Last weekend I went out on the road with a friend for our monthly trip across Colorado ministering to people and encouraging them in their journey with God on planet Earth. It's usually a busy time, and we don't get much time to watch the news or check the internet. So imagine my shock late Sunday night to find out that a terrible national tragedy had occurred while I was out of town. I am still numb over it, really.
There is a part of all of the dialog in the aftermath that is bugging me, and I want to share about it. Of course, there was the natural desire by all kinds of people to try to understand what happened. It's hard to get a grasp on evil that is so purely acted out. So there was blaming and finger pointing going on, all of which misses the main point. And believe it or not, the only guy that has said much to directly deal with this was one Barack H. Obama, the President of the United States. I'd like to thank him for bravely making this point, namely that evil is real and that it rears it's hideous head once in a while to remind us all of the terrible darkness lurking almost everywhere. An evil man did an evil thing to his good and innocent neighbors. Period. End of story.
I know, that's not a satisfactory answer to most of us. Call it a sense of fair play or justice, or call it conscience. Whatever you call it, most of us have it when things like this happen. A clear sense of injustice and a need to see a satisfaction to it all. It is, in fact, a clear and ever present sense of right and wrong. This is a time when we feel it so strongly. Even in the "enlightened" age we live in, men go around doing terrible things to one another.
It is natural for most of us to look to the Heavens and ask "Why?" Pain and sorrow lead us to ask deeper questions and to seek deeper answers. But, if I may, let me put forth this question: Who on Earth has the right to ask such an absurd question as this? Who hears the question, anyway? Does the Universe care about your pain? Let me quote a little Stephen Crane poem:
A Man Said to the Universe
A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
This, of course, is the secular answer to the absurd sense of meaning and purpose that people seem to have. The answer to their question "why?" is simply, "So what?" Peter Singer and others who have things like "Phd." after their names say that human life is no more valuable than animal or even vegetable life. I for once would like to see Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens deliver a compelling speech of consolation at one of these tragic events with six coffins stretched in a row that did not at all borrow from the Christian world and life view for all of it's real strength, emotion and compassion. Sure, let's go there:
"Thank you all for coming to this event. Of course, I am British, and therefore with my accent I sound much more intelligent than you brash Yanks. So believe me when I say that I would rather be drinking a pint of whiskey right now than wasting my time with you lot of sniveling whiners. Well, let's see. I guess you want me to say something about the difference these people made, but, in fact, I don't believe in the concept at all in the first place. They were alive, that's a fact for sure I suppose. And they died, which is another fact made obvious by our situation. A random act of chance over time created them and another took them out. The end. Now I will be signing copies of my latest book in the reception room. Oh, and uhh...cheer up and stiff upper lip and all that. Good day! Or rather Have a Day. You see, I don't really believe in the concept of good, or evil for that matter, because it makes me think of that ridiculous God those idiots all say they believe in. And now for that whiskey!"
I would ask all the atheists to forgive me for that last bit, but they would spew on about how stupid and weak the idea of forgiveness actually was. So, never mind.
I thank God for the pain and sorrow we all feel over the terrible tragedy that occurred last weekend. It encourages me to see us all respond to real evil with real grief and disgust. This seems to me to point out the greatest proof of God there is, which is the existence of a Moral Law that is universal in its scope and points directly by implication to a Moral Lawgiver.
It's like this:
If there is true Evil, then there must be true Good.
If there is true Good there must be Right and Wrong.
If there is Right and Wrong then there must be Absolutes.
And if there are Absolutes, there must be an Absolute, from which all the other Absolutes derive their authority.
And this absolute Absolute is God.
Now let's ask the question again. "Why? Why God? Why?"
God: (Interestingly, also in a British accent):
"One of the greatest gifts I have given you, next to life itself, is the ability to question. I acknowledge that when you ask this question through the pain and confusion you live in, that you are not questioning me so much as you are inviting me into a conversation. You ask for an answer, but your first need is for comfort. Could it be that the best thing I could do for you is just listen? As a mother comforts a child first before telling why the child is crying, I am here to comfort you first. For as was said in the Psalms, "In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul. (Psalm 94:19)
As for answers, I come to you in the way that I have always come to those that went before. So I say that I am the God of your fathers and did mighty things for them, and I am here for you to do the same on your behalf. (See Genesis 26:24; Exodus 3:6; Matthew 22:32; Mark 12:26; Acts 7:32) Even if you could understand the reason for a death or tragedy, would it help to live it out, or take away the pain of the situation? My promise to you is that I watch over those that I love to deliver them and that I cause all things to work out for good in the end.(See Psalm 91 and Romans 8:28) Ultimately I give Myself as the answer to all questions.(Exodus 3:14) I will answer all questions. I will wipe away every tear.(Rev.21:4) I will be with you always until the very end.(Matthew 28:20)"
The Grief Temptation
When we are in a period of grief, we can be tempted to take the anger and depression and frustration and focus it outwards onto others, and especially to God. This is a temptation many have fallen into throughout the ages. Not only has this been a common problem with individuals, but even whole groups of people have fallen together into this type of transference of anger and frustration. In Ezekiel the prophet's day people felt this same way. They had been in lots of scrapes and been through a lot of troubles, and they gave in to this grief temptation.
Which leads us to our question of God(finally!):
Ezekiel 18:25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ Hear now, O house of Israel, is it not My way which is fair, and your ways which are not fair?
No one is in a better position to ask this question than God. But there is a way that we can come into a little better understanding of God's dilemma, God's pain really. Yes, I said His pain. I'll tell a little story to relate this.
Suppose you had a friend who was in a difficult struggle personally, and they shared this struggle with you. You, being a caring person, offer to help in any way you can. You then say that you have a book that can help this person understand their struggle and help them along their way. The next day you give this person this helpful book as a free gift with no strings attached whatsoever. Your friend accepts this gift happily and thanks you fondly. And so imagine your confusion and frustration when you find the book you gave them in the trash can outside their office the next day. Now let me say that I have been that person who did not appreciate a gift given to me. Many times, I'm afraid. I am in fact a serial unappreciator. (Is that a word?) I have also been in the place of the giver in this situation as well.
Now let's suppose you are an author of a book, and you give a copy to a friend who then throws it away. This time it is even more personal, isn't it? Now suppose that your favorite writer wrote a book just for you to read, and you trashed it. The emotions are even more personal. Now let's really go out there and imagine that the Creator of the entire Universe not only wrote a book for you,(which He did) but let's rather imagine He sent a representative who actually was a personal Message to you. In history God sent, not just a book, but a Person to you as a message of His love for you. Don't believe it? Check this out, then:
John 1:1-14 from The Message
1-2 The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
in readiness for God from day one.
3-5 Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!—
came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn't put it out.
6-8 There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.
9-13 The Life-Light was the real thing:
Every person entering Life
he brings into Light.
He was in the world,
the world was there through him,
and yet the world didn't even notice.
He came to his own people,
but they didn't want him.
But whoever did want him,
who believed he was who he claimed
and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten,
not blood-begotten,
not flesh-begotten,
not sex-begotten.
14 The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.
So what? God sent HIs Son to me. Why? Why God? Why?
John 3:16-21 The Message
16-18"This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person's failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.
19-21"This is the crisis we're in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won't come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is."
And then what? Well, just like me and the book my friend tried to give me to help me, we took the very living Word of God and took Him to a trash heap, tortured Him, and killed Him. (See John 19 for details) And thus, you see the pain of God. Not just the suffering of the Son in the Crucifixion, but the real, deep and currently ongoing pain of God, who gave the best gift He had, which was a part of Himself, His own Son. God's pain is His ongoing rejection by those He loves but do not acknowledge Him. They answer back, "The way of the Lord is not fair." And so the choice is still there. Today you can pull that thing out of the recycle bin and read His message for you, no strings attached. Why? Why not.
Thank you, Cliff.
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