For
God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to
save the world through him. (John 3:17 NIV)
For
the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power,
love and self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1:7 NIV)
After
a tragedy I sometimes ask, “If God is of love and is in control,
how could this have happened?” From this point of view of pain and
loss, it is easy to see God as a mindless thug. If he is in control
of man within nature, how could this storm have occurred, or this
accident/illness, or this homicide?
In response to this question I
begin by asking what I frequently ask when I find myself more
concerned with the role of others rather than myself—the question
for me is how can I (rather than someone else) help redeem the
situation? What should I pray? What should I do? How can I help?
It is always too easy and more justifying to ask what role God (or
others) should play rather than asking what helpful role I can play?
Stepping back, I ask what redeeming role would God have mankind at
large play?
Yet,
due to my conviction that life must make some rational sense, I go a
step further and consider God’s role after human conflagrations of
evil. Because God lovingly imbued man with dignity and honor, he did
not make him a robot, but endowed him with a window of discretion and
will. Because man is too often short-sighted, God’s role is to
redeem his divine purpose through mop-up operations necessitated by
the pollution of man. This was the Savior’s principle role.
Jesus’s ministry on earth was to head up a mop-up operation in the
aftermath of human evil. He came as a light unto the world to
dissipate self-delusions and to provide thereafter the Holy Spirit as
comforter and counselor. Too often mankind finds itself in a garbage
dump of its own making, and Jesus comes as a humble worker sorting
through the garbage to find and redeem that which is good.
That
still leaves the issue of natural disasters. While I do not go so
far as to hold that God is a clock maker who designed and created the
universe then set it ticking never to intervene again. I nevertheless
hold that in the nature of things some discomfort is unavoidable.
For example, living in Florida I greatly wish that hurricanes were
unnecessary. Yet it is clear to me that if hurricanes were
cavalierly stopped, there would no doubt be hurtful implications
somewhere down the line. That is, I think even God confronts a type
of dilemma that is no stranger to mankind—since there is no ideal
outcome, how can the pain be most minimized. It is completely
tenable to me that a loving God even while in complete control does
not always have easy and painless choices. The prime example is that
of giving man discretion when robotics would have been in some ways
more satisfying—however incompatible this would have been with the
nature of God’s love.
Richard
Cory
--by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Whenever
Richard Cory went down town,
We
people on the pavement looked at him:
He
was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean
favored, and imperially slim.
And
he was always quietly arrayed,
And
he was always human when he talked;
But
still he fluttered pulses when he said,
'Good-morning,'
and he glittered when he walked.
And
he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And
admirably schooled in every grace:
In
fine, we thought that he was everything
To
make us wish that we were in his place.
So
on we worked, and waited for the light,
And
went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And
Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went
home and put a bullet through his head.
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