Life: What to say when bad things happen to good people? Part II

This contemplation is provoked by something I read over at Reflecting. Part I of this post was sometime ago. Here is my long delayed follow up. My writing this follow up was spurred by the news that one of my friends will be meeting our Lord Jesus soon freed from a body crushed by cancer. My prayers are with her, her family and friends. With tears, I thank God for her life and with hope, I know she will breath freely in the presence of our God unbound by the limitations of the life she has had in recent times.

The email note from one of her friends ended with this quote from I Corinthians 2:9:
Eye has not seen, neither has it entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.
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Nick's blog post was a response to the following premise in a seminary school class project:
Sara Smith, a member of the class handed you a note in which she wrote, “As you know, my husband and I had a child who was born with a severe microcephalic condition, and died 18 months later, after much suffering. I tried to understand this as part of God’s plan and purpose, but have given up. I no longer believe that God is all-powerful and controls every event which takes place. I have found Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, to be more helpful. I think that he is right when he says, "I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it more than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die." You decide to write a letter to her in response giving her what you consider to be the biblical teaching of God’s sovereignty and the problem of human suffering.
I have to say that this is one aspect of pastoral work that overwhelms me. I truly admire those who have willingly chosen to serve our fellow man in this way. I can't imagine how they do it. How can one offer comfort in such difficult times? How can one find words that are helpful and not hurtful even if well intentioned?

Since I've been reading in Job, I can't help but feel a need to attempt to sit in the shoes of the hypothetical pastor who out of love for a member of the flock must respond. In full disclosure, a lot of what I write below is influenced by Phililp Yancey's book Disappointment with God. If you find what I wrote of interest or compelling, I recommend you get the full story from his book.

Dear Sara,

Thank you for sharing with me your thoughts and feelings in your letter the other day. I appreciate your willingness to share your sorrow over your loss and the struggle you experience as one who is devoted to Jesus and seeking to follow God faithfully even in the most difficult of circumstances.

In my life of faith, over the years, I have seen others suffer terrible pain while battling some dreaded medical condition. Even now, recollecting some of them, I feel tears in my eyes just thinking about what they went through. I also have tears from remembering the visions of beauty and goodness of the Body of Christ gathering around them and supporting them and their loved ones in big and small ways through their time of great need. If there is anything I could do, do not hesitate to ask. My prayers are with you and your husband at this time and I promise to be in touch again.

In addition to the emotional distress we face in life, in our humanity, as people of faith, we do ask the big questions like, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" You are most definitely not alone in this. I believe it is part of the grace of God to us that God has included in Scriptures the book of Job and a number of Psalms where this question is pointedly raised. We have been given these parts of the Bible to give us examples of relating to God in a real and honest way and that suffering is part of the life of faith.

How would we feel if in God's preserving the Word, only the happy things and praises were retained? We would feel that our God is in denial about the state of the world.

Indeed, God is not in denial.

When I struggle with the injustice in the world and the suffering of people near and far, my mind is drawn back to Genesis where we find at the heart of our world is a relationship with God and a relationship broken with all its consequences for humanity where evil and suffering falls on both the good and the bad. This thread of relationship is seen in how God drew out a people whom God blessed so they would be a blessing. This desire on the part of God for restoration came to fullness in the Incarnation when Jesus walked this world. While on this world, Jesus experienced all the pains of this human life, he wept at Lazarus' death, he was angered by injustice and hypocrisy and he, innocent, died a criminal's death for all our sins. His resurrection is the first fruit of a newer world that is coming into being. And we now, as the church, carry in our flawed earthen vessels His work to the world and each other until the day he finishes the work.

Why would God choose such strange ways to restore a world?

God, who spoke the universe into existence could with just a murmur recreate the world and set everything right. By might everything could be set right but we would be swept away or we would respond out of fear rather than love. Instead, God has chosen the slow way of grace and mercy because at the heart of God is a desire for relationship with us. But this slow way has a price: the way things are.

I do not know how what you have experienced fits into the larger story of God's restoration. It is an article of faith that I believe it does. I think that is what Romans 8:28 and the verses before and after it are about. I know that doesn't quiet all my doubts nor ameliorate your pain. And the wisdom of the Scriptures knows this and so before Romans 8:28 are verses 26-27, "The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

Please be in touch. I promise to hold you and your husband in prayer. And I promise to find an occasion in the near future where I can spend some time with both of you and with some of our mutual friends where we can enjoy and encourage each other.

Sincerely,
Rene

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UPDATE: I received an email Thursday morning, 6/21/2007. Time of death was 9:01 pm 6/20/2007.

From the Book of Common Prayer:
Almighty God, we remember this day before thee thy faithful servant; and we pray that, having opened to her the gates of larger life, thou wilt receive her more and more into thy joyful service, that, with all who have faithfully served thee in the past, she may share in the eternal victory of Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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