Why Did This Happen?
The Baptist preacher and writer Calvin Miller tells a story
about one of his fellow pastors whose teenage daughter was hit in the face with
a softball. The daughter was taken to
the hospital in a coma. Her father sat
by the hospital bed wondering why his daughter lay there unconscious. He asked himself what God was trying to teach
him, how had he not been paying attention to God.
A fellow pastor walked into the room one day and said to the
father: “I know why this has happened to
your daughter.” The father thought
finally someone was going to make sense of this tragedy. The fellow pastor explained: “God has a rule. A softball and a face cannot occupy the same
space at the same time.” Sometimes we
must accept what seems random and without meaning.
Sunday night in Las Vegas a lone gunman killed at least 59
people and wounded hundreds more. The
violence is numbing and the loss unfathomable, and we want to know why he did
it. We need some explanation; we want to
make some sense of this even if that sense making frightens us.
The shooter is an enigma; we may never know why he did
this. We may have to simply accept
that. This will never set well with us.
Twice in the Gospels people came to Jesus asking about
tragedies. In John 9, Jesus and his
disciples came upon a man born blind.
This created a problem. If he
were born blind, how could his
blindness be punishment for sin?
Nonetheless, they ask who had sinned, this man or his parents. In the face of misfortune, they needed an
answer to make sense of the situation.
The answer of Jesus can be taken to mean that God made him blind so that
Jesus could heal him. Something
important is lost here in translation.
The thrust of the response is that the disciples are asking the wrong
question. The proper question is how God
can use this situation—whatever its origin—to demonstrate mercy. No clear reason is given for the man’s
blindness.
In Luke 13 some in the crowd of listeners ask Jesus about
the death of some worshippers Pilate slaughtered while they were offering
sacrifices. Killed in church--that must
mean something. Yet Jesus instructs the
questioners to think on their own lives and stop trying to find a reason for tragedy
in the life of another. Again, no clear
reason is given for the tragedy.
Although people in scripture do sometimes suffer for their sin,
the general rule seems to be: God makes his sun rise on the
evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous
(Matt 5:45). In other words, often we
can make little sense of life.
The intricacies of theodicy (why does God
let bad things happen to good people and why does God let evil people prosper)
are far beyond me. I don’t know.
Someone once said that God will have a lot
to give account for in the last day.
Faith in a loving, merciful God—as demonstrated in Jesus Christ—assures
us that on the last day God will be able to give account for all. Until then,
as the Apostle Paul wrote: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but
then we will see face to face [Romans 13:12].”
This does not answer our question
“why?” Maybe, often there is no good
answer. In the moments when there is no
good answer, the strongest faith is forged.
Jim Kelsey—Executive Minister of the
American Baptist Churches of New York State
