As we look with awe on the bombing of the Boston Marathon
yesterday, we are faced with a powerful question: Why? In the minds of people
around the world, that very question burns hot and focused around tragedies
such as this and provides a real barrier to a walk with God.
The problem goes like this. If God is all powerful and God
is all loving, why do bad things happen? If God can prevent bad things and does
not, the argument goes, He is not all loving. If God wants to prevent bad things
but cannot, He is not all powerful. It is a salient argument which we insiders
are often too quick to brush aside; tragedies on a national scale bring it to
mind in a powerful way, which gives us an occasion to respond. I will not try
and resolve this problem today, or even really answer it. My intention is not
to provide a neat intellectual answer to this problem, but to speak to this
need.
First, we need to realize that the person or people
responsible for this are sick. You already knew that, which is why it is a good
place to begin. Consider Jeremiah 17:9:
"The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick
Who can understand it?"
All else aside, mankind has a disease. We all lust for
things which we should not have, that lust forms an embryo in our souls, until
we give birth to some sin. Then, what that sin is fully grown, it becomes death[1]. We are always preys of that death, killed by our
own monster. But the reality is that we are not its only victims. Sin never
works like that. The man who thinks he is not hurting anyone but himself with
his drinking destroys his family, the woman who becomes consumed by resentment
soon finds it leaking out and corroding relationships. On April 15, some sin
spilled over very directly and deliberately destroyed the lives of other
people, but the story is the same; sometimes you see it, sometimes you do not.
As far as God is concerned, whenever you have spilled out with hate, you have
already murdered[2].
Whenever we finally know who the monster is that did this, realize that the
monster is you, and the monster is me. In this case, the sin may have
manifested differently, but it is the same rot. You have the potential to do
the same or worse, and so do I. My sin has hurt other people before, and so has
yours, sometimes just as deliberately premeditated. God promises that such sin will not go
unpunished, in us or them. Jeremiah continues:
“The heart is more deceitful
than all else
And desperately sick
Who can understand it?
I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give to each man according to his ways
According to the results of his deeds.”
And desperately sick
Who can understand it?
I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give to each man according to his ways
According to the results of his deeds.”
So we have this terrible problem of death. It begins in each
of us, but splashes over into the lives of other people in a seemingly blind
rampage. Death gives birth to death and death gives birth to death. Over and
over again the process repeats. Like water, hatred, envy and prejudice flow
beneath the surface, destructive but unseen, until they eventually break
through in a geyser such as this and are visible for a moment, before returning
to their silent ministry of eroding the ground beneath our feet. It is just as
deadly there, but easier to ignore.
What is the answer to this epidemic? What is the answer to
Jeremiah’s question? Jeremiah 17:13-14 tells us:
“O Lord, the hope
of Israel,
All who forsake You will be put to shame.
Those who turn away on earth will be written down,
Because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, even the Lord.
14 Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed;
Save me and I will be saved,
For You are my praise.”
All who forsake You will be put to shame.
Those who turn away on earth will be written down,
Because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, even the Lord.
14 Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed;
Save me and I will be saved,
For You are my praise.”
The apostle Paul explains it like this in Romans 7:24-8:3:
“Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of
this death? Thanks be to God
through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind
am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus. For the law of
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of
death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God
did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for
sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,”
God’s answer to evil, His master plan from the beginning of
the universe, was to send Jesus to die, the just for the unjust. As a response
to suffering, God himself suffered, and conquered suffering. Death has lost its
power, 1 Corinthians 15 tells us, so that those who die in Christ are
guaranteed to live again.
Jesus died for the people responsible for the murders in
Boston. Jesus died for the one responsible for the murder in your own heart.
This is not an intellectual response to the problem of evil, although I have
toyed with those and good ones exist. This is a meditative one. As far as God
is concerned, the answer to evil is Jesus. His death was good enough to forgive
anyone who has ever sinned, no matter how wretched, if they will only turn away
from their sin and trust in Him.
If you are not a Christian, you can be. I explain the whole
process here.
If you are a Christian, remember to show the love that God showed. Even as you
pray for the families of those who have lost loved ones (and know that young
children who die are taken straight to the arms of God), pray for the
perpetrators, that they may find forgiveness. If you do not desire for them to
be forgiven, then you need to see whether or not you are really a Christian[3]
and not just someone wearing a label. When God lives inside of you, He changes
things.
Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
Maker of the Universe and Master of the World, we thank you
for all that you have done for us and in the small mercies which we take for
granted. We thank you for the common grace which drove some toward the bombs,
even as others ran away and ask that you would give us that kind of courage. We
ask that you would strengthen the families who have lost those dear to them,
but even so, to soften our hearts to show compassion to the perpetrators. Even
as you bring them to justice for this crime, bring them to yourself, that they
might be forgiven by the death of your son, in whose name we pray,
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment