Why?
Dear Friends,
Many of us were devastated to hear last weekend that Matt Patient had died. It was so sudden, and he was so young, so fit and so able, with so much to give. And, to make matters worse, he leaves a young wife and young children. Naturally, we find ourselves asking “Why?” Why did God, if he is truly good and all-powerful, allow such a thing to happen? As far as I know, we don’t have a detailed answer to that question.
In the absence of such an answer, some people are understandably tempted to give up on God altogether. But that doesn’t really solve anything. We are still left with the pain and the suffering – they don’t go away – and we are now left to face them without God.
The Bible, as we might expect, is utterly realistic about the suffering. It doesn’t pretend. What it does, to help us live with the pain of today, is to point us to two other days: the day Jesus died and the day he comes back. When Jesus died, the God who had become one of us actually suffered himself and died. He has entered our world of pain and suffering and experienced it for himself. He doesn’t sit aloof and remote like a detached Buddha. He is able to sympathise with everything we experience. And when Jesus comes back, this same God will finally and completely put an end to all the suffering of those who belong to him. Those two days help us live with today: the twin truths that God has suffered and that God will end suffering help us live with our suffering.
Chris Hobbs,
Vicar.