Dear Church Family,
In many of the
conversations I’ve had lately, people continue to struggle with the “why”
question. Why is God allowing this to happen? Is this part of his big plan? Someone shared with me an article from the NY
Times, addressing this struggle and I draw from that article.
Theologian N.T.
Wright says that, instead of seeking explanations for our present
disaster, we should “recover the biblical tradition of lament,” an expression
of solidarity both with our fellow humans and with God himself, who… grieves
for his people’s infidelity and in the person of Jesus weeps for Lazarus. The
Christian tradition, Wright argues, doesn’t require us to “explain what’s
happening and why. In fact, it is part of the Christian vocation not to be able
to explain — and to lament instead.”
Ok, true. And yet,
there’s more to be said.
Father Thomas Joseph
White writes this: there is a religious duty to interpret the present
moment, not just seek to endure it or escape. “What does it mean that God has
permitted (or willed) temporary conditions in which our elite lifestyle of
international travel is grounded, our consumption is cut to a minimum, our days
are occupied with basic responsibilities toward our families and immediate
communities, our resources and economic hopes are reduced, and we are made more
dependent upon one another?
Asking these
questions, White says, does not imply crude or simple answers… But we should
still seek after them, because if there is any message Christians can carry
from Good Friday and Easter to a world darkened by a plague, it’s that
meaningless suffering is the goal of the devil, and bringing meaning out of
suffering is the saving work of God.
Perhaps in some
small way, as we read in Romans 8:17, we are “co-heirs with Christ, if indeed
we share in his suffering in order that we may also share in his glory.”
Pastor Rita
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