Sermon: "When Tragedy Hits, Where is God?"
It was just three months ago, on April 16, 2007, that a lone gunman moved from classroom to classroom in Norris Hall, on the Virginia Tech campus. In each room, he stopped and unloaded his guns by firing straight into his fellow students. The teacher in one classroom saw him coming, closed-door and the students barricaded it with a table. The gunman stopped at that door too. And when it wouldn't open, he fired through it, hoping to get someone. Then he moved on.
The gunfire only stopped when the gunmen took his own life with his last shot. In all, 33 people were dead, ranging in age from 18 to 76. They included students and professors, men and women, foreign and American born, engineers and farmers, Christians and non-Christians.
For a few days, the campus was almost silent, numb with shock. But for months now, and it will probably continue for years, there is a flood of questions. Perhaps the biggest question is: Where was God when this happened?
Christians, we are challenged by believers and unbelievers, because we say, "God is good," and yet things like this happen. When tragedy strikes, does God understand, does he really care, does he rule?
The Bible answers our questions with two simple words: "Jesus wept."
The story is found in John Chapter 11. We will look at several verses in the chapter, so you will want to open your Bibles. But let me tell the story for those who are not familiar with it.
The story of:
I. Jesus and Lazarus.
Jesus had a very dear friend named Lazarus. And Lazarus had two sisters, Martha and Mary. They lived in Bethany. Jesus used to stay with this family when he visited near Jerusalem.
Jesus was away from the area when he heard that Lazarus became deathly ill. The sisters sent urgent word to Jesus, asking him to come and heal their brother. But Jesus delayed for several days before he went to Bethany. By the time he got to Lazarus' home, Lazarus had been dead and buried for four days.
Jesus spoke with Martha and Mary, and then asked to be taken to the tomb. When he got there, he was overcome with grief and wept openly.
Then he performed, perhaps his greatest miracle. He raised Lazarus from the dead. Because of that, the Jewish religious leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill Jesus.
This story helps us answer some of the questions we raised earlier. Where is God when tragedy hits our lives. Does he know? Does he care? Does he rule? This story answers the question,
II. Does God Know?
First, the Bible makes it clear that:
A. God Knows What Will Happen.
In verse 4, when Jesus has been informed that Lazarus is sick, he responds:
"This sickness will not end in death, no, it is for God's glory, so that God's Son that may be glorified through it."
Jesus tells his disciples in
Verse 11, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I'm going there to wake him up."
The disciples didn't get it. So he tells them plainly in verse 14.
"Lazarus is dead, and for your sake, I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe."
Why, what will he do, what will happen?
In verse 23, when Martha comes out to find out why Jesus did not come sooner,
Jesus said to her, "your brother will rise again."
In each verse, the Bible is making it clear, that God, in his son Jesus, knows what is going to happen. He knows. The events of shocking tragedies do not elude God, even if they exasperate us. And they do exasperate us.
Look at verse 21. When Martha comes out to find out why Jesus took so long to get there, she says.
"Lord, if you had been here. My brother would not have died."
Mary says the same thing in verse 32:
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here. My brother would not have died.
These are amazing statements, because they contain, at the same time, great faith and great blame.
"Lord, if you had been here, you would have been able to save him. Lord, I believe that you are able to stop this. But Lord, where were you?"
This isn't just an expression in a bible story. That expresses our hearts so often, doesn't it?
"Lord, where were you when that gunman started shooting? I believe you could have stopped him. But where were you?"
"When that cancer started growing, Lord, you could've stopped at. But where were you?"
"When Prayer Wenger, just a toddler, headed for the pool, you could have stopped her. Lord, where were you?"
"Lord, when the car crossed the center line, where were you?"
"Lord, when my parent's arguments kept escalating, you could have stopped them. I know you are able, where were you? Why didn't you fix it?"
The Bible doesn't give an immediate answer. Jesus just responds in a way that would have been very frustrating at the time.
Verse 4: "It will be for God's glory."
Verse 14: "For your sake, I am glad I wasn't there, (to fix it,) so that you would believe something."
Jesus says, "It’s for God's glory, and your own good. But I am not surprised by it.
It did not catch me unawares."
He is not giving a final answer, but he wants us to know that he knows what will happen. And you and I need to know that for our comfort.
As my mother-in-law approached her death, and we didn't know if it would be days or weeks, we struggled with how we could always have someone by her side, in case she passed away. We all had other matters of life that we still needed to be involved in. But what if she died when no one was watching?
Then God reminded us. It will not be a surprise to him. He would not be turned the other way and "Oops, she passed away." He knew the exact moment she was going to die, even though we did not. Knowing that he knew what would happen and when it would happen, brought great comfort to me.
God is not ignorant of what will happen to us. He was not ignorant of what would happen to Lazarus. But then why did he cry? He cried because:
B. He Knows What Has Happened.
Lazarus is dead! It is a terrible thing that has happened.
In that cold hard fact, Jesus reminds us that death, any death, even one death is a horrible thing. It is a disruption of the good plan of God for the world. For a moment, Satan has had a victory, and that is horrible. It will require the death of Jesus, to set things right. But in the meantime, in a fallen world, God's people will experience pain and suffering. And it is enough to make Jesus weep.
Not only does God know what will happen, but he knows what has happened. Jesus experienced the reality of the misery of the world. He knows what we feel when we experience the pain of the death of someone we love, because he has felt it.
You know how when you are grieving, and someone says flippantly, "I know how you feel." And you think to yourself, no you don't, you haven't experienced this. Well, God wants us to know he has experienced it. He knows what we are feeling when we are in the midst of a tragedy. And I need to know that.
In one sense, when tragedy happens, Christians can dry their tears, because they know the final outcome. We don't have to fear death the way other might. God will win in the end. God knows what will happen, and it will be for his glory, and it will be for our good. We can take comfort in that and dry our tears.
But this story also gives us permission to weep because of what has happened and it is terrible. It hurts. We know it's not the way it's supposed to be. Just because we know the outcome will be good, does not mean that we can't feel the pain now.
It's like when you watch a movie that you've seen many times, a movie that has a happy ending, but in the middle there are parts that are very sad. Every time you watch that movie you know what the ending is and yet, when you get to that sad part, you can't help but cry because you feel the pain of the characters in the movie.
In the same way, although Jesus knew what would happen to Lazarus, he knew the outcome would be good, he still wept because something awful had happened. Lazarus had died.
When tragedies happen, we don't have to, "Handle it well." We should be ready to say, "You want answers, but we don't have answers. This is horrible. This hurts."
We can sob uncontrollably as an expression of our grief and our pain. God did. Jesus wept. Jesus wept, even though he knew the final outcome.
So, God knows what will happen and what has happened. But
III. Does He Care?
The answer is still the same isn't it? How do I know that he cares? Because, Jesus wept.
Even the people who watching knew that Jesus cared.
Verse 36, after we read the Jesus wept they said:
"See how he loved him."
This is not just Jesus having moist eyes. Jesus is weeping, sobbing, crying hard.
Jesus had given logical explanations of what was going on but that isn't all. He cared deeply about Lazarus, Martha and Mary
In the face of tragedy, logic and explanations are not enough. We need to know that God cares. We know that he cares because, Jesus wept.
Logic might say, "It is amazing that only 32 people were killed in Blacksburg. Look how many shots were fired. God really protected a lot of people."
That is true and it makes perfect sense, unless you were married to one of the victims, or one of the victims was your child or your brother or your mother. You see, logical explanations or trying to soften the explanations is not enough in the face of tragedy. In the face of tragedy, logic and explanations it may be right but we need to know that God cares, that he feels in his heart what we are feeling. We need that for our comfort.
If you're standing beside the coffin of your loved one and someone comes through the line and begins to offer all kinds of explanations or possibilities of good that could come out of the death of your loved one you probably just want them to be quiet. At that point you want to know they care, not that they can explain it all. Explanations are good sometimes. Explanations may be right but that's not enough when you're grieving, in the face of tragedy.
Jesus could have explained it all, but he cared so he stood there and wept.
Men, we need to learn this.
When our wives come home from a bad day, that has been a tragedy for them, and begin to tell us about it, what do we usually do? We begin to explain, to correct the situation and solve the problem. What do our wives really want at that point?
They want us to listen, then take them in our arms and weep with them. That's how they know we care. There will be another time for explanations and problem solving but not then.
When our children come to tell us about the trouble they are in, so often we try to punish them, correct them, and teach them all at once. What they want is for us to listen to them, hug them and weep with them to show that we care.
My mother understood that.
She was anticipating the birth of our fourth son, Colin, as much as we were. She was in Waynesboro and we were in Zambia, Africa. I'll never forget, when I called and in my sobs told her our son died during delivery. She calmly responded, "Ray, tell me the whole story." And then we sobbed together through the phone as she listened. I knew she cared.
When bad things happen to us, does God care? Jesus wept.
But Jesus cared more than that. He cares so much that he would ultimately shed not just tears but his own blood when he died on the cross for our sins. So if we want to know, does God care, just look at the cross. Jesus dying on the cross is the greatest example of how much God cares
Romans 5:8 God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God cares so much about the anguish and pain in our lives that Jesus wept and he cares so much for us that he died for us.
God knows. God cares. But
IV. Does he Rule?
The onlookers in Bethany asked this question in verse 37:
Some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"
They were asking the question because it looked like Jesus cared, but why didn't he do anything about it, before it was too late, as they understood the time.
They did not understand God's timing just as we often do not understand it. Sometimes it looks like God is not ruling in a situation when in fact he is. The Bible shows that God's triumph comes, sometimes after a time. There may be a delay but there is always a design and it is never too late.
Wouldn't it have bothered you to be Mary and Martha. Jesus heard about Lazarus being sick but as we read in verse six: he stayed where he was two more days.
Why the delay? Jesus didn't fix it right away. Why not?
We begin to understand this when we look at the whole context of Jesus ministry.
Just a few days prior to this event in Bethany, Jesus told a parable about a rich man and a beggar. It's founded in Luke 16.
In this life the rich man ignored the beggar and his plight. Both men died and the beggar went to heaven while the rich man was in torment in Hades. The rich man pleaded with Father Abraham to send the beggar back to his brothers to warn them not to follow his path.
He said, "if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent." Abraham replied, "if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead." Luke 16: 30-31.
Do you remember the name of the beggar? It was Lazarus. Now within days of the parable Jesus raises a man from the dead. His name is, Lazarus. Does everyone suddenly believe and follow Jesus? No! look at verse 53.
So from that day on day, the chief priests and Pharisees, plotted to take Jesus life.
And in a few more days, they did take his life. It looked like they had won, and not Jesus. The disciples must have been wondering if Jesus really was in control. Does he rule? How are they supposed to understand all of this?
Don't you see? The parable is a lens to understand Lazarus at Bethany. Bethany is a lens to understand the cross and Jesus' resurrection. Jesus' resurrection is a lens to understand eternity and now.
Jesus' triumph may take some time but it will surely come, because he is ruling with a care and a plan that will culminate in all of eternity. But it helps us to understand now.
Does God rule, even in tragedies? Yes.
God could fix it before it happens but he doesn't always. But we can be sure that he has a plan and his plan will be carried out. It will bring him glory and it will be for our good so we can believe him and trust him.
As surely as Lazarus was raised from the dead and as surely as Jesus was triumphant over death and the grave, we can be sure God is ruling in your tragedies and mine.
He may delay, but he is in control.
In order to help us remember that, God puts tears on the face of Jesus. Each tear is a lens that helps us to understand that, when we face a tragedy:
God knows what will happen.
God knows what has happened
God cares about our pain and misery and
God is in control in each and every situation - even when he allows the death of a loved one which he could have prevented.
Let this be a great comfort to us today. Amen.