Where Was God When the Bombs Exploded?

This is from the sermon delivered 4/21/13 @ Rock Presbyterian Church. The audio is here: RPC Sermon Archive.

Perfect in Love (Mt. 5:43-48)

Let me tell you that when Matthew shows Jesus commanding us to love our enemies (Mt. 5:44) he uses the word agape. In fact, in the New Testament, no one is ever commanded to love with any other word for love (not eros: physical love, nor philia: brotherly love). It may seem odd that Jesus would command us to love with agape. It seems odd enough that we are being called to love our enemies to begin with, but here we see Jesus commanding us not just to love our enemies but to love them with a divine love. How is that even possible?

And of course the short answer to this question is that it is not possible for humans. Humans are incapable of the kind of love that Jesus calls us to. But let us recall that as followers of Jesus we are new creations. The apostle Paul tells us that when are baptized into Christ we are baptized into his death first. As Jesus died on the cross, so do we die. Our bodies don't die but our lives die

What dies is our human nature without the life of Christ: that grasping, self-oriented, self-centered creature that was left after the fall. The creature that was bound to sin and corruption and death. The creature that was bound for hell. For Christ followers, all of that died with Jesus on the cross. And Paul tells us that we must die to our old selves, along with Christ, so that we can rise to new life with Christ.

The Easter story contains two events: the crucifixion and the resurrection, and both are necessary for our salvation. Both are necessary for us to enter new life. The old, sinful self must die in the crucifixion so that the new, glorified self can rise with Christ.

When we are baptized into Christ our sinful selves die so that we may rise to new life in Christ. But the new life we rise to is not our own but the life of Christ. "I have been crucified with Christ," Paul writes to the Galatian Christians, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." (Gal. 2:20 ESV). And it is with this life that we can be perfect in loving our enemies. My old self could never love at all, much less perfectly. But I surrender myself to the love of Christ, and he loves through me.

In one sense I am sure that this all sounds preposterous. Because we live a life between the old and the new. Our old life is dead. but the new one has not yet been fully realized. We continue to drag around this dead body that was our old self. We continue to sin. And we continue to find it difficult to love in the way Jesus commands us to love. And maybe that discourages us.

But God never breaks his promise. God has promised to restore all things, and we can trust that promise. So even though we struggle now to follow Jesus' commands, we can be certain of the ultimate victory. The journey of the Christ follower is a journey toward looking more and more like Christ. This doesn't happen overnight, but if we are in Christ, it is unavoidable.

And so we return to the question that we asked at the beginning: Where is God in unspeakable tragedy? If God is the God of love, how can he allow evil things like the events we witnessed this week? And the surprising answer is that he does not.

God created everything in shalom. God created everything in peace and perfection. Death and corruption and sadness entered the world through the willful disobedience of humans. If God was the God of justice only, we would have to expect nothing but more and more tragedy and more and more heartbreak; more and more evil, terror, and injustice; more and more death and destruction.

But Jesus' death on the cross is the clearest indication that God is with us. He loves us enough to suffer with us. God himself loves us enough to suffer with us. When we see Jesus on the cross, we see our own suffering, and wherever we see human suffering, we see Jesus on the cross. This is what compassion actually means: com-passion, to suffer with. God suffers with us, because he is Immanuel: God with us. God in our midst.

But although for us suffering often seems senseless, Jesus’ suffering has meaning. Jesus rises to life, and offers us a part of his new life. Jesus has overcome all suffering. Jesus has overcome death and corruption. Jesus has overcome evil and injustice and terror. "If anyone is in Christ," Paul writes to the church at Corinth, "he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." (2 Cor. 5:17-18 ESV).

And, we have the promise of a world restored. The apostle John writes,

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." (Rev. 21:1-4 ESV).

So the answer to the question, "Where was God when the bombs exploded?" is right in the middle of the tragedy. He is right in the middle of our suffering, suffering with us. Christ on the cross, in the center of our suffering

And the answer to the question, "How can God allow such evil?" is he can't. And he doesn't. God has made the ultimate sacrifice to overcome all the evil humans have created. That is the meaning of Christ’s suffering. Christ destroyed sin on the cross. Christ satisfied justice on the cross. And Christ demonstrated the fulfillment of love at the empty tomb. The empty tomb is the ultimate expression of love for enemies.

The only place in scripture where we are called to be perfect is in this passage. Jesus tells us we must be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. We must be perfect in love. Because love is the beginning and end and the entire substance of the gospel. Without love there is no gospel.

Do not be discouraged by the evil that we see on every side. Do not be discouraged when we see injustice and tragedy. Do not be discouraged when it seems that darkness has once again hidden the light. Do not fall into the trap of blind blaming and human cries for vengeance. And do not be discouraged when we seek to follow Jesus and we do fall again into temptation and sin.

Jesus did not promise an easy life here on earth. In fact he promised suffering and tribulation. But we still have joy as we rest in him, as we suffer together. (Philippians 4:11). And at the same time he assures us that the ultimate victory has already been won. He promised to wipe every tear from our eyes. "In the world you will have tribulation." he tells us, "But take heart; I have overcome the world." (Jn. 16:33 ESV).

Spiritual vs. Religious? Buddha’s Finger and the Moon

In the end I think those who decry religion in favor of spirituality are more than likely just as religious as those they criticize.

There is a really good discussion about the importance of theology in C.S. Lewis' classic apologetic Mere Christianity. There he tells of an encounter with an RAF pilot who decried the need for theology. The pilot related "I know there's a God. I've felt him out alone in the desert at night. The tremendous mystery. And that's just why I don't believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about him."

I think this is a good place for us to start thinking about this assertion of many modern seekers: "I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious." I think if we dissected that statement what we would really find is a soul that yearns for a transcendent encounter with God that it has not been able to find inside institutionalized religion.

These are true seekers. They are not denying God. Far from it. They are seeking a true experience of God. And they rightly sense two important things. The first is that knowledge about God is not the same thing as the experience of God. The second thing is that many people who claim to have had the experience of God do not represent God very well. What they call "religion" becomes the rules and dogmas of some people imposed upon everyone else.

I'm going to respond with two observations. The first is that no one has ever been more against what they call religion than Jesus was. At the time Jesus walked the earth the message of the God of righteousness, justice, and love (who in fact Jesus is) was being completely drowned out by a judgmental, exclusive, worldly, and oppressive religious system. Jesus openly challenged this system and the system responded by demanding his death. They thought that by so doing they could silence him, but in fact it was through this death that the God of Love made a big comeback in the world.

Jesus entrusted his closest followers with the task of spreading his good news about love to the world. They did the best they could and what the people then called "The Way" spread like wildfire. There has never been a more explosive time of growth in the number of those who follow Jesus than during those first decades. The reason, as anyone who studies these things knows, is because rather than trying to impose a religious structure or understanding on their fellowship, these first followers overflowed with love and gratitude. They cared for each other and their neighbors, even those no one else would care for. They raised to dignity those the world abandoned and despised. Their self-sacrificing love was infectious. Who wouldn't want to be a part of something like that? And so the movement spread.

Now I'm sure there are many who will disagree with me on this but I will argue that the difficulty for the Jesus movement began when it made the transition from being a revolutionary movement to being an "insider" institution. It was, in fact, the very thing that Jesus himself opposed that in the end undermined his movement. What originated as a fellowship of love became an imposing structure of dogma. In the time since then there has always been a need for reform in the church because the church itself is the problem. And that is true today as well. I suspect that Jesus would be just as mad at what the modern church has done with his good news as he was at the religious authorities in first century Palestine. Institutionalized religion has a historical tendency to represent human fallenness more than Divine Love.

But the other observation I need to make is precisely the same as the one C.S. Lewis made in response to the RAF pilot. And that is that even though the church is a flawed institution and always will be (well, at least until the parousia; after that we’re not sure what the church will look like), "The Way" remains essential to a genuine experience of God. Let me again quote Lewis about what I think the critics refer to as religion: "Any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available."

And then Lewis goes on to describe "religion" (he actually uses the term “theology”, but I think the meaning is the same) as a map. If you stand on the beach and look at the ocean, then look at a map of that same spot, it is quite obvious that the map and the experience are not the same thing. But that doesn't mean the map is useless. The map represents the experience of people who have gone before. If you set out for a destination and you don't know how to get there, the journey becomes incredibly difficult and perhaps even impossible without the map.

The problem with what we call "religion" is that too many people have mistaken the map for the destination. Do you think this tendency is confined to people who call themselves Christians? Why do you think the Buddha pointed out the problem of mistaking the pointing finger for the moon? It is human nature to err about these things. Lucky for us, God expects us to be wrong and loves us anyway.

In the end I think those who decry religion in favor of spirituality are more than likely just as religious as those they criticize. Because religion is a roadmap to the spiritual experience, and anyone who uses any method to achieve a transcendent experience is using some kind of a map.

In sum I would like to point out that while some maps may be really visually appealing they may at the same time be completely inaccurate. And other maps that may seem more stark and technical may at the same time be the most accurate. Let us not mistake the finger for the moon.

Evil Does Not Disprove God. Quite the Opposite.

I’m sorry to have to address this again but we need to get out of the way is the idea that the existence of evil or injustice is an indication that God is either weak and powerless to prevent evil, malevolent and uncaring about evil, or that injustice shows he doesn't exist at all. The following was part of my message in this week’s sermon but it’s not original to me. Far more clever and eloquent people than I have made this point previously.

The basis for this argument against God is represented in a statement by a Greek philosopher named Epicurus, who wrote the following about three centuries before Jesus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing, then where does evil come from? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

It seems like a pretty solid argument, and I will conceded that those who wish to logically disprove God's existence, power, and goodness, are often able to make what seem on the surface powerful arguments. But my experience has been that these superficial arguments can always be countered by a deeper consideration. For example, in the case of this argument, the main proposition is that the existence of injustice proves there is no God. But let's look a little deeper. How do we know what injustice is?

Consider the skeptic’s proposition. Their argument seems to be that the world and everything in it was not created but just happened. At some point there was a causeless "big bang" and everything that came into existence just did so by a huge cosmic accident. There is no creator, it's all just natural.

If this was true, then we would have to assume that humans were just another species in the natural order of things; that humans evolved essentially accidentally to be what we are today, but that aside from certain unique biological characteristics humans are essentially no different than any other phenomenon of nature. Humans are not existentially unique. Humans are just animals, like any other animals.

If that were true, you would expect that humans would exist as other creatures exist. I'm not saying that humans might not use their unique characteristics to their advantage in the fight for survival that nature seems always to be engaged in. Of course all organisms are endowed with characteristics that tend to aid in the continued survival of the species. But we would not expect that humans would experience life in a fundamentally different way than other creatures.

But that is not what we see when we look at humans and nature. When we look at nature, when we look at the natural order of things, we see that might makes right, that the organism that is more clever, more powerful, or faster than the others has a definite advantage, that the weaker and slower become naturally the victims of the more powerful. And we see that nature has to work this way. Otherwise, species could not survive. The natural order of things, as pointed out by the Social Darwinists and later adopted by Darwin himself, is "survival of the fittest."

You would think that if humans were a part of this natural order and not unique, that humans would define justice as exactly what we see in nature. Again: the strong exploiting the weak for their own gain and everyone out for themselves. But that is not what humans do.

Every group of humans, at whatever time in history, from wherever on the planet, has demonstrated a sense of justice that runs counter to what we see in nature. And, interestingly, people define justice across time and culture in a remarkably similar fashion. C.S. Lewis writes in his classic Mere Christianity:

If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks, and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and their own.

Where does this sense of justice come from? It cannot be natural, because it runs counter to what we see in nature. And so we must conclude that it is "super" natural. It must come from something that is beyond nature. Now if you’re not a Christian I don’t know how you can explain this, but if you are a Christian it's not like you have to strain to figure out what it is that makes humans unique because the Bible tells us in the very first pages that humans are created in the image of God.

Unsurprisingly, our sense of justice reflects God's sense of justice. So, far from proving the non-existence or powerlessness or malevolence of God, the existence of injustice in fact tends to indicate the opposite. Without God's image imprinted on human nature, we would not be able to recognize justice from injustice. Whatever happened would be in keeping with the natural order of things, and humans would have neither cause nor inclination to complain about it.

Undeserved Forgiveness

Please watch the following short video and then read the closing remarks below. There is a prayer that we might find the grace to forgive at the end.

 

 

Do you remember that one of the writers in the video referred to the Amish attitude as "undeserved forgiveness"? I think if we're trying to understand the amazing grace that these people demonstrated we will find the key in that phrase, undeserved forgiveness. Because, my friends, all forgiveness is undeserved.

When we look at the things in this passage that Jesus is calling us to do he is at the same time describing to us what he did do. Without the provision of God we have nothing. He has given us everything we need to live. Jesus devoted himself tirelessly while walking among us to bring healing and comfort to those who needed it most, and continues to give us comfort and guidance through his Spirit.

Above all, when we offended, he turned the other cheek and took the hit. See him nailed to the cross to pay the price for our transgressions. And when he rose to new life he offered that life to us. The things that Jesus calls us to do in today's reading, this radical surrender of our own rights and our own possessions for those who don't deserve it, would be impossible for us to accomplish on our own.

Did you hear the Amish gentleman in the video? When he was asked how it was possible to forgive, he said, "with God's help." He didn't say, "I sucked it up and willed myself to forgive." He surrendered to the life of Jesus in him, and he found the grace to forgive there.

One last thing. Are you drawn to this story about the Amish people? Do you hold them in great admiration? I know I do. And did you notice how the people in the video, the ones who were commenting on the event, were so shocked and surprised by the Amish, but at the same time seemed to be wholeheartedly supportive? Can you guess why?

Because what they were seeing was Jesus in action. This is what Jesus did for us. And this is how God plans to use us, his disciples, to bring all people back to relationship with him. This is the plan that God has always had. This is how the Israelites were supposed to have lived, drawing all people to Zion. And this is how we, the new Israel, are intended to live.

The gospel that these Amish people preached was not a judgmental, condemning gospel. It was the gospel of love in action. Their suffering is bound to Jesus' suffering on the cross to demonstrate the love that can only be found in Christ. We read in 1 John 4:12 "No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us." No one sees God face to face, but when they see love like this, they see God.

We can do this. We can demonstrate this kind of love if we have the life if Christ in us. In fact if we are disciples of Jesus we must do this. Let us pray that we can be so identified with Jesus that the world is astonished by our grace and love. And let us commit ourselves to living this unnatural love in the world, to the everlasting glory of God's kingdom. Amen.

Let us pray.

Lord, we don't know how to make forgiveness happen. We can't cleanse our hearts or change our feelings. We don't know how to trust, and we're afraid to hold our hearts open. But today we're making a choice to forgive. Please God, give us the willingness and strength to persevere until forgiveness is accomplished in us by Your power.

Father, we let go of all resentments and bitterness stored up in our hearts. Wash us clean. Forgive us for all the condemning judgments we have made. Give us a new and right spirit that will help enable us to hate sin but look with Your compassion and love upon sinners. Heal the wounded heart of the child within us. Pour Your love in. Bless those who have wounded us.

Lord, we pray by this practice of radical forgiveness that the world will recognize you in us, and be drawn back into relationship with you, to the everlasting glory of your kingdom. And we pray all of this in the name of your son and our savior Jesus, who is our teacher and model for forgiveness. Amen.

Justice and mercy meet at the cross.

A lot of times when we think about the Bible we will say something like "The Old Testament God is a God of justice, of retribution, of fire and brimstone, and the New Testament God is a God of love and mercy." It is a great sentiment but it is completely inaccurate. The Old Testament God is as much a God of love and mercy as the New Testament God and the New Testament God is as much a God of justice as the Old Testament God because God is unchanging.

In the Old Testament, at the very time when man needed mercy the most, at the time of the rebellion of Adam and Eve, God demonstrated his mercy by promising a savior who would rescue them from death (Gen. 3:15). And in the New Testament God satisfied the need for justice by sacrificing himself on the cross to rescue humanity from death. Justice and mercy meet at the cross.

We Only Recognize Jesus in Brokenness (Lk. 24:13-35)

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