Why Does God Allow Tragedies?
It is very difficult to define what a tragedy is. Most of us we are most affected by relatively small disasters closer to home. The death, illness or even the diagnosis of a future serious illness of someone in our family can wreak havoc.
There was an elderly couple who woke when the alarm clock went off. The wife got up first to make a cup of tea. She looked in the mirror and was appalled at her appearance. Her skin was sagging, she had a double chin, her white hair was had a yellow tinge and there were even some bristles around her mouth. It was a tragic sight. She turned to her husband, bemoaning the problems of old age, and asked,
“Can’t you say something encouraging?”
The husband replied,
“There is nothing wrong with your eyesight.”
We have been inundated with detailed news about the 165,000 who died as a result of the Indian Ocean earthquake and the resulting tsunami. There are now demands for money to be spent on better early warning systems to reduce the consequences of future earthquakes. However we hear less about what is going to be done to prevent the AIDS epidemic. At present 75 million people in the world have AIDS and 25 million have already died with devastating social consequences. It appears that politicians and the press influence our appreciation as to what is a disaster. Few people know that in 1976 there was a massive earthquake in northern China that is said to have caused the deaths of 750,000 people. This was largely hushed up by the communist regime - they were not keen on outside help.
How can we value life and its tragedies objectively?
How Natural Disasters happen
We now know quite a lot about how massive earthquakes happen. We understand about “plate tectonics”. The earthquake and tsunami near Sumatra resulted because the earth’s plate under India and the Indian Ocean is very slowly moving northwards, under the plate of Eurasia. It is this movement that resulted in the Himalayas being pushed up into the air as a mountain range. It explains why there are seashells near the top of many of these mountains as these areas were originally under water. It is thought that in the Sumatra quake, the plate moved 30 meters. So we see that science helps us understand how natural disasters happen. What is less clear to us is why
such disasters happen.
The Blame Culture
Whenever there has been a tragedy in recent years the newspapers, broadcasters and politicians immediate reaction is to ask, “Who is to blame?” Trains collide – so somebody made a mistake. A complication occurs after an operation - so the lawyers are called in. The Zeebruge ferry sinks so the sailors and naval architects are blamed. There is also no doubt that some disasters, such as the September 11th destruction of the World Trade Centre or the sexual molesting of children, are the result of evil.
This way of dealing with problems by blaming others is more difficult where natural disasters are concerned. We may decry the inadequacy of early warning systems or good communications but deep down we all know that it is not possible to prevent all disasters. The main disaster facing us certainly cannot be halted and that is the approach of old age, illness and death. Increasing our longevity brings new problems for us and our societies - how are we to cope with the increasing numbers of unwanted, elderly, incapacitated people?
So we turn on God. If there is an all powerful God, why does he not protect us better? Even this question, if it is analysed, smacks of the insolence of a spoilt child - it is ‘me’ that matters most.
Clearly the first question to be answered is whether God really is all-powerful. We need to know whether God is in ultimate control of all that happens. An investigation of the evidence leaves little doubt that God must be all-powerful. He designed and manufactured the cosmos. He made cells with their remarkable DNA code, and then constructed different types of living beings. There is also good evidence that God has put his personality into his creation and especially into man. We do appreciate aesthetic things. Beauty, courage and integrity are recognised as real, if intangible and indefinable, qualities that are good. The ancient Scriptures, that claim to be the ‘Word of God’, certainly teach that God is all-sovereign and must be honoured by all people in their private and national lives. The best answer to this question is given in the person of Jesus. He claimed to be the embodiment of the creator and sustainer of this universe. He is the heart of the Christian ‘Good News’ or gospel. God is not a being who now stands aloof from this world and disdains any contact with us. He entered into this world, with all its suffering, in order to make sense of our existence. He was,
“A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” Isaiah 53:3
Even asking the question ‘Why?’ demonstrates that we know, deep down, that life has a meaning. Atheists cannot ask such a question. They teach that there is no God and no higher power or purpose and therefore there can be no real meanings, only make-believe ones. You only have to go to an atheist’s funeral to realise that atheism is too emotionally and intellectually bankrupt to answer the ‘Why’ questions, and has nothing to say to those who are suffering.
In contrast to this utter hopelessness Jesus gives us both explanation and hope. The following passage is one example of his teaching on the question of ‘Disasters’.
“Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them - do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”Luke 13:1-5
There had been two tragedies in Jerusalem that had clearly upset a lot of people. Pilate, a wicked despot, had murdered a number of Galileans when they had come to the temple to offer the required religious sacrifices. We can imagine the anger and political furore that this would give rise to. The nationalists would want to blame Pilate for the killings. Other politicians who were being supported by Pilate would perhaps claim that it was the Galileans fault - weren’t they all troublemakers from ‘up there in Galilee’? Secondly there had been an accident at a local tourist spot. The Tower of Siloam had collapsed crushing eighteen people. Today there would be a wide range of possible culprits who would have to take responsibility. The architect - for poor design, the builder - for poor workmanship, the officials at the Ministry of Works - for poor maintenance, the police - for poor crowd control and even the dead themselves - for being particularly bad or irresponsible. All could potentially share the blame.
Jesus does not tackle the problem in this way at all. He wants this tragedy to be seen as a warning to those still alive. He makes two important points.
Your Philosophy May be Wrong.
The idea of ‘Karma’ exists widely throughout the world. It is the belief that wrongdoers will eventually pay for their misdeeds. The ancient Egyptians thought that this judgement came when you died and your good and bad deeds were then weighed. Eastern religions believe there is a reincarnation, and that the form in which a person returns to this life will depend on how they have lived in a previous existence. Others think that God’s judgements come in this life, and it would appear that some of Jesus’ listeners held to this view. The question they were asking was right, “Why has this disaster happened to these poor people?” Their answer was wrong. It was not because they were worse people than others. In the original Greek he says this very emphatically.
“I tell you NO.”
To make the point even more emphatic he repeats this phrase. It comes in verse 2 and again in verse 4. Jesus steps aside from our ‘blame culture’ and goes deeper, he faces the root cause of man’s greatest problem. It was to solve this problem that Jesus had entered this world and was willing to die. Our problem, according to Jesus, is our sin and by this he meant our rebellion against God and all that resulted from it.
Please do note this. Jesus’ constant theme is that man has rebelled against God and that this is the cause of dire consequences, both now and in eternity. There has been very little discussion on ‘Question Time’ or on other television discussion programmes about this answer. Could it be because people do not feel comfortable with Jesus’ teaching?
Jesus is saying that tragedies are warning shots and that we overlook them at our peril. When a friend falls ill or there is a death in the family or a tragedy on the news, let us see them as wake up calls from God. It is all too easy to drift thoughtlessly through life without thinking which direction we are going in. Problems can be a great help in bringing us up with a start. C.S.Lewis wrote in his book, “The Problem of Pain”,
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts at us in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” 1
We seldom think about the place of God when we are happy, perhaps we do transiently when our consciences are active, but it is only real problems that will make us think.
People may consider that this all sounds very harsh. C.S.Lewis answered this point.
“We are perplexed to see misfortune falling upon decent, inoffensive, worthy people – or capable hard working mothers or diligent, thrifty, little trades people. Let me implore the reader to try and believe that God, who made these deserving people may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed; that all this must fall in the end, and that if they have not learned to know Him, they will be wretched. And therefore he troubles them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will discover.” 2
This is well put. Pain is a terrible instrument but it does give us the one big reminder we need if we are drifting away meaninglessly and need to change.
2) Eternal Punishment Is An Awful Fate.
Jesus reminds his listeners and ourselves that the ultimate tragedy we face is to die unrepentant and unprepared to meet God. We all have our own moral standards. We can watch ‘Crimewatch’ with a goulish interest and murmur our disapproval at others actions. However Jesus reminds us that, in God’s eyes, none of us are innocent. He says,
“Unless you repent you too will all perish” Luke 13:3
He is not referring to physical death but eternal death. That is always the dimension Jesus is most concerned with. If we die unrepentant and persist in locking our creator and Saviour out of our lives we die unforgiven by God. Tragedies are “God’s roadblocks on the way to hell” as C.S.Lewis also said.
I was on a teaching ward round with my firm when we came to a very pleasant lady in her 50’s who was in for terminal care. She had had cancer of the bowel and now had liver secondaries; shewas feeling very weak. She asked if she could have a private talk with me later. When I returned she said,
“I am finding this business of dying very difficult. Could you speed it up for me?
She clearly wanted ‘euthanasia’. I replied, “We don’t do that,” but we went on to have a discussion about what she was finding difficult and the things we could do to help her. I wondered if there was some spiritual problem underlying all this so I continued,
“I wonder if there is a reason that God is keeping you going like this. Do you think you have got everything ready?”
“I think so,” she replied, “I have cleared all my cupboards at home.”
“Yes, but on a deeper level, are you sure you are ready to meet God or aren’t you sure about these things?”
“Oh! I think I’m ready, I’ve never done anyone any harm.”
Here was this lady about to meet her maker and she wasn’t ready. Fortunately our hospital has Gideon Bibles in the bedside lockers so I asked if I could show her a few things.
“I would like that,” she replied.
The first thing she needed to be clear about was that when we die we will face judgement. I wondered about using the passage in 2 Thessalonians 1:8-10 but decided that the wording was too aggressive for this lady so we looked up Hebrews 9:27.
“. . . man is destined to die once and after that to face judgement.”
The great attraction of using this verse is that the adjoining verses both talk about Jesus died to “take away the sins of many people.”
I illustrated this by placing a book on my open hand, and explained that this represented my sin, which acts as a barrier between God and myself. My religion and my good deeds, which were illustrated by my fingers actively moving under the book cannot help get rid of the barrier. She seemed to understand this so we went on to talk about sin and to show that no one is naturally good enough for God. Her claim about ‘not doing anybody any harm’ was both untrue and certainly inadequate. So we looked up Romans 3:11.
“There is no-one righteous, not even one; there is no-one who understands, no-one who seeks God.”
She then agreed that being right with God was never something she had bothered about at all. We also looked up Isaiah 59:2,
“But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden your face from you, so that he will not hear.”
As we talked she began to understand her problem.
“How can I get right with God?” she asked.
Sitting on her bed we talked about the Lord Jesus. We talked about his death on that cross and how he died to take away the consequences of our sin and to enable us to be right with God. We then turned to 1 Peter 2:24.
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”
As we talked it all seemed so clear to her, the Holy Spirit was convicting her of sin and righteousness and judgement in a non-aggressive way. She then said,
“I need to be forgiven by Jesus. Will you pray for me now?”
At this point the nurses sitting at the adjacent nurses station jumped up and pulled the screens round, even though they give hardly any privacy. They must have been listening. I prayed thanking God for what he had done for us on the cross, and asking that, just as he had promised, he would put her name in the ‘Book of Life’, forgive her sin and give her his Spirit. She was very grateful. I left her with a list of the verses we had looked up as well as two more on assurance,
“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has passed over from death to life.” John 5:24
The Lord gave her great joy that continued. Her husband phoned me up the next morning.
“Are you the doctor who spoke to my wife yesterday?”
“Yes,” I replied rather hesitantly as I didn’t know what was coming.
“We are not a religious family in any way, but I would like to thank you for spending the time with her. She has such peace. Would you mind explaining to me what you said to her?”
He phoned me at home a few days later at the weekend and came for tea. I was interested to see that somehow he had obtained a large unused Gideon Bible, Authorised Version, which had the words, ‘Headmistress’ printed in bold type on the outside. We went over the gospel in a very similar way. He wasn’t ready to commit himself but I gave him a copy of ‘Cure for Life’ and said he could phone at any time.
His wife moved to the local hospice where I visited her on one occasion. She was holding firmly onto her Saviour even though she was sleepier from the drugs. We looked at Romans 8:1 which is another great verse on assurance.
“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because . . . ”
To make this simpler to understand, I wrote her name on a piece of paper and placed it inside the Bible and said,
“Let this Bible represent the Lord Jesus and this piece of paper represent you. Because you are now ‘in Christ’ when you meet God he will not see your sins at all, he will see that you are in Christ and have ‘his righteousness’. Furthermore Jesus is now in heaven and because you are in Christ he will take you to be with him there.”
The nurses told me that she later asked them to read her the whole chapter of Romans 8. About two weeks later I had a phone call from her husband to say that she had just died. Apparently one of the last things she said to her husband was to ask him to become a Christian and made him promise to “go to the doctor’s church”. He did faithfully come and he later attended a Basics course when he also committed himself to Christ.
When you read these verses in Luke 13 again can you not feel the passion in what Jesus is saying to all of us? He talks as if the greatest tragedy is to die unprepared to meet God. Indeed all of life’s experiences are meant to lead us back into a close relationship with God. Even the good things in life are meant to do this.
“Do you not realise that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” Romans 2:4
This message of Jesus is relevant to all of us.
It is relevant if we are not yet Christians.
I was talking to a young patient who developed breast cancer. She was thinking of doing away with herself. So I asked her,
“Are you ready to meet God then?”
“What do you mean?” she replied.
“One sure thing that happens when we die is that we will meet God. So it would be foolish to expedite the process if you are not prepared to meet him.”
If you have never accepted Christ’s right to rule over you and have never asked him to forgive you, what is it that stops you? Are you worried that you do not have the ability to keep living the way God wants? This is a real concern for many of us when we consider a new start. God promises to give his Holy Spirit, to motivate you and strengthen you to become the man or woman that God wants you to be.
It is relevant for Christians too.
We are all to learn from disasters. What are our priorities? Can we honestly say,
“Yes, I know who my priority is and I am committed to serve him with all I have?”
The next two verses make it very clear that Jesus includes His followers in this reasoning.
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ Luke 13:6-7
The fig tree, like the vine, was used to symbolise God’s people. For three years God has been returning and looking for fruit. He is looking basically for two things. Are our characters becoming more like Jesus and are our ambitions becoming more like Jesus? People may claim to be God’s people today but the Lord longs to see real fruit in our lives. So God is saying to all of us,
“Repent, turn back to Christ and start again. Live close to Jesus; share your failures and your joys with him. Do not substitute an organisation or even a church for living with Jesus Christ. Live with him at the centre – if we don’t then we are in peril.”
Do we need to repent of laying up treasures for ourselves on earth and not in heaven? Do we need to repent of our lack of commitment to God’s work, of being onlookers and not active team members? Do we need to repent of our lifestyle - is it very different from the worldly lifestyles of those around us? Perhaps we need to repent of living away from Christ with the effect that we don’t feel the desperate plight of those who have not repented? Do we need to repent of loving this life, our family, our hobbies, our sports or our careers more than Jesus?
You may be feeling that the warnings in this passage are rather blunt, but don’t forget it is the loving creator and Lord of this universe who is saying this. He is warning us all, including myself, in order to save us.
Just before the tsunami struck a 10 year old girl was playing on a beach facing the Indian ocean. When she saw the tide suddenly go out she remembered what she had learned in a geography lesson. An unexpected tide recession precedes a tidal wave. She ran around the beach warning people.
“Move to safety, a tidal wave is coming.”
That 10 year old girl saved many lives because they did respond to the warning. For us to repent is literally to rethink our situation and direction in life and commit ourselves to another way of life – the way of Jesus Christ. Jesus says,
“Come to me . . . I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28
That is the promise of God himself and no one who has taken him up on his promise has yet to be dissatisfied.
This is why repentance is so important for you and me. It is a good place to be.
BVP
Jan 2005
1. C.S.Lewis, “The Problem of Pain”, Geoffrey Bles 1940 p 81
2. C.S.Lewis, “The Problem of Pain”, Geoffrey Bles 1940 p 85
