(2) Out of the tomb. But our God did not just suffer along with us. He overcame sin, suffering, and death, rising from the grave. And by doing so, he demonstrates his ability to bring good out of even the cruelest, most unjust of ordeals. The resurrection gives hope that suffering and death is not the end, but that our God is able to work ALL things together for good for those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). When you are suffering, God is already working the evil that has been done to you together for a good end.

(3) In heaven. Jesus did not just suffer and rise again. He is now seated in heaven, where He gives us this beautiful promise about the future of our suffering: “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away’” (Revelation 21:3-4). One day, your suffering will end, if you know Jesus. And as Paul (no stranger to suffering) put it, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). Believe that what you are going through right now is not the end of the story.
 
(4) With you right now. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is God with us to comfort and guide us through our troubles. When you are suffering, God has not left you alone but is always there. Jesus, weeping at the tomb of his friend Lazarus (John 11:35), is such a reminder to me of the compassion God has towards those who suffer and grieve; even though he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, He still wept alongside his grieving friends. Rely on our suffering Savior when you are experiencing times of suffering.

And if you are a follower of Jesus, emulate him by entering into the suffering of others, by being present for them in the midst of their pain, grieving when they grieve and praying for their comfort and hope. As Philip Yancey, a Christian author, put it once, the answer to the question “Where is God when it hurts?” should be “Where is the church when it hurts?”

1) Just because you can’t see or imagine a good reason why God might allow something to happen doesn’t mean there can’t be one. Spoken to someone who has just lost their child, or is struggling with past abuse, this answer is clichéd and probably offensive. But to the philosopher who sees a good, all-powerful God as incompatible with pointless evil and suffering, it is worth considering. How do you know the suffering you see is pointless? Because you can’t think of any good reason for God to allow it? It takes enormous faith in your own cognitive faculties to say that if there is a God, he could have no greater reason for allowing the suffering we see. Think of the analogy of a human trying to free a bear caught in a trap – in order to free him, he needs to shoot him with a tranquilizer gun, and then push the trap further into the claw in order to release the springs and open the trap. Do you think during this process, the bear thinks the human is acting out of love? With time and perspective, most of us can see good reasons for at least some of the tragedy and pain that occurs in our life. Why couldn’t it be possible that, from God’s vantage point, there are good reasons for all of them, even a tsunami? If you think God should be big enough to stop the tragedy, then he must be big enough to have reasons for allowing it that you can’t understand.

2) Where are you getting your idea of evil and justice from? In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis talks about how he was an atheist because the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But then he realized something: where had he gotten the idea of just and unjust, of good and evil? Was it simply his own personal conception of justice and goodness? If so, then who was to say that he was accurate in his perception? Or, was he responding to some universal standard of justice and goodness? And if so, then where did that standard come from if not from God? Atheism, Lewis realized, was too simple a response to the problem of evil. 

3) God IS all-powerful and good, but in order to create a universe with love, there had to be the possibility of evil.  To answer Bashir’s question directly, in order to create humans capable of love, he had to give them free will, which meant allowing for the possibility of evil. God could have created human beings without free will, but then there would be no love, for there would be no free choice; we would all be robots. By creating us with free will, he created the possibility that we would choose evil and bring suffering into this world. None of the evil and suffering that we experience, including that which was caused by the tsunami, was part of our good and all-powerful God’s original plan. And if God were to continually intervene into the world in order to stop each instance of suffering, he would inevitably be taking away freedom, and therefore love, from the world.

Now, as I said in the introduction, these philosophical arguments may ultimately be unsatisfying to someone experiencing real suffering in their own life. Next week, I’ll address the more personal issues associated with suffering.

Thoughts? Comments? Agree? Disagree? Please leave a comment below.

Arno was inseparable from Mr. Penguin. The little Haitian boy was almost three years old, and the plush penguin with the word “love” inscribed upon it was his most treasured object. The orphan and his penguin were always seen together.

The boy had been given the penguin just after his birth. A Dutch couple was in the process of adopting him almost from the start of his life — they had been matched to him when he was only two months old. The penguin represented a promise.

The process of adoption took two years — the length of time considered adequate to determine that no living relatives might claim him. According to official estimates, there were over 50,000 parentless orphans in Haiti before the earthquake came and orphaned many thousands more.

Richard and Rowena Pet were the young Dutch couple who wanted so badly to be Arno’s mother and father. They had struggled with infertility for years before deciding to adopt. As they awaited the adoption of Arno, Rowena became pregnant. Last August she gave birth to Jim, who was left in the care of relatives as Richard and Rowena flew to Haiti in January to claim Arno and complete the adoption process.

The story of Arno’s adoption is movingly told by reporter David Charter of The London Times (you can read it online here).  As he reported, “Arno was shy at first but within 30 minutes of meeting his adoptive parents he reached for Rowena’s hand and took the Dutch couple on a tour of the orphanage in Port-au-Prince where he had spent most of his short life. He began to call them Mummy and Daddy.”

Richard had shared their joy with a friend in an e-mail:

“We got to the orphanage feeling a bit strange. We went around a corner and immediately saw Arno walking towards us. He was OK until he was about half a meter away, but then he panicked. The woman from the orphanage helped out and half an hour later he took Rowena’s hand for the first time. I’m sorry but I can’t help crying at the moment as I type this. Arno has been showing us everything in the orphanage. He showed us an old car they have for the children to play on. He was holding a birthday card we sent for his second birthday.”

According to Charter, adoptive parents often stay at the Hotel Villa Therese in the Pétionville district of Port-au-Prince. That is where Richard and Rowena took Arno. That is where they were when the earthquake came. And that is where they died together.
David Charter tells the story, with comments by Chris Spaansen, the friend to whom Richard had sent the e-mail:

Dutch TV cameras were on hand during the frantic search by an international rescue team with members from the Netherlands, Britain and Canada. . . . Lying there amid the rubble was the unmistakable blue and yellow toy bird, Mr Penguin, marked with the word “Love”, that went everywhere with Arno. “That toy helped them to make their first contact with the little boy. It had a really special place in the family. It was a very emotional moment for all of us,” Spaansen says.

Then this:

What the cameras did not show were the three bodies, found intertwined together, as if Rowena and Richard had tried to put protective arms around Arno as the masonry began to fall. The disaster cruelly destroyed the new family, creating its own orphan back in the Netherlands. Jim, just five months old, will be brought up by Rowena’s sister, who already has her own three-year-old boy.

The bodies of Richard and Rowena and Arno Pet were taken to the Netherlands together, just as they had been found together in the rubble of the Hotel Villa Therese. They had been a family for a few hours, but a family all the same. Arno had a tragically short life, but he ended that life in the arms of a mother and a father.

Who can read this account without heartbreak . . . and a heart warmed? Is there a heart so cold that it does not feel the pathos of this report, and sense the sentiment of this family’s tragedy? At the same time, this is not a tragedy in the classic sense. The love of Richard and Rowena and Arno Pet transcends tragedy. That is why The Times published this report, and why it stays with you so long after you read it.

Of course, for the Christian there is far more to this story. In the story of Arno Pet we find a picture of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians:

But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a virgin, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. [Galatians 4:4-7]

Adoption is perhaps the most powerful depiction of the Gospel found in the Bible. We are all orphans, born under the curse of sin. By the sheer grace and mercy of God, those who come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ are adopted as sons. Redeemed sinners are adopted as sons “through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise and glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” [Ephesians 1:5-6]

Arno Pet began life as an orphan, but he ended life as a son. He was abandoned at his birth, but he died in the arms of his parents. He did not die as Arno, he died as Arno Pet.

In the rubble of the Hotel Villa Therese the film crew found the bodies of Richard and Rowena and Arno Pet. In that same rubble, we find a picture of the Gospel of Christ. He who has eyes to see, let him see.

 Keeping that promise in mind, as well as this month’s focus on the persecuted church, and with Thanksgiving coming up this week, let me share another story of what is going on in this mad, mad world (courtesy WorldNet Daily):

Hindu extremist groups are offering money, food and alcohol to anyone who murders Christians and destroys their homes.
The violence is nothing new in Orissa, India, where India’s Communist Party estimates that more than 500 Christians have been killed by Hindu mobs in Orissa since late August, 12 times more than official government claims of only 40 homicides.
But now the stakes are even higher – and pastors have a bounty on their heads.
Faiz Rahman, chairman of Good News India, said Hindu militants are targeting Christian leaders, the Christian Post reported.
“The going price to kill a pastor is $250,” he said.
Rahman, a head of several orphanages in Orissa State, said he’s helped 25 pastors to leave refugee camps, but 250 Christian leaders are still in shelters.
“All of the pastors are high value targets,” Rahman told the UK-based Release International. “We’ve got to get them out of the refugee camps.”
An All-India Christian Council spokesman said, “People are being offered rewards to kill, and to destroy churches and Christian properties. They are being offered foreign liquor, chicken, mutton and weapons. They are given petrol and kerosene.”
One official said he personally authorized “cremation of more than 200 bodies” found in jungles after Christians were blamed for the death of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati on Aug. 24. They continue to be persecuted even though Maoists openly admitted to murdering Saraswati.
Thousands of homes and churches have been destroyed, and an estimated 50,000 Christians have been forced to flee the violence. Mission Network News estimates 5,000 Christian homes have been burned and 200 churches ruined. According to the Christian Post, 30,000 people remain in government-operated refugee camps. Tens of thousands are living in forests – many seriously wounded.
Father Manoj, based at the archbishop’s office in Bhubaneshwar, said Christians remain in hiding.
“They are too scared to go home. They know that if they return to their villages they will be forced to convert to Hinduism.”
Religious rights group Barnabus Fund told the group Hindu militants “forced” Christians in Orissa to “convert” to Hinduism by threatening them with rape if they refused.
Neighbors reportedly gang-raped a Hindu woman after her Christian uncle refused to renounce his faith, according to reports.
Another Christian woman named Jaspina was told by neighbors, “If you go on being Christian, we will burn your house and your children in front of you.” She and her family were forced to eat cow excrement to “purify” themselves of Christianity.
Other Christians were doused with gasoline and told to participate in conversion ceremonies or be lit on fire.
This week, Hindu extremists said they have set a deadline for the capture of Saraswati’s murderers. If the killers are not caught by Dec. 15, they promised to begin a massacre on Dec. 25, Christmas day.
According to the latest report, Orissa’s Catholic bishops wrote an ominous letter to the state’s chief minister. It read, “This conflict is a calculated and pre-planned master plan to wipe out Christianity from Kandhamal in order to realize the hidden agenda … of establishing a Hindu nation.”

I simply can’t imagine being a wanted man simply for being a pastor.  $250 to have a pastor killed?  Are we really that dangerous?  I thank God that I do not face such opposition here in America, and pray for my brothers and sisters abroad that God would strengthen them in the face of such persecution.

Lord, we continue praying for your church around the world, especially those who find themselves persecuted simply because they are following you.  We know your heart breaks at the violence with which your children destroy each other, and we long for that day when the nations will finally experience healing.  Until that day, give us and our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world the strength and perseverance we need to follow you to the end.  May your justice and righteousness reign in India, and your kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.  Amen.

 This past Sunday was the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.  As we sit in church each Sunday in our comfortable chairs and hang out afterwards drinking coffee with other believers, it can be hard to comprehend what it is like to live in a land where going to church means risking your life.  We Americans often get squeamish when speaking of the judgment, the justice, and the wrath of God, but in places like China, India, and Iraq, where Christians are routinely persecuted and killed, there are few things more important than knowing that God is a God who will judge those who commit such atrocities. 

Consider this story from the Voice of the Martyrs website, one of numerous examples of persecution (in some cases state-sponsored) of Christians around the world:

The U.S. Department of State released a statement detailing its serious concern about the brutal beating of Pastor “Bike” Zhang’s sons by China’s Public Security Bureau (PSB) on October 23. They also condemned the harassment and recent imprisonment of Pastor Zhang by the PSB.
“We are gravely concerned by the brutal beating of Pastor Zhang “Bike” Mingxuan’s two sons by public bureau officials. We are also deeply concerned by continuing official harassment of Pastor Zhang, a prominent Beijing house church leader, including his arbitrary detention and the forced relocation of his family,” said Robert Wood, The U.S. Department of State, Deputy Spokesman in a press release.
Wood’s statement called on the Chinese government to release Pastor Zhang and permit his family to return home. “We call upon the Government of China to condemn the violent acts committed against his [Pastor Zhang's] sons, and to bring to justice those individuals responsible for such acts,” the statement said. “We are concerned about a pattern of intimidation of religious freedom and rule of law advocates and their family members. We urge China to honor those international human rights instruments to which it is a signatory that protect the rule of law, freedom of expression and freedom of religion.”
On October 16, PSB officials severely beat Zhang Jian, the elder son of Pastor Bike, after they entered Pastor Bike’s home, secured the exits. The officers beat him with iron bars for nearly half an hour. As Zhang lay bleeding profusely, his mother called an ambulance. The receptionist told her a higher government authority had directed them not to dispatch an ambulance to rescue Zhang because he is related to Pastor Bike. Xie Fenglan next called her younger son, who rushed to the house. Authorities also then beat him.
“We are encouraged to see the U.S. government speaking out on behalf of this persecuted Christian family,” said Todd Nettleton, VOM’s director of media development. “We join with the State Department in calling on the Chinese government to release Pastor Zhang and to allow his family to return to their apartment.”
This incident is the latest attempt by the Chinese government to stop Pastor Bike and his family from sharing the gospel in China. In August, two days before the Olympics, Pastor Bike was arrested along with his wife and a co-worker. The Voice of the Martyrs and China Aid Association launched an international petition drive advocating for their release. More than 58,000 people signed the petition, and it was delivered to Chinese Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong in Washington D.C. Shortly after the petition was circulated and the Olympic Games ended, all three were released.
VOM encourages you to pray for the release of Pastor Bike and the speedy recovery for his sons. Ask God to protect and encourage them and all believers in China during this challenging time.

 In Revelation 6, there is a depiction of martyrs in heaven.  They are shown under the altar, like burnt offerings that have been slaughtered, crying out to God for Him to judge the world with His justice.  This week, we join those martyrs in asking God to bring His justice to this world, that His kingdom of righteousness and love might come on earth as it is in heaven.  We pray that God might strengthen our brothers and sisters around the world who are persecuted for their faith, and rejoice that the gates of Hell will not prevail against God’s church.

For more information on Voice of the Martyrs, visit www.persecution.com.

Seven verses, probably spanning all of five minutes.  And just like that, Job has gone from a prosperous man to a poor man.  And that’s not the end, of course – soon after those tragedies comes the painful sores, breaking out from his head to his feet.  But still, he refuses to curse God, despite the prodding of his wife. 

There is such a fundamental question in the beginning for every believer as they consider God, Satan, and spiritual warfare.  Would Satan’s accusations be correct about you?  To what extent is your devotion to God based on your circumstances?  Do you love God because of what he has done in your life and the things he has blessed you with?  Do you find yourself questioning and cursing Him when your circumstances have become a nightmare?  Have you believed the lie that prosperity means that God is pleased with you, and hard times means that somehow you are in sin?  The story of Job sets the record straight – sometimes the righteous do suffer, but that suffering will reveal a great deal about whether your faith is based in who God is or on what He can do for you.

As Peter put it in 1 Peter 1:6-7:  “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire– may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 

It is easy to love and praise God when heaven seems to be raining blessing after blessing down on your head.  But will you still praise Him when your dreams are crushed, when your beloved is gone, when your health has failed, and when you see no hope in sight?  Or has He suddenly become unworthy?  Have the hard times knocked Him from His throne as Lord and Savior of the universe and of your life?

Now, I’m not saying that this is easy, by any means.  I don’t believe anyone’s natural instinct is to praise God and trust Him when life is crumbling around you.  In fact, this is why I struggle to sing along with some great worship songs.  Does anyone else know what I’m talking about?

“You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.”

Oh really?

“And I surrender all to you, all to you.”

Are you sure about that?

“Lord, I give you my heart, I give you my soul… Lord, have your way in me.”

Do you really know what you’re asking for?

“And all I have in you is more than enough.”

Will you still say that when He is truly all you have?

The only secure place in this world to build your life on is God Himself.  Every other foundation is going to come crumbling down.  And sometimes the only way you are going to realize this is for God to allow all the other foundations to come crumbling down.  Your health.  Your family.  Your friends.  Your looks.  Your job.  Your money.  Until, like Job in chapter 1, verse 17, you find yourself afraid to go outside, fearful of what might happen next.  But somehow, if you refuse to curse God and die, you find that God is indeed more than enough.  That He is still worthy of praise, even on the ash heap.  And only then can you truly sing from your soul, “You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.”

                                  
            Bart Ehrman                                                              N.T. Wright

This debate is worth reading because Ehrman is a former evangelical Christian turned agnostic, educated at Moody, Wheaton, and Princeton Seminary, and is therefore much more Biblically-literate than many others atheists/agnostics who are out there.  Wright, on the other hand, is a Christian and first-rate theologian.  They have had three opportunities each to argue their case so far, and will hopefully add more soon.  I think the biggest revelation for me has been that Ehrman is taking his question “Why do we suffer?” to the Bible and finding many different (and sometimes contradictory) answers that do not satisfy him, while Wright believes that the Bible does not try to answer that question, but instead is more concerned with the question “What is God doing about evil?”  Ehrman goes to books like Job, Amos, Ecclesiastes, Revelation, etc. and teases out what he hears as explanations for why people suffer (as punishment for sin, as a test from Satan, etc.).  Wright does not see that as an appropriate use of the Bible (coming to it with the grid of our own questions), and instead centers on the death and resurrection of Christ as the key to understanding evil and how God is dealing with it.  The debate hasn’t been a slam-dunk for either party, in my opinion, but does reveal how one side (Ehrman) is forced to judge a Creator God by human standards of and perspectives on morality, while the other (Wright) ultimately can offer no satisfactory reason as to WHY we suffer, but can point instead to the truth of what God is doing about suffering.

The second thing I would recommend to you is a two-minute excerpt from Opfer der Vergangenheit (Victims of the Past) , a Nazi propaganda film that you can see on YouTube (thanks to John Umland for the link).  I don’t usually recommend Nazi films, of course… but it fits very well with my recent sermon on reconciling science and faith.  One of my main points was that if we are simply the product of a godless process of natural selection, where the strong and adaptable survive and the weak and less adaptable die, why are we so convinced about human rights and so opposed to injustice?  When the strong eat the weak in nature we call it natural selection; when it happens among humans we call it genocide and protest.  If we are simply the product of a godless natural selection, I’m not sure there is good reason to be offended by the Nazis.

Anyways, this disturbing Nazi propaganda film appeals to natural selection to encourage the German people to exterminate those “inferior life-forms” (specifically the mentally ill) so that they would not weigh down the progress of humanity.  It begins with these chilling words: “All that is non-viable in nature invariably perishes… we humans have transgressed the laws of natural selection in the last decades.  Not only have we supported inferior life-forms, we have encouraged their propagation.”  The excerpt, along with the truth of what happened in Nazi Germany, is a brutal testimony to what we would expect if there is no God, and is a powerful argument that human beings are more than just a product of a godless natural selection.

Lastly, there is an interesting discussion that happened last week on Public Radio’s Speaking of Faith program, hosted by Krista Tippett, on how Christians should live out their faith with regards to politics and political issues such as the war, poverty, abortion, and gay marriage (thanks to Rex Fowler of Hartford City Mission  for the link).  The participants were Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship and author of God and Government, Greg Boyd, Senior Pastor of Woodland Hills Church in Minnesota and author of The Myth of a Christian Nation, and Shane Claiborne, founder of The Simple Way and co-author of Jesus for President.  These three men are of different generations and have some interesting things to say about the relationship of the Christian to politics, which is certainly a very timely topic.  You can watch the discussion, listen to it, or read the transcript by clicking on the above link.

If you have any comments on those links, I’d love to hear what you have to say!

“Advance warning of Katrina’s path was wrested from mute Nature by meteorological calculations and satellite imagery. God told no one of His plans. Had the residents of New Orleans been content to rely on the beneficence of God, they wouldn’t have known that a killer hurricane was bearing down upon them until they felt the first gusts of wind on their faces. And yet, as will come as no surprise to you, a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that 80 percent of Katrina’s survivors claim that the event only strengthened their faith in God… Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for survivors of a catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving God, while this same God drowned infants in their cribs.”

So writes Sam Harris on page 53 of Letter to a Christian Nation.  This past Sunday, I preached on the Problem of Evil – the attempt to reconcile the obvious and seemingly pointless evil and suffering in the world with the Christian claim that there is a loving, beneficent, omniscient and omnipotent God watching over us all.  It was certainly ambitious to try to tackle in forty minutes a topic which has seen volumes of books written about it, and I undoubtedly left out many important aspects of the issue.  My approach was to tell the Biblical story, with the hopes of helping us see how our experiences with evil and suffering are not isolated, meaningless tragedies but are part of a grander narrative, from creation to fall to redemption to new creation, with a suffering God on the cross as the centerpiece. 

One of those important aspects that I did not get into (which was brought out by the above quote from Harris) was this:

For some people, suffering and evil cause them to reject God as either cruel or as an obvious myth.  For others, suffering and evil drives them to a deeper dependence on God.  What are we to make of this???

I remember reading the aforementioned quote from Harris’ book and being stunned by the elitist arrogance of that statement (if I may be so blunt).  This is what I hear as I listen to the part I’ve highlighted:  “Sure, 80% of Katrina’s survivors claim that the event only strengthened their faith in God, but that is only because they refuse to face the obvious reality (which I see), that no loving God would allow a baby to die without warning people Himself.  It is immoral for someone to believe that a loving God has spared them but would not do the same for everyone.”

The reason I call that elitist arrogance is that Harris obviously does not think much of the 80% whose experience with suffering and evil has strengthened their faith in God.  In his understanding, there can not be any justifiable reason why such a tragedy should bring someone closer to God; it must be out of naiveté, stupidity, or an immoral self-centeredness.  I disagree, and don’t think that 80% of the survivors felt that their faith was strengthened solely because they survived and others drowned (as in “I survived!  God must love me!”).  Perhaps some are that self-centered, but I think most people who have been through this sort of tragedy – war, natural disaster, etc. – experience some survival guilt at knowing that others perished while their lives were spared, and find that reality sobering instead of uplifting.  I think it is more likely that the following were the sort of reasons why the survivors’ faith was strengthened:

 They were reminded that there is nothing safe and secure in this world
 They were reminded that living to accumulate possessions, which may not be here tomorrow, is pointless
 They realized how valuable life is, how easily it can be taken away, and how important it is to make the most of the time you have
 They were reminded of the importance of loving those who have been put in your life, for they may not be there tomorrow
 They were reminded that death spares no one, and it is crucial to consider the question of eternity

All of the above reactions are typical for those who have stared death in the face and lived to see another day.  And all are part of the Biblical message, and cause for strengthening one’s faith in God instead of the alternatives.  Consider the following passages:

Matthew 7:24-27 – [Jesus said] “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.   The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

Matthew 6:19-21 -  “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

James 4:14-15 – Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

Luke 12:22-23,25,31 – Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes… Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?… But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.”

Hebrews 9:27-28 – Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people.

As Christians, we believe that this world was created as a good world by God, but has been broken by human rebellion against God and its effects on every aspect of God’s good creation.  We believe that Hurricane Katrina, like every tragedy, is a brutal reminder of how badly we need God, how much we long for God to destroy evil and renew creation, and how pointless it is to put our hope and trust in anything this world has to offer.  As C.S. Lewis put it, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pain; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”  Tragedies like Katrina cause us to weep over the brokenness of this world, to follow Jesus’ example by working and suffering to bring good and justice out of the evil, and, yes, to strengthen our faith in the God who proved His love for us and opposition to evil on the cross 2000 years ago.  We know that we worship a God who weeps over evil (John 11:35), who put Himself on the hook for the suffering of this world on the cross (Isaiah 53), who destroyed the power of evil and death by rising from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:55-57), and who will one day destroy evil forever and renew this world (Revelation 21-22).  Death, while cruel and pointless to the atheist, has already been defeated by Jesus. 

Suffering and evil will befall everyone in this world, but how you respond to it can make all the difference in the world.  Will it cause you to curse God and reject Him?  Or will it wake you up to the instability of this world and the desperate need we have to place our complete trust in the only safe Rock, the Lord Jesus?

If there were a list of things you hope you never have to hear, “the baby died” would have to be up near the top, somewhere right above “I’m leaving you” and “It’s definitely cancerous.”  Last Wednesday, as I was on the phone with Andy Hood, my cell phone began to ring, with an unfamiliar Manchester number on the caller ID.  I had warned Andy that my wife was at an appointment at the OB/GYN office, and that she would be calling anytime, so he graciously said good-bye and allowed me to answer the incoming call, where I heard a hysterical voice punch me in the gut with those three words:

“The baby died.”

I’m not sure my feet even touched the ground as I slammed my office door shut and flew downstairs, out of the building, and into my car.  I can’t remember if I even grabbed my wallet or anything else in my mad dash outside.  And I don’t want to know how many cars I cut off as I swerved my way down the main roads and side streets from Main Street, Glastonbury to West Center Street, Manchester.  The only thing I could think about through the tears was being with my wife and kids and holding them close through the pain.

It has almost been a week since the news of my wife’s miscarriage took our feet out from under us.  But thank God that as our feet flew up and our bodies flew backwards, we have landed safely in the arms of Jesus and His church.  This past Sunday at NewLife I shared how the biggest difference for me between my pre-Jesus days and my post-Jesus days is the foundation upon which my life is built.  As Jesus put it in Matthew 7, the one who hears His words and acts on them is like the wise man who builds his house on the rock, so that when the storms come, the house does not fall.  But the one who hears His words and does not act on them is like the foolish man who builds his house on the sand, so that when the storms come, the house collapses.  In my life, this has always meant that becoming a Christian doesn’t mean you move from a shack to a mansion (“since I asked Jesus to be my Savior, my paychecks are bigger, my girlfriends are hotter, and even my teeth are whiter!”); it means that when the storms of life come, there is a rock that will not let you crumble.  Or, as Paul put it, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).  Knowing Jesus means that hearing “the baby died” is not the last word.

But it’s still a devastating thing to hear.

In Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, about companies who made the leap from mediocre to thriving, he talks about something he calls “The Stockdale Paradox.”  Named after the late Admiral James Stockdale’s experience as a POW, the Stockdale Paradox is a courageous outlook on a difficult situation that accepts the brutal facts of reality while maintaining an unwavering faith in the future hope and a commitment to prevail despite the brutal facts.  Now, losing a child is very different than leading a company, but I’ve seen a lot of similarities as we’ve dealt with last week’s tragedy.  Consider two possible reactions to dealing with a tragic situation:  One approach would be to accept the brutal facts of reality, but not have any faith or commitment to bring you safely up out of the valley.  I know that there are plenty of people who find themselves unable to ever really move on a tragic loss.  Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 4:13 that we who know Jesus should not grieve as the rest of men, “who have no hope.”  I can not imagine what it must be like to lose a baby without having the rock of Jesus Christ undergirding your life. 
 
A second approach to tragic loss would be to maintain an unwavering faith and commitment but never accept the brutal facts of reality.  This is exemplified by those well-meaning people who try their best to explain away loss with trite expressions like “God must have needed another angel.”  Always trying to remain positive, these people refuse to really look in the mirror or let the hard truth penetrate their hearts, for fear that they would fall apart and never recover.

God-willing, our grief will be like the Stockdale Paradox – accepting the brutal facts of reality, but at the same time maintaining an unwavering faith in the future hope and a commitment to prevail despite the brutal facts.  These are the brutal facts of reality as I see them – we have lost a baby, who will never live a day in this world.  He will never know the joy of playing with his brothers, never sit on my lap as I read him a bedtime story, never snuggle up to his mother and fall asleep.  We have lost something that we will never get back this side of eternity, and the hole will never be filled by anything this world has to offer.  And behind this brutal reality is an even more difficult truth: this world is broken.  People die before their time, natural disasters destroy lives, and sin and chaos and sorrow do not always go away with a quick prayer and commitment to move on.  Grief work takes time, much more time than we wish it would.

In the most incredible chapter in the Bible, Romans 8, Paul wrote that the created world waits in eager expectation for the renewal that will happen when Jesus returns.  He writes that “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time,” and that those who know Jesus “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23).  It’s a perfect picture of the brutal reality – the created world is groaning, and those who know Jesus are groaning like a woman in labor, waiting for the day when, as John wrote, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4).  Knowing Jesus means when I hear “the baby died,” I am allowed to grieve, to wail, to mourn, to groan, to stare the brutal facts of reality in the face and feel the pain to its fullness.

The shortest verse in the Bible is also one of the most powerful – “Jesus wept” (John 11:34).  When Jesus was confronted with the death of his friend, Lazarus, he did not stand there stoically, saying “why are you grieving?  God just needed another angel, that’s all!  Just be thankful and praise God!”  Jesus cried.  His tears reveal to us that this is not the way it was meant to be, and one day this is not the way it will be.  Suffering and death are a part of living in this broken world, and while God allows it to happen, it is not the way it was meant to be, nor is it the way it will be one day.  I believe that when my wife and I were collapsed in a sobbing heap on the floor in the OB’s office, Jesus wept right along with us.

And therein lies the hope.  While knowing Jesus allows us to face the brutal facts that our baby has died, that an irreversible loss has occurred, it also gives us extraordinary faith, hope, and love in the midst of intense pain.  We do not grieve as those who have no hope, because we know that, as Paul says a few verses later in Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”  God is so good that He is able to take the worst loss and bring good out of it.  My wife and I look back at the past week and are so thankful that, as sad as we are, we have grown stronger in our marriage and been the recipients of such extraordinary care from our church, family and friends.  God has gently answered prayers in the midst of our tragedy, none bigger than causing Michele to deliver an intact baby at home on Thursday night, giving us a whole night to spend with our beautiful baby in prayer and sadness before bringing him to the hospital on Friday morning. 

Above all, we place our hope in our loving and merciful God, that one day we will see our baby again.  For the hope of eternity, of life beyond the grave, we give thanks to Jesus.  And we believe that because of his saving grace, the last word will not be “the baby died,” but “the baby is alive forevermore.”
   

As I’ve listened to those connected to the Virginia Tech tragedy, I’ve heard some anger and outrage directed at a certain “church” out of the Midwest that had planned to come and picket the funerals of the fallen men and women.  This “church” (and yes, I’ll continue to use quotes to describe them and will not mention them by name) represents the very worst of “Christianity” (again, I need to use quotes) in their insistence on doing all in their power to spread the message that God hates America for its immorality, that the senseless deaths of soldiers and civilians should be celebrated because the gunmen and terrorists are agents of God’s judgment, and that homosexuals especially need to know how much God hates them.  Apparently this “church” agreed this week to forego picketing the Tech funerals in exchange for a three-hour time slot on a national radio show, so at least some grieving families will be spared further pain.

Examples of picketers at recent military funerals and Gay pride parades
 
I’ve been leading a small group discussion before church this month on “The Art of Spiritual Friendship” with the goal of educating our congregation on how to respectfully dialogue about spiritual issues with people in our lives.  This past Sunday we talked about rebuilding trust with those who have been hurt by the church or Christians, or who are put off by negative perceptions they have of Christians.  The truth is that there are so many reasons to reject Jesus, and most have to do not with Jesus himself but with the inability of his followers to treat people the way he did.  This “church” certainly at the top of the list when it comes to destroying the reputation of Christianity; we can only pray that like Saul on the road to Damascus, they will experience Jesus appearing to them and saying, “Why are you persecuting me?”

Thankfully, I believe the average American recognizes that this “church” is completely out of step with the way Jesus would handle a grieving campus, a lesbian, or a family of a dead soldier.  As outraged as people are that a church would actually think picketing a funeral is what God would want, I don’t think it causes them to be outraged at God, because they know this “church” isn’t what Jesus had in mind.  My concern, as I mentioned in the introduction, is that this “church’s” theological understanding of the relationship between God and Christians and God and sinful humanity has influenced some Christians in subtle ways. 

For example… I recently received an e-mail from someone who experienced the following in his church:

“Yesterday, our church was praying over the VT tragedy, and one participant began to pray about how we brought this on ourselves and also to pray that the country would repent from kicking God out of the schools, and defiling marriage. This caught me off guard, and I was further shocked to hear ‘amens’ exclaimed all around me. My mind immediately fell out of prayer. My heart dropped and I began to feel ill. Later the pastor reaffirmed these statements saying when we take God out of our lives we bind his hands preventing him from protecting us.”

What are the similarities between this line of thinking and that of the Midwest “church,” and what are the theological fallacies?  First of all, there is the belief that if you believe in God, then you will be spared from harm.  Of course, Jesus’ life shows that even the most perfect of people can experience horrific injustice in this world, and Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28, where he recounts all the beatings, imprisonments, hardships, and danger he has experienced as he follows Jesus, should put that line of thinking to rest permanently.  I believe that God protects his people spiritually (e.g. John 10:27-28 - I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand), but the roll call of Christian martyrs would testify that belief in God doesn’t protect you from unjust torture, suffering, or death.  The fallen at Virginia Tech included Christians and non-Christians, Americans and foreign-born people – there was certainly no discrimination.  Therefore, for a pastor to say that “when we take God out of our lives we bind his hands preventing him from protecting us” may be accurate on a spiritual level, but not on a physical level.  Instead of making such thoughtless statements, let us instead praise God for his spiritual protection, that “neither death nor life (nor homicidal gunmen), neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). 

The second fallacy I see is the belief that tragedies that strike America are God’s punishment on our country for forsaking him.  America is not a Christian nation, nor has it ever been (yes there were many Christians among its founders, but many deists as well), and God does not treat America or any other nation as he treated the people of Israel in the Old Testament.  God’s people, the church, is a people made up of men and women from every nation, race, and ethnicity.  I do not see Biblical basis for God treating America as an entity (if I’m wrong, please let me know).  In the Old Testament, when the Israelites turned away from God, he did remove his protection and allowed agents of judgment such as the Babylonians to defeat the people of God.  Therefore, it is probably accurate to say that when God’s people today (the church) turn away from him, he removes his blessing and presence from that church (or denomination).  This may be what is meant by the letter to the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:4-5 – “You have forsaken your first love.  Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place” (the lampstand likely represents the church’s presence and witness, displaying the light of Christ).  I do not believe the Virginia Tech gunman was God’s agent of judgment, nor do I believe that God sent the plane that hit the World Trade Center or the flood that hit New Orleans as agents of His judgment.  They are simply the product of living in a fallen world.

The God I know as revealed in the person of Jesus weeps over the injustice of the world and the tragedies that befall humanity, including the Virginia Tech tragedy.  But more than that, he asks us to see them as wake up calls to our need for Him.  In Luke 13:4-5, he tells his disciples that the eighteen people who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them did not die because somehow they deserved it more than those who didn’t die.  But he also tells them to take that as a warning sign to turn from their sin to faith in Him, or they will one day perish.  God did not send the gunman, nor does he protect Christians physically from suffering.  However, we can take comfort and thank God for the fact that while a gunman might be able to end a physical life, nothing will ever separate those who know Jesus from His eternal love.