God and Suffering

A Christian understanding of God’s relationship to suffering is not that God is simply a compassionate spectator looking down on the strange and bitter world that God holds in being. As a Christian, I believe that God is participating in the suffering of the world, that God is truly a fellow sufferer. The Christian God is the crucified God. 
--Sir John Polkinghorne, quoted in Socrates in the City: Conversations on "Life, God and Other Small Topics." Edited by Eric Metaxas.