Rest Amidst the Fear
Delivered at Madison
Chapel, Madison, MS
The Fourth Sunday of
Easter
The essential nature of terrorism
is that it breaks through the psychological protections of which we are
accustomed through the distance of war. Our people are used to sending their
sons away to battle in far away lands, not of enduring catastrophe in our own
neighborhoods. Consider this – a citizen of certain cities in Iraq or Pakistan
would consider neighborhood bombings differently than we do after such
atrocities as Boston. It is the frequency and proximity that makes the horror
that much more horrible.
Scott Van
Pelt, an ESPN radio host with a daily show, commented on Tuesday that nowhere
is safe. He said, “If someone has the intent to harm you, they are going to harm
you.” His point is about that essential facet of terrorism – there are not
enough police, soldiers, metal detectors, or cameras to prevent evil. Further,
there are not strong enough bills or laws to prevent evil acts from being
committed. Van Pelt is exactly right – once someone decides to do evil to a
person or community, there is little that can be done.
Evil, as we
all have felt, is real. I would not venture into the realm of the little red
fellow with the tail and the pitchfork, but I believe that evil has a very real
and very powerful presence in this life. This week, more than other times in
recent memory, I have been weighed-down with the events of horror we’ve heard
of. How do we, the believers, deal with that reality in the face of our salvation
in Christ Jesus?
It takes a
certain level of faithful maturity to admit this: bad things happen in this
universe. Contrary to what “theologians” like John Piper, Pat Robertson, and
Fred Luter may say, there are events in this universe that, on their own, have
no moral value in themselves. When a tornado rips across unpopulated Kansas
destroying nothing of value, no one calls it evil. Put that tornado in a
densely populated area like Hattiesburg, and suddenly God is judging that city.
We must be mature enough to distinguish between judgment and tragedy. The
former is an act of God against a people, a nation, or an object; the latter is
a situation in which morally neutral factors combined to affect human life in a
way that usually leads to death.
We are talking
about evil here. We could say that
evil is “any act or event that is contrary to the good and holy purposes of
God. Moral evil refers to acts of creatures that are contrary to God’s holy
character and law. Natural evils include harmful or destructive events in
nature that occur throughout the course of history and that negatively affect
creaturely life.”[1]
When we talk about evil we must be careful not to misrepresent the Gospel. No
longer should Christians respond to the horrors of terror or accidental tragedy
that “God has a plan.” To do so implies that the horrors we endure serve the
“greater good” of some inscrutable divine plan. Further, such language masks
our culture’s fundamental desire to “move on” in the face of horror; we pledge
to rebuild and bounce back as soon as possible, regardless of our need to
grieve, mourn, or heal. Lumping every evil event into a Divine scheme too high
for man to understand is a copout; it’s the Christian equivalent to “walk it
off” when a youngster is injured at play.
The mature
Christian must hold in herself the volatile compound made of one part hope, one
part grief, and one part faith. In the face of evil in this world, whether the
intentional, orchestrated acts of those who would do damage to the legs and
feet of those who run or the accidental, natural, and unavoidable events that
break people apart, the believer cannot, must
not, succumb to the easier way of God’s inscrutable plan. No, such a
position does nothing to ease the pain or grief of the ones afflicted, nor does
it testify to the God who suffers for and on account of God’s chosen people. In
fact, such a position tends toward a Christian fatalism – when the bombs go off
or the hurricane hits it is the fate of those afflicted to suffer under the
horrible gaze of an unknowable God.
What I would encourage the mature
believer to live into is our calling to hold grief and hope simultaneously in
our hearts, neither discounting either nor ignoring one in favor of the other.
Such a
point is masterfully illustrated in the “when bad things happen to good people”
story from Acts 9. Here is Tabitha, a good, Godly woman who is beloved by her
church and her community. She has died, an unfortunate and tragic event in the
little community of Joppa as testified by the presence of so many widows who
eulogize their dear sister by showing Peter the garments Tabitha made. She had
died and the people were sad. We can understand that. When Peter shows up and
raises her from the dead, we can’t understand that. Why this woman? Why this
moment? Why not raise every person who died in Joppa from that point on? Just
what were all these people in Joppa believing in as a result of Tabitha’s
resurrection?
They were
living witnesses to the reality of Christ’s victory over death made real in
their lives. They were witnesses to death and tragedy and to the hope of life
made so real in their sight.
We are
called to do no less that this. We are called to testify to the reality of evil
and death in this world AND the reality of Christ’s defeat of that evil and
death. We are to bear in ourselves the marks of CRUCIFIXION, that is, we are to
bear witness to the fact that God has no eliminated evil or suffering from our
world but has rather shown us that overcoming that evil might just mean death.
The grief of the Cross and the Hope of the resurrection are the essential
elements of the Christian faith.
If we
discount suffering in favor of our hope of resurrection we cheapen the cross
and render the Church impotent to speak to the tragedies of our world, whether
intentional or accidental. If we discount our hope of resurrection in favor of
sounding more relevant to the social and humanitarian needs of the world we
lose our Christian testimony of a God who has indeed defeated death on our account.
We must find a way to live in that tension between the grief of this week and
the hope that God is has not abandoned us. We must have a vision of the
Kingdom: we must, in our grief, be transported for a moment to that place where
the hot sun does not beat upon our necks, where there is no more hungering or
thirsting, and where every tear is wiped from our eyes. A vision of a time when
there is no more mourning, or crying, or pain. Then, though, we must come back
to the now: we must, in our hope, be transported to the limbless and to the
shocked, to the scorching fires and smoldering communities to stand as a
witness to that Kingdom.
I believe that it is only in this powerful tension between
the reality of evil and the hope of salvation that the believer can find
authentic rest. That’s what we need – rest. We need to find a moment, just a second
to catch our breath and find a place of solace among the evil. You see, the
lesson of the disciple’s life is the same as that of the Psalmist. Even though
we walk the valley of very real death and terror, we hold in our hearts the
hope of God’s salvation. We walk onward finding rest in that hope as we journey
onward to the world.
[1]
Grenz, Stanley J., David Guretzki, Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms, “Evil,” 48.
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