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).