ASK WITH FATHER TIM - EP 7
WHY DOES GOD ALLOW INNOCENT PEOPLE TO SUFFER?
I think that's a question that was even dealt with in Jesus own lifetime. Let's think about the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin. They thought there were so many things that would mark someone as unclean if someone was a leper. If someone was born blind, deaf, or mute, there were people that very much believed in God that thought somehow that individual was being punished. Perhaps even for the sins of a distant ancestor.
Jesus came to break that mold. He touched the lepers. He ate with tax collectors and prostitutes. All the people that the Pharisees and Sadducees and Sanhedrin thought were unlovable, untouchable, unclean. They knew they could count on Jesus. And that's one of the greatest ways that he revealed that he is God, that he showed care for all of God's people. But he also came to break the people of his time free from the stigma that somehow, if you or someone you love has sinned, that God was going to punish you or that person. Jesus also addressed this issue.
I was just looking at it in the 13th chapter of Luke. He was talking to people about whether anyone deserved the misfortunes that happened to them. It's verse four of Luke chapter 13, when Jesus said, "or take those 18 who were killed by a falling tower in Silwan, do you think they were more guilty than anyone else who lived in Jerusalem?" Jesus was referring to current events in his time that most people would have heard about. One way or another, those people assume just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
They didn't deserve that tower to fall on them and the certain death they experienced when it did. And we wonder this in our day when we see senseless gun violence in our streets and in our schools, when we hear about terrorist attacks, genocide and war. When we think about natural disasters, can't God stop those from happening? The recent floods in Texas, where all those young Christian girls were swept away at that camp. Yes, that makes many people question their faith and question whether there is a God or if there is a God. What kind of God is he?
Jesus is the eschaton, the beginning and the end.
But let's keep this in mind. Jesus has often been referred to by a term in Greek called the eschaton. Eschatology is the study of the last things to be. The eschaton means Jesus is living out the fact that he is the Omega. He's the Alpha, the beginning, but he's also the Omega. He is the end. When Jesus came the first time he came to inaugurate the end of this world. This world will not end until Jesus comes again in his glory. But ever since Jesus came the first time, our Christian belief is that this world and everyone and everything in it is passing away.
All in advance of Jesus coming to bring creation to its fulfillment and the created to glory. At least for those who repented and believed that he truly was the Son of God and our Savior. In the meantime, then if this world and everyone and everything in it is passing away, if the end times have already begun, then we do not get to choose for in most cases how it is that we will meet the end of our lives, or how other people will come to the end of theirs.
There will still be cancer. There will still be the flu. There will still be heart attacks and strokes and aneurysms. Plane crashes, ships capsizing, train derailments, tornadoes, hurricanes, mudslides, any number of different means by which people will pass from this life. But the greatest miracle is eternal life. And if this world is passing away, and if everyone we love is going to pass away, be it now or 50 years from now, be it sound asleep at night or in a tragic circumstance, I wouldn't want to live forever unless I was guaranteed that I was going to have all the people I care about living together right alongside me.
In the meantime, we have the passion of the Christ. Jesus' death and resurrection that opened the gate of heaven, almost as if that cross with his hands nailed to it, became a key for him to unlock the front door to the father's house in the new and heavenly Jerusalem, so that all of us have a chance to live again and forever, and to meet on the other side. God created us in his image and likeness. He created us to be eternal. He created us to live forever. Never to get old, never to get sick, never to die. Adam and Eve, when they ate from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and evil, they ruined everything for everyone. But it was always God's plan for the time.
Our story does not end in darkness or death.
Adam and Eve left the garden and death became part of human experience. That he was going to get us back to Paradise, that he was going to get us back to eternal life. And that is why he sent his son. So yes, there are bad things that happen to innocent people. And yet, if the greatest miracle is eternal life, God certainly has a plan for them. Our story does not end in darkness or in death, and that's one of the greatest reasons why we want to believe in Jesus Christ and commit our lives to him and to his church, because he is the way, the truth, and the life. He has shown us a way up to a world where there is no more sadness, sickness, or sorrow.
He has shown us the way into the father's house, where death, disappointment and disease will all be left behind. The people that have bad things happening to them, they don't deserve it. What they do deserve is the mercy of a God who lifts them when their down, shines light into their darkness, and even after death gives them new and eternal life.
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