Christianity is…a religion of resistance and a religion of hope. The point of the cross is not finally suffering and death; it is, rather, that a relationship holds.
There is a love stronger than death, that can withstand whatever the forces of evil do against it, and that can hold suffering even as it struggles to alleviate it.
The God of Christians is not an arbitrary ruler who demands the price of suffering and death, but a God who makes possible all of our loves, as well as our resistance to evil.