful God can do better than He has done with what is obviously a failure filled with war, disease, misery and death. And so they turn to their new god, Science, in the hopes that it will build them a better world.

Such individuals would do well to consider the book of Job, and consider God's answer to those creatures who would seek to judge the Creator.

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Christians are little better. Their treacly pop-influenced ''praise and worship songs'' sing about nothing ME, how Jesus died for ME, how God wants ME to be rich and own MY own airplane just like the greasy-haired evangelist who preaches a ''Christian'' prosperity message that is utterly indistinguishable from Oprah's Secret. Listening to them, you would think that the entire purpose of the Almighty's Creation and Jesus Christ's sacrifice was to create a satisfactory endorphin release in a single individual.

I expect, with no little trepidation, the eventual appearance of a similar ''Christian'' sexuality message which declares that since God wants us to be sexually fulfilled, we should have sex with everything and anything that appeals to us at every opportunity.

The gift of Jesus Christ is hope, not happiness. In a wealthy and decadent West, few lack for the essentials of life and it should come as no surprise that so many people today see Christianity as superfluous. We were warned, after all, that it would be hard for the rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Just as Jesus Christ was born in the blood and stink and s--- of an animal-filled barn, man's need for Jesus Christ is born of desperation, shattered dreams and the accurate perception of the reality that he is not the master of his own destiny.

Thus the arrogant and the self-deluded need not apply. They are free to act as their own gods, serve only themselves and reject the lifeline in the belief that they have the wherewithal to save themselves. And perhaps they are even justified in doing so, for only the least faithful need fear the possibility that our hope is nothing but a mirage. But better a mirage that brings hope to the hopeless, peace to the tormented and strength to the weak than an indifferent existentialism that promises nothing, delivers nothing and crushes the weak with more enthusiasm than regret. There is no inherent, scientifically determined virtue in truth, after all.

So, we are Narnians, whether Narnia exists or not. We will remain Narnians, whether men believe Narnia exists or not. And the fact that men hate us and are willing to kill us simply because we are Narnians only makes us that much more certain that Narnia truly exists.

There are doubts. There are always uncertainties. Only the dead know no doubts. If few doubt that humanity needs saving, whether it be from sin or anthropogenic global climate change, fewer still will seriously argue that humanity merits salvation. But without the humility required to recognize this need for unmerited grace, one will find it difficult to accept the hope which is on offer, not only this Easter Sunday, but every day.

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