I have been doing a lot of thinking, reflecting, reading and wrestling with God in the aftermath of two events that have taken place in the last 2.5 months. One was from afar, and another happened at close range. We all are well aware of the unthinkable massacre that happened in Connecticut right before Christmas. Just a month or so later our church family lost one of our own, a beautiful 5 month old baby girl.
The first event was news worldwide. The second affected only those who know the family and our congregation. The first event was the result of violent gunfire. The second event due to a very rare disorder that the little girl was born with. I have struggled with both events as a disciple of Jesus.
I believe that our God is sovereign. I believe he is GOOD. I believe he is ALL-Powerful. Then WHY didn’t he supernaturally intervene and stop that young shooter that day? WHY did those precious first graders with their whole lives ahead of them have to be horribly victimized? I believe God created those children, knew them intimately and uniquely before they were born, and delighted in them as his precious sons and daughters. They how do I explain the fact that they were ripped away suddenly and violently from the families who loved them? President Obama was quoted at the prayer vigil following the tragedy as saying that “God has called them all home“. Is this true? Was it God’s will that 20 elementary school students would be brutally shot down? Did God foreordain, plan, elect, or predestine this disgusting act from before the creation of the world?
WHY did God create the little girl from our church family with a rare disorder which would lead to her premature passing? WHY didn’t God answer the countless prayers yearning for him to intervene miraculously to bring healing and restoration to her little body? Did God predestine this little girl to die at 5 months of age? Does God have a greater bigger plan we finite humans can understand that includes allowing a young couple who love, honor, and serve him to go through such heart-wrenching pain and misery?
How can this be the same God who was revealed most fully in Jesus Christ laying down his life and suffering a violent death on behalf of sinners?
My new Anabaptist blogger brother Kurt Willems says, “For those of us who recognize YHWH as fully revealed in Jesus Christ as one who meets humanity in their suffering, who experiences the full wrath of the powers of evil with us; his anguish reminds us of our coming deliverance. Rather than claiming, this was God’s will or God knows best or God has a plan for everything…we must remember that Evil always occurs outside of the will of God.”
God is FOR us. God is WITH us. God is not the author of evil. He did NOT plan for a deranged and extremely troubled 20 year old (who God also created and loved) to assassinate 20 little children military style. God did NOT bring that young couple the joy of having their first child only to rip their gift away months later to serve some greater grander purpose.
The link below is a sermon from Pastor Greg Boyd which helps us to re-imagine how we might respond to suffering in the light of the resurrection hope of Jesus. We know what the will of God is. We see it lived out in Jesus Christ. We know the perfect character of God. We see it lived out in the crucified messiah praying forgiveness over his enemies with his dying breath. Re-imagine with me brothers and sisters. God mourns with us. God understands. God suffers with us. God is bringing his Kingdom forth even now. His Kingdom where there will be no more evil, no more violence, no more children dying. Come, Lord Jesus.
http://whchurch.org/sermons-media/sermon/a-letter-to-henry
Thy Kingdom Come 