by Ryan Fouts
You’ve seen the reports on television. At first, reporters believed that New Orleans had escaped what could have been a much more devastating disaster. Then the levees broke. Eighty percent of the thriving city was flooded. Buildings were destroyed. Homes were destroyed. Thousands of people have perished in the disaster, and many more died in the hospitals. Churches were destroyed. Many faithful congregations will evermore be scattered to different parts of the country.
When tragedies such as this occur, we naturally begin asking questions. How could a loving God allow such a thing to happen? Was this God’s judgment on sin? If it was His judgment, how does one explain the prayers of the faithful who suffered equally in the disaster? If it was God’s will that this occur, how can we avoid the pangs of conscience which tempt us to rebel against the Lord’s apparent tyranny? If it wasn’t His will, why couldn’t He stop it from happening? These questions beg for answers. Attempting to discern the reality of God’s place in such tragedies we’re often tempted to answer these questions for ourselves.
Some answer these questions by concluding that this event was the Lord’s vengeful judgment upon a “city of sin.” It’s no secret that New Orleans, particularly in the French Quarter during Mardi Gras, is known for gross sexual immorality. We saw, in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, people looting stores, not only for survival items, but for jewelry and electronics! There were reports, following the disaster, of shootings and rapes! It isn’t surprising, then, that some popular evangelical preachers have judged from a distance that New Orleans only got “what was coming” for their corruption.
On one hand, this isn’t entirely off base. It certainly isn’t beyond the realm of God’s justice to enact his judgment and wrath upon sin through worldly punishments. Consider the destruction of Sodom and Gamorrah, two cities utterly destroyed by fire from heaven due to their sexual immorality and complete abandonment of the Lord. Was that, though, just the “Old Testament God?” No! God is the same in both testaments. Consider Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts 5. They sell some land and offer their proceeds to the church. They tell Peter that they had given all their profits to the church when, in reality, they had held back a portion for themselves. Suddenly Ananias drops dead! When his wife is questioned she sticks by the lie; then she falls dead too!
The problem with attributing these disasters to God’s judgment isn’t that such judgment is necessarily beyond the realm of God’s dealings with His people. The problem is with the sinner who pronounces such judgment! “Look at how bad they were, they deserve what they got!” To this Jesus responds, “With the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you” (Matt. 7:2). Are the sins of the people of New Orleans any worse than your own? During Jesus’ day a tower fell and killed eighteen people. Jesus poses the question, “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?” Do you think that the sinners in New Orleans are worse offenders than sinners anywhere else? Jesus answers His question, and yours: “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
One reporter observed that “…what men took years to build, Mother Nature destroyed in a single day.” I don’t know what God’s hand was in this tragedy. I don’t know why it happened. He hasn’t revealed these things to us. His inner motives are none of our business. Regardless of what they are, this is a time to repent. This tragedy shows us our creaturely place. What we spend hundreds of years building for ourselves, can be completely cast aside with an single act of nature. Men, who like to make gods of themselves, are shown feeble amid such tragedy. We aren’t self-sufficient, like we thought. We aren’t all-powerful, like we thought.
Some Christians approach these questions in a different way. They attempt to let God off the hook! Desperate to preserve the nice-guy image of God, some go to great measures to excuse God from any involvement in the tragedy. Perhaps, some might suggest, it was just a random tragedy in a world that naturally produces disaster. Perhaps, some might reason, God only allows such things to happen because, after all, man chose his own sinful path in the Garden. Whatever the explanation, some are desperate to excuse God from any involvement in tragedy. This only leads to more questions. Why doesn’t God intervene? Couldn’t he have at least protected the Christians from the disaster?
But the answer to all our questions isn’t found in an “answer” at all! The only answer to suffering is found in Christ. When a Christian looks at suffering, he finds Christ. Before there was Easter, there was the suffering of Good Friday. Our God knows suffering well – He suffered more than any of us could imagine. But no suffering could do Him in. As surely as He suffered, He also rose victorious. When we suffer, we remember that the Lord has suffered before us. He took suffering upon Himself. Now suffering itself is redeemed in His blood.
Human nature demands answers before it can be satisfied. But what hope is found in having all the answers? The peace of God surpasses all understanding, it reaches into the unanswerable with a promise that is greater than the wisest of human answers. Answers do nothing more than appease curiosity. Christ didn’t die to fulfill your curiosity. Curiosity once led man to eat a fruit forbidden by God – the serpent said it would even make man like God! But though man was once overcome by the Tempter’s tree, by a Tree the Lord also overcame the fallings of our curiosity, the pit of sin, despair, and suffering.
Thank God for suffering. It is through suffering, through the Cross, that we are saved by His grace. Before the pain and suffering of this world can do you in, it has to go through Christ. The world has already done its worst to Christ, and couldn’t keep Him down. He was raised from the dead. Suffering couldn’t do away with Christ. It can’t do away with you either. You’ve been united to Him, baptized into His death and resurrection. He has the victory. You do too.
Ryan Fouts is a fourth year M. Div. student at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO. Check out his blog at http://blog.higherthings.org/ryanfouts. You can email him at RyanLCMS@hotmail.com.
