Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

 “Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?”

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, March 9, 2014

Text: Lamentations 1 & 3 // Series: Why, God: Good Questions about Bad Things

The city was under siege.  Not for the first or last time in its history, mind you.  During its long and storied existence, Jerusalem would be besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.  But this time was different.  This was one of only two times in history that the city would be completely and utterly destroyed. 

The year was 586 B.C. and Jerusalem was surrounded by the Babylonian army.  For 30 months, the siege works went up while the people inside the walls wasted away from their once proud state to malnourished beggars.  They knew that there was no way out of their present situation but it was literally killing them to wait.  Their aggressors had already decimated Egypt so the people of Judah knew that it was only a matter of time before they too were fodder for the ancient Babylonian war machine. 

The pesky prophet Jeremiah inside the city and his counterpart in the northern kingdom, Hosea, kept on insisting loudly in the streets that the imminent calamity was a direct result of God’s wrath being poured out on the people for their sins and that there was still time to repent.  But still the people refused to relent. 

As the stranglehold tightened, starvation gave way to desperation, even cannibalism.  Anarchy reigned in the streets.  You may think that at this point, the people would turn to Almighty God for help. They had in the past – and Yahweh had released them from the grip of their adversaries and from even more dire plights.  But not this time.  This time, against all prophetic invitations, the people of Judah persisted in placing all their trust in futile political alliances and feckless idols made of wood or stone. 

Finally, after 30 agonizing months of collective anguish, the city’s wall was breached and the Babylonian army streamed into the cracks.  They broke into the Temple, the most sacred & holy place imaginable - the place where the very presence of God was manifest to His people, and the set it on fire burning it to the ground.  They paraded into the palace and looted and pillaged every room, every storehouse, every closet.  Judah’s puppet king and his tiny army attempted a pathetic last minute escape by night through a breach in the city wall, but it was futile.  The Babylonians captured him and killed his sons before his eyes and then they put out his eyes so that the last thing he would remember seeing for the rest of his natural life was the consequences of his own rebellious leadership.  The Babylonian army stayed on at Jerusalem for months, dismantling the city stone by stone until the whole area was nothing but a heap of rubble.  It was meant as a lesson to the entire world of what would be done to anyone who dared to defy or double cross Babylon. 

The citizens of Jerusalem and Judah who were not killed outright were placed in chains and sent off on a five month, 700 mile journey over the burning sands of the Ancient Near East. And as they walked out of the city, I can’t help but wondering if there wasn’t a question that burned in the minds of every woman, man and child in that throng: “WHY, GOD?”  Why would you let this happen?  Why would you leave us to suffer like this?  Why would you let the people whom you love experience this?” 

Last week, we wrapped up a teaching series Old Testament book of Hosea.  We spent the two months exploring the images and the depths of love but also anguish that God expresses in that book.  Now Hosea, you might recall, is unique in the questions that it raises because it is mostly written from God’s perspective.  It is designed to help us learn about how God thinks about us.  But if the book of Hosea is written to reflect God’s perspective, the book of Lamentations is written to express a human perspective on parallel events.  Events taking place just a few miles to the south of Hosea in the city of Jerusalem. 

I can’t help but wonder as I look at this artistic representation of the long line of refugees fleeing their homes or as I watch the news on a nightly basis and see similar stories repeated across our the globe today in places like Syria or Southern Sudan or Afghanistan and Turkey and the Ukraine…  There is a very natural question that bubbles almost unconsciously to the front of our minds: “WHY, God?”

When things happen in our world – be it war, natural catastrophes, typhoons, famine, or violence perpetuated against vulnerable people – most of us ask a very honest, very normal, very raw question: WHY.  Why did this happen?  And very often, that question is directed at God.    

The writer of the book of Old Testament book of Lamentations wrestled with this and other good why questions – you can see where we’ll be heading in this series overview as we move through Lent towards Easter.  After living first-hand through the horrors of 30 months of not knowing if today was his last day on earth or whether he would die at the hands of his enemies, his neighbours or even his own family, the author of Lamentations penned a little gem of a book tucked away in the dusty part of the Old Testament.   

But these parts are also where the Bible is so refreshingly honest and unvarnished.  The “why” questions are asked in a poetic, artistic form but there is no pulling of any punches.  The book of Lamentations is organized as a series of poetic questions reflecting on that horrible, horrible event.  Listen to how the book opens: Lamentations 1:8-10 [Two Slides]

The author is crying out to God.  Lamenting.  Asking probing question after probing question: in 1:9 – Lord, don’t you see my mystery?  Again in 1:11 – God, look at how despised I am!”  Again in 1:20 Lord, see my anguish!  My heart is broken and my soul despairs”.  My groans are many and I am sick at heart.”  The Bible is actually filled with cries of anguish and questions.  And the thing that I appreciate is God doesn’t denounce or deprecate the inquiry or the inquirer.  Not only can He handle it, sometimes it almost seems that He encourages us to ask these kinds of WHY questions.    

You see, when bad things happen to us or those around us, at a very visceral level, we want to know why.  As human beings, we are wired to want to make sense out of our world.  We search for meaning in events and circumstances.  But when bad things happen to us or to those around us, it takes the question out of the realm of the philosophical and into the realm of the personal.  We cease to ask “Why did that happen to those people out there” – we’ll be dealing with that aspect of the topic in three weeks.  We don’t even necessarily ask “why did those horrible things you described happen to the people of Jerusalem way back then?” but we personalize it: “why is this happening to me now?” 

Let’s go back to the context of Lamentations for a minute.  When I think about the displaced people marching out of their homes, as a father, I think about the kids.  The smaller ones in particular.  Look again at the picture… down in the front, the little red-head pulling on daddy’s sleeve asking “why do we have to leave our home, daddy?” or over on the far left, the little boy trying to comfort his mother in the green dress.  You see, most of us can conceptualize a world where justice is meted out to people who do wrong, where people who break the law are punished.  We can come to terms with people who sin against God bearing consequences.  But something within us shifts when we think about the question we want to wrestle with today.  The question is often framed as “why do bad things happen to good people?”  Those little kids fleeing Jerusalem, why did this bad thing, this terrible event have to fall down on their heads?  You see, you can deal with suffering at a philosophical level, all you want but There is often a visceral, emotional response to suffering that we must wrestle with… “What did these children do to deserve this?”

Things happen to people who don’t by virtue of their actions, deserve them according to our usual standards of measurement.  I want you to meet a few of those people here today and hear their stories as I think they will help us wrestle with the questions of WHY.  I want to ask Peter Ash to come up.  Many of you will know Peter & his wife Debbie and their son Brady are part of Jericho Ridge. Peter is the founder and CEO of Under The Same Sun, a charity working with people with albinism in Africa but Peter, I want to start much more personally with you before we go there.  You are a person born with albinism, a rare genetic condition that doesn’t have a cure and isn’t linked to anything you did obviously.  This must have created some “why God” moments in your life.  Can you talk to us about your journey?  How do you wrestle with the question “why would God give a person a genetic condition like albinism?”  [Peter to talk about his anger with God, past & present but also God’s faithfulness in the middle of it]

Being born with albinism here in Canada was challenging but talk to us about your observations and experiences working with PWA’s around the world.  What “Why” questions are they asking?”  [Peter to speak to why God let you and others suffer but also to how He shows up as our mighty advocate and calls us to be part of this work]

One of the ways we can be part of this work is by standing together in prayer.  Peter was telling me earlier that this is a big week of presentations before the United Nations in Geneva, particularly on Tues so let’s pause for a minute and I’m going to ask Curtis, one of our elders to pray for Peter.

One of the things that we want to do in this series is help you hear the journeys of those sitting about you.  To listen to what they have wrestled with and continue to wrestle with as it relates to question of WHY bad things happen to good people.  And in Peter’s story as well as in the Biblical record, we hear some foundational truths or some groundwork that has to be laid and understood before we get to the question of “Why do bad things happen to good people?”. 

One significant part of that groundwork is the Christian doctrine of the fall.  That way back at the start of Genesis, when humankind rebelled against, God, things went as Pastor Keith would say, katy-wonkis.  It’s a theological word, I’m sure.  But we know this intuitively and Peter’s story and the story countless other people around the globe & through history bear this out:

• The original design of the world is broken - all is not as God intended it to be – and this brokenness is inherited by the entire human race (see Gen 1 & Matthew 5:45).

The world we experience and the brokenness and suffering that we see in our lives and on the news are not part of God’s original design.      

The other understanding that this helps to open up for us with respect to Peter’s story and to others is to de-link suffering with sinful behavior. 

• The individual sufferer is not necessarily receiving a due payment for specific wrongdoings

Not everyone in that line of deportees from Jerusalem was guilty of shaking their fist at God in insolent disobedience.  We see this also in the gospel accounts, the disciples ask Jesus “who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” and Jesus says ‘neither!  As Christians, we don’t believe in karmic style justice. 

But the Scriptures also don’t leave us there.  The doctrine of the fall is paired with the incarnation, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

• In Christ, we have a God who suffers with us, who suffered for us and who calls us to be moved by His love to alleviate the suffering of others.

This compels us into the world to walk with those who are suffering to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.  The Christian gospel gives us incredible resources to address not just the philosophical aspect of the existence of evil but also the emotional aspects of it.  The notion that God allowed his own Son to experience suffering and death challenges our view of God and our view of the very nature of suffering and evil.  God is not distant or uninterested in our experiences.  Lamentations 3:55-57 says it this way: ““But I called on your name, Lord, from deep within the pit. You heard me when I cried…  Yes, You came when I called; you told me ‘Do not fear.’” (Lam. 3:55-57). 

So let’s get back to our question: we also have to understand what the writer of Lamentations understood.  That there are some assumptions behind the question “why do bad things happen to Good people?”

1. Good people deserve good things

There is much that could be said here but one aspect that needs to be challenged in our assumptions about our lives.  First of all, who are we to assume that we are “good” people?  That sets us up as judge & jury which is highly arrogant and inappropriate.  But also, if we de-linked behavior in our previous example, why do we want to link it again here?      

“Does not the Most High send both calamity and good? Then why should we, mere humans complain?” (Lam. 3:38-39a).  Some of us go through our lives with a sense of spiritual entitlement: that God “owes” us good things for good behavior.  This is rubbish – God owes you nothing!

The second assumption built into the question is that

2. Bad people deserve bad things

Here again, both philosophically and experientially we need to ask ourselves why would this be true?  We will deal with ultimate justice later on in this series because often it does seem that the evil go unpunished.  Lamentations 1 ends with a cry to God that this would not be the case.  But for now, let’s remind ourselves that though we may want this to be true

“The world is too fallen and deeply broken to divide into a neat pattern of good people having good lives and bad people having bad lives.” (Timothy Keller, Walking With God Through Pain & Suffering)

The last assumption built into the question is one that I want you to hear played out in the form of another journey story.  The assumption is that

3. Bad stuff has no place in God’s good purposes

I want to invite up Jodi and Darryl Bueckert.  They are going to share some of their journey.  Jodi is one of our elders here at Jericho and Darryl is a visual problem solver / photographer slash…  Now, a number of years ago when we were first getting to know each other and you had first started attending JRCC, you received some life-altering news.  Can you walk us through some of your story from that season?” [photos] 

So what would you say to people who claim that bad things have no redeeming purpose?  What impact or influence has your journey with Sam had on your life and is having on your life today? 

Thank you both for sharing.  As I listen to their story and read the book of Lamentations, I am struck by two thoughts that I want you to take home with you today.  These are my personal take-aways, you may have your own

1)   The easy or quick answers are not the satisfying ones.

Don’t settle for a trite answer and certainly don’t give one to Jodi or Darryl or Peter or yourself or your friend or family member.  Dig a little deeper.  Think more carefully and clearly.  One way I frame the question is articulated well by Timothy Keller in his excellent book which I highly recommend to you on this topic.  He says it this way:

“We do not know the reason God allows evil and suffering to continue, or why it is so random. But at least we know what the reason is not. It cannot be that He does not love us.”  - Keller

Which leads me to our final thought for this morning:

Do I know enough about God to TRUST HIM in the things that I don’t know or won’t fully understand?

You and I may not get all of the answers about suffering and evil we feel that we may need or want this side of eternity.  Can we be OK living in that place of tension?  When bad things happen, they can push us away from or toward God.  Peter and Darryl and Jodi and countless others have chosen to place their trust and confidence in God because they have found Him to be faithful and compassionate and full of unfailing love. 

“The Lord is right….”  (Lamentations 1:18a)

“For no one is abandoned by the Lord forever. Though He brings grief, he also shows compassion   because of the greatness of his unfailing love.” (Lam. 3:31-32)

How about you?  What will you choose today?  Let me pray with and for you as the team comes and leads us in worship response in song.