It was on Tuesday, March 17th, that France went into the "lockdown" from which we have only recently begun to emerge. My wife and I were still in Scotland on that day! However, while others we know were turned away from entering France, we were permitted to do so. From a human perspective it would appear that this was because we had both a permanent residence, and official proof that it was so, in the form of my French Driving Licence!
So many weeks later, many are still asking the question "Why?". There have been so many deaths - some of them particularly tragic. So many have suffered, even although they have recovered. Many have lost jobs or, at the very least, a significant part of their income for this year. And the list goes on.
Of course, Covid-19 has not been the only problem for mankind! Even in the midst of the pandemic, the enemies of the Chosen People of Almighty God, the Children of Israel, have been attacking Jews - maiming and killing at every opportunity. Elsewhere in the Middle East, and in dozens of countries around the world, disciples of Jesus are suffering - many in ways that are certainly beyond my imagination - simply because of their faithfulness to Him. There are continuing reports of 'natural calamities' such as earthquakes, tsunamis, plagues of locusts. That list, too, can be lengthened.
How do we make sense of such senseless tragedies? If God is sovereign, why does He allow suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people? These are questions that are often asked - and to which the answers are not easy! The Conservative Jewish Rabbi, Harold Kushner, had to grapple with this question when he learned that his son had progeria, a progressive genetic disorder that causes children to age rapidly. His son would not live past his teens.
In response to suffering, he wrote the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Kushner concludes that God is not the immediate cause of tragedy and that asking questions such as “Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?” is pointless. Such questions, he believes, are unanswerable. Instead, he believes that the only meaning suffering has is the meaning that the sufferer gives to it. And we need to give it meaning, he says, to find our way through it. He writes:
“Let me suggest that the bad things that happen to us in our lives do not have a meaning when they happen to us. They do not happen for any good reason which would cause us to accept them willingly. But we can give them a meaning. We can redeem these tragedies from senselessness by imposing meaning on them,” he writes. “The painful things that happen to us are not punishments for our misbehavior, nor are they in any way part of some grand design on God’s part. Because the tragedy is not God’s will, we need not feel hurt or betrayed by God when tragedy strikes. We can turn to Him for help in overcoming it, precisely because we can tell ourselves that God is as outraged by it as we are.”
We read, in Dr Luke's account of the Gospel record, these words: "There were some present at that very time who told Him [Jesus] of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And He answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus? I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Silo′am fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish." (13:1-5).
The bottom line is that we do not always have a nice. pat, answer to the question of suffering. What we do know is that Father God is in the situation with us, if we have a personal relationship with Him, through the Lord Jesus. He, and He alone, is our Certainty in these continuing uncertain times.
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