“Everything happens for a reason.” That’s what we often tell ourselves when tragedy strikes (such as befell Oklahoma City this week). This is usually an attempt to bring order to our chaos and soothe our shattered sense of security. I agree with this statement. I just don’t always think they are always good reasons.
I am a Christian who puts a high premium on both the sovereignty and love of God. But the raging question when sifting through our heart’s wreckage at senseless loss and destruction is “Why God?” It’s less a question and more a statement. Some antagonists of Christianity have framed this frustration more carefully: “If God is all-powerful and/or all-loving, why doesn’t he stop such tragedy?” The logical conclusion is, because there are tragedies, that either God isn’t all-powerful or isn’t all-loving. Or doesn’t exist at all. It’s a fair question in a world filled with unspeakable horrors.
From a logical standpoint, however, there are some assumptions glossed over in this conclusion. If there is no God, then how can we call anything evil? When we see countless tragedies in the news, something inside of us weeps, breaks, cries out, “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.” Yet this implies that there is some way that “it is supposed to be.” If we are to reckon some event as causing enough suffering to “not be the way it’s supposed to be”, then there must be some overarching measure of the “way it’s meant to be.”
Scripture gives us an answer. God designed all things with inherent goodness (value) and within their life-giving relationships (purpose). But then something broke. Humanity used its God-given freedom for selfish ends. Humanity and creation unraveled, tearing itself and each other apart. Evil is things not working the way they’re supposed to. We usually talk about sin as bad behavior. But it is more fundamentally the malfunction of… well… everything. Human relationships. Creation. In other words, the fact of this world is “things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be.”
But God doesn’t give up. God himself comes in Jesus and experiences the full brunt of the world’s brokenness. He knows first-hand the pain of violence, alienation, betrayal, and death. He identifies with the broken-hearted; with those who have lost everything. Yet love motivates God to repair the tear in the fabric of reality through the tragedy of the cross. Paul reminds us that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God; a love that goes beyond death. In Jesus, death no longer has the last word.
Also, the above argument against God assumes we know what God should really be doing. Like yelling at the football coach on TV, we think we, in our finite view through the small LCD screen, can comprehend everything happening on the field of eternity. While huge tragedies seem all-encompassing, God has a view of eternity where He not only sees all ends but redeems tragedy for greater goods.
But let’s be honest: such evidence can be small comfort in the midst of the hurt, disillusionment and loss. Even if we had an answer to “Why God?”, would it really make us feel better? As a pastor, I am often with people whose lives have been torn apart by death, whether it’s saying good-bye to their spouse of over 50 years or learning they have terminal brain cancer with only months to live. What does logic have to say in the midst of such pain and uncertainty?
Scripture helps us here too. In the psalms, pray-ers cry out directly to God’s face because things aren’t “the way they’re supposed to be.” “I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart…” (38:8) Even Jesus on the cross shouts Psalm 22, “My God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far… I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but find no rest.” In other words, God is big enough to take our anger and pain; our deepest questions and doubts. The psalms give us permission to let our tragedies be as awful as they are because God is bigger, more eternal, than any heart-ache. The hope of the resurrection is that death no longer gets the last word and that God will come again to make all things right again.
The psalms often start in anguish, able only to see brokenness, but almost always ends with a heart reoriented to the future: “Why so downcast, O my soul?… Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” (42:11)
Born and raised in Salem, David Taylor has served the Presbyterian Church of Floyd since July 20th of 2003. Visit them on the web at: http://www.pcfloyd.org
