Last week was one in which death was never far from the headlines.
First came the announcement that Dolly Parton, the much-loved singer, songwriter, and philanthropist had died. Then came the tragic news that a flash flood had killed hundreds, if not thousands, in Nepal. And then, finally, we were informed how a 41-year-old had lost his life after a sign fell on him at what is billed as the UK’s largest Christian festival.
So what can we learn from all this? Well, nothing, perhaps, that we didn’t know already. That death comes to us all – and often unexpectedly – to the rich and famous every bit as much as the largely unknown multitudes, and to those who profess Christian faith as surely as those who don’t.
And whilst Dolly Parton’s death might be easier to accept, coming as it did at the end of a long life well lived, all deaths are equally heartbreaking. Let nobody think that the death of a believer is somehow more worthy of grief than the deaths of those in Nepal who, with their bodies still missing, have yet to be named.
But still the question arises. Why would a supposedly sovereign God of love allow so many to die so horribly?
It is, of course, a fair question – but before we are tempted to answer it, we would do well to humble ourselves before Almighty God and, recognising our own need of repentance, accept our own limited understanding.
Because if we do, we will guard against two erroneous claims that I have seen widely made on social media platforms – specifically with regard to the death at last weekend’s festival – a death which, whilst no less tragic than those in Nepal, is even more difficult to understand given how, as a Christian, he had put his trust in the God who appears now to have let him down.
The first has been made by some who have even seen fit to mock the death of a man who, irrespective of one’s beliefs, was both a husband and a father to those who now have to go on without him. The reason they give for the man’s death is that the God he believed in does not exist. But in truth it is only the God they think he believed in – and perhaps would like to believe in themselves – that doesn’t exist – one who guarantees that nothing bad will happen in this life but who, when it does, should bear full responsibility for it.
But that is not the God of the Bible – nor the God who really is there in all his often unfathomable magnificence. For he is one who, on occasions at least, has been shown to work through suffering and, what’s more, to bring unimaginable good out of what appeared unimaginable evil.
Which brings me to the second mistake I have seen being made by those who have evoked Satan as the one who caused the sign to fall on the man and imply, therefore, that the devil was able to act beyond God’s control, leaving God somehow powerless to prevent him.
But that is not the devil of the Bible – who is portrayed there as one who, whilst truly fearsome, is very much on a lease – able to do only what the Lord permits him to do according to his often inscrutable will.
So having said just a little about what the events of last week shouldn’t be taken to mean, how about hazarding a guess as to why they did happen.
But therein lies the problem – for it would have to be just that – a guess – and a pretty foolish one at that. And so I prefer to follow Job who, knowing more than most about what it is to suffer, never got an explanation for why he lost his family, his possessions and his health. Because whilst those who read the account of his great misfortune discover something of what lay behind it, Job himself had to be content with mystery. He suffered despite being blameless in the sight of the Lord he too believed in – and never discovered why. But he came to accept that God, being God, can be trusted – no matter how incomprehensible his actions might sometimes be.
For his ways really are higher than ours – and all the better for being so too!
Related blogs:
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here
To read ‘Luther and the war in Ukraine’, click here
To read ‘When our joy will be complete’, click here
To read ‘When Bad Things Happen’, click here
To read ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here
To read ‘Still weeping with those who weep’, click here
To read ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’, click here
To read ‘on the FALLEN and the FELLED’, click here
To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here
To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here
To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.
To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read ‘Monsters’, click here
To read ‘On Sleeping like a Baby’, click here
To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here
To read ‘Reflections on the death of Leonard Cohen’, click here
Some musings 