When Towers Fall
Trying to make sense of disaster
Some years ago, I was watching a news account in which a woman saw a tornedo approaching. She prayed to be delivered, and sure enough the tornado veered and did not hit her house. A miracle, right? Well, maybe. What about the person down the road who was praying just as hard and the tornado knocked his house down? Why didn’t God spare him? Was he so much more evil than the first woman that he deserved divine judgment when she did not? If not, is God arbitrary?
These questions have vexed me for a long time. Why does God “answer” one person’s prayer and refuse to “answer” the prayer of the person a quarter mile down the road? I don’t know if I have (or ever will have) an answer to this question that I find emotionally satisfactory. But I think we can get some hints at the answer in Luke 13:1-5:
Now on that very occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. And Jesus responded and said to them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans just because they have suffered this fate? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or do you think that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse offenders than all the other people who live in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
When some manmade or natural disaster occurs, we often ask “Why did God let this happen to these people?” One natural response to that question is “They had it coming.” Jesus warns us not to jump to that conclusion. Sometimes, bad things happen to people for no other reason than we live in a fallen creation. Paul writes that whole creation groans and suffers and we groan as well as we await our redemption. Rom. 8:20-23.
Jesus’ point seems to be those who suffer these tragedies are not worse than the rest of us. Rather, we all “have it coming” and therefore we should all repent and be saved. The opposite is true as well. David lamented bitterly the apparent ease and luxury of the wicked.
This is not to say that God does not sometimes save us from disaster. The Bible is full of miracles. Nor is it to say that God does not use disaster to punish. He surely does, as he demonstrated at Sodom. But miracles are, by definition, an exception, not the rule. And Jesus specifically tells us not to assume disaster is always, or even usually, punishment.
Where does this leave us? It leaves us right where we started, walking by faith and not by sight. If there is one thing I have learned about suffering, it is this: Very often you just can’t make any sense of it.
Why should this surprise Christians? After all, this is the very thing the Bible says. The whole point of the book of Job is that God is under no obligation to explain himself to us. We either trust him (and there are many good reasons to do so) or we don’t.
I find it helpful to remember that anyone who reads the first chapter of the Book of Job knows why Job is suffering. But God never explains it to Job.
He can't because that would ruin the demonstration. Satan could then say, "Oh, Job knew it would come out all right in the end! He got his explanation and his fortunes were restored."
As it happens, Satan loses because even though Job never learns why it all happened - in this life - he remains faithful anyway. God appears to him, he repents of any doubts, and Satan presumably slinks off, for a time. God restores Job's fortunes because the demonstration is over.
Of course one can say it is unfair. But against what background? Of the countless people who could have existed, the people reading this post actually do exist, as I do. And we all have an eternal destiny of existence - I pray a happy one. Is that fair or unfair? How do we compute it?
The Book of Job is NOT a work of existentialism. What it tells us is that there is an explanation but that we cannot expect to know it in this life. We must just be faithful. guided by what we do know - as Job was.
There are no "good" people.