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Trying to imagine a world without suffering

The following is a somewhat expanded version of an article I had published in the "Christian Forum" column in the Abingdon Herald: One particularly hapless character in Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot", is ironically named "Lucky". I think that Lucky is a negative analogue of Christ: a suffering servant treated abysmally by his master, carrying a heavy burden of two bags about the stage. A famous passage in the book of Isaiah in the Bible also concerns a suffering servant: Christians believe this to be a prophecy of Christ. Lucky only gets to make one speech, a long, rambling and incoherent tirade, the gist of which is this: no matter what we do, we are all going to waste away to death, and our labours will be unfinished. The final word of the speech is, despairingly: "Unfinished!" By contrast, the last words of Christ on the cross are triumphant: "It is finished." The text of Lucky's speech (along with gui