This weekend I felt like a prophet of gloom and doom as I led retreat participants in a study of Habakkuk. Why Habakkuk? Because this brief oracle and its attached prayer engages the question of God and human sin at an epic level that we all need to grasp.

Habakkuk, we remember, was told of God’s plan to discipline sinful Judea with a devastating invasion by the Chaldeans. We know from other Bible content and general history that the prophecy was fulfilled as promised and led to a seventy year national exile for Jewish captives. But what does Habakkuk teach us today as those who are not facing a God-pronounced invasion?

At a minimum it prepares us to respond by faith to national and international tragedies, whether old or new, with a certainty that God’s hand is present and the events remain under his control. For the Jews in Habakkuk’s day the impact of the events would have been on the order of the great disruptions of our own last century—of World Wars I & II. In both ancient and modern times wars shatter societies: any sense of personal or national security is disrupted. Wherever the immediate conflict takes place the results are horrifying. I can think, for instance, of bas-relief images of a besieged Judean city on display in the British Museum that depict the gruesome warfare of that era. They would compare in violence with photos taken during recent wars.

Let us recall the particulars. The oracle begins as Habakkuk charged God with being passive in the face of Judea’s violent sins—”Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong?” God came back with a shocking reply, that the ungodly Chaldean army would be his instrument to confront that sin: “they [the Chaldeans] fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward” [1:2,8&9]. Judea, a small nation once known for its affiliation with God as his “chosen people” would soon be crushed by this cruel superpower.

Habakkuk was stunned. God’s judgment was over the top—completely disproportionate and inappropriate for a God of his moral stature! He told God as much: “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil . . . why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallow up the man more righteous than he?” [1:13] Habakkuk, we notice, had become a moral relativist. Judea, once tagged by the prophet as “wicked” [1:4] was now “more righteous” than the Chaldeans!

God responded with a confrontation and five “woes” and then ended the dialog. In his response God ignored Habakkuk’s sliding moral scale—of the less righteous and the “more righteous”—and set out, instead, just two types of people [2:4]: those who are “puffed up” and the one who is “righteous” because he lives “by his faith.” Just two types of humanity? Yes, just two: the arrogant who are quick to charge God with error—as Habakkuk had just done—and those who trust God. Which will it be?

That simple moral polarity has since echoed through history. The apostle Paul took on God’s challenge in Habakkuk as the launching text of his letter to the Romans: “The righteous shall live by faith” [1:17] and he repeated it in his letter to the Galatians [3:12] as a counterpoint to any forms of self-righteousness. The author of Hebrews also cited this text [10:38] as the measure of those who please God. For Martin Luther the use in Romans of Habakkuk 2:4 was key to his own calling as he set out “faith alone” as a sign of true reformation. In each case the later writers understood the stark issues at stake: human pride always defies God’s word; either that or a person repents.

In his closing prayer Habakkuk announced his own response: he would trust God even in the face of the coming army—”my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom . . . and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” [3:16,18]

Habakkuk offers at a national level what the book of Job offers at a personal level: a divine disclosure that God rules over evil yet without initiating that evil. As in Genesis 50:20, with a nod to Romans 8:28, Satan and his human servants can purpose events that are evil but God’s good purposes will always be at work even in those evil events. The difference between Job’s suffering and the promised suffering of Judea was that Job was blameless and Judea was guilty. Job was stretched; Judea would be disciplined.

What both books also share in common is God’s confrontation of the fallen human instinct to judge him. He dismisses Satan’s promise to Adam and Eve that by adopting a free will “you will be like God, knowing good and evil” [Genesis 3:5]. Their sin was to grasp at the status of God—to attempt to weigh God’s character with their personal scale of right and wrong. In Adam God must now answer to us and to our sliding scales of morality.

In Job God answered his struggling servant—who in his suffering challenged God’s fairness—with the same issue of Habakkuk: where do you stand on human pride? He asked Job to answer him: “Pour out the overflowing of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low” [40:11-12]. For all his complaints Job was most unlike God because he could not move a proud heart into humility—even his own. That is a miracle that God alone can manage.

If we can say anything in response to Habakkuk’s little book it should be this: “rejoice in the LORD.” No matter what comes our way in days to come—whether personal tragedies, economic collapse, or even foreign invasion—we are called to live by faith. Adam unleashed sin in the human experience, spurred on by Satan and his minions, and God now allows the sloshing of sin that fills the world—through those who are puffed up rather than living by faith—and he tells us to trust him, no matter how that sin spills over us. The evil day will eventually end; and the day when the faithful and the truly righteous are honored will come soon enough.

In the meantime let us read books like Habakkuk and Job, and then trust God no matter what comes. God knows best and he loves us. Let all of us who have faith in this God—who always overcomes evil with good—share a proper response: let us rejoice!

It is my pleasure to introduce Gretchen George as a guest contributor.  A friend told me of Gretchen’s story almost two years ago.  Through that indirect contact Gretchen very graciously sent me a summary of her Bible reading experience.  Here is her story.  May it encourage you as much as it encouraged me.

Those of you who have followed the posts on this website for any length of time know that Ron regularly challenges readers to read the Bible “boldly and relationally.”  Over the years, Ron has directly and indirectly challenged many people to begin reading the Bible in this way.  I am one of those people.  So when Ron asked if I would share a bit about my experience in reading through the Bible cover to cover, I was thrilled for the opportunity!

About 10 years ago, I went through a painful divorce.  I suddenly found myself a single parent of two children, then 4 and 5 years old.  As I was searching through the Scriptures for hope and encouragement, I was profoundly impacted by the words of Deuteronomy 6:5-9:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.

Although I have been a Christian since I was a small child, read the Bible regularly, attended Bible studies, etc., I was confronted with the fact that I didn’t know the Bible nearly well enough to teach my children the way these verses describe.  I began to pray that the Lord would show me how I could begin to know the Scriptures—and Him—in that intimate kind of way.  About six months later, I got a call from a former coworker, telling me about the Bible read-through, and inviting me to join her and her daughter in reading through the Bible.  I knew instantly that this was the Lord’s answer to my prayers.  I was excited!  We have been reading through the Bible together twice a year ever since.

The impact that this kind of Bible reading has had on my life has been profound.  For one, I have a greater understanding of God’s personal love for me and my children, and His active involvement in our lives.   For example, early on in the healing process, I told a friend that I felt like I was standing in quicksand.  Shortly thereafter, I opened my Bible and saw these words from Psalm 40:2, “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”

Another time I was telling God that I felt vulnerable and unprotected.  He responded with Psalm 91:4, “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” Time after time I have opened God’s Word and been enveloped in my Heavenly Father’s loving arms.  It’s a marvelous experience!

I have barely begun to touch the edge of who God is—-His glory, power, holiness, and wisdom—and it compels me to know Him more.  Take the time to read through the last few chapters of Job.  The God Job encounters—my God—is awesome!  Reading the Bible in large portions at a time gives you a picture of how this awesome God has worked through the generations and carried out His plan for salvation in a way that you don’t see when you pick out chapters and verses here and there.

Reading through the Bible has helped me to understand the sinfulness of my own heart.  It has deepened my love for Christ and given me such thankfulness for my salvation.  Because I became a Christian at such a young age, I don’t think I grasped the depth my sinfulness.   Luke 7:47 says. “But he who has been forgiven little loves little.“ It is our understanding of the deceitfulness and wickedness inside of us that causes us to love our Savior so much.  Our deep love for our Lord results in a desire to please Him and to want to avoid anything that doesn’t bring glory to Him.  And, when confronted with the temptation to sin, we can fight back with the Sword of the Spirit.  Even Jesus did that!

Each time Satan tempted Him in the desert, He responded with God’s Word!

Seeing the holiness of God and my own sinfulness in a fresh way played a vital role in my being able to forgive my former husband for the incredible grief he caused me and my children by his choices.  Early on following the divorce, I received what may be the best advice I have ever gotten in my life.  The person said to me, “Gretchen, whenever the pain hits, whenever the anger comes, get down on your knees and ask God to give you a heart of forgiveness, and keep doing it until the sting is gone.”

As I did that, the Lord was so faithful and gracious to meet me right where I was.  The pinnacle of those experiences occurred one day as I was crying out to God and telling Him that I wanted to forgive, but I didn’t know how.  I then opened my Bible and saw the words of Psalm 130:4, “If you, Lord, kept a record of sin, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.” It suddenly dawned on me that the grief I felt over my former husband’s offenses was but a small taste of the grief that my Lord feels over my sin.  How could I not forgive?!   It was the turning point for me in healing.  Oh, the blessing of God’s Word!

The Bible tells us to seek wisdom, to cry out for it, to search for it as for a treasure.  The thread of God’s wisdom is woven throughout the pages of Scripture.  It’s there for the taking, and yet we so often ignore it.   Having more of the Bible in my heart has helped me to access this wisdom more readily in my daily life.

My children, now ages 14 and 15, are able to take in and accept my decisions and discipline more easily than many of their peers because they know that the Bible is the foundation of my parenting.  As a nurse on a cancer surgery unit and the leader of a single parents’ ministry, I regularly encounter people who are hurting, discouraged, and frightened.  To be able to share God’s wisdom and love as expressed in Scripture is such a blessing.  Ten years ago, I would have stood by and wished I could help but would have had little to offer.

Over these past 10 years of reading the Bible in this way, I have developed a love for it, and for the Lord, that I never had in all my years as a Christian previously.  I recall reading in I Chronicles and being bogged down with what seemed to be an endless list of unpronounceable names.  Then the Holy Spirit reminded me, “I know you by name, just as I know these people by name.”  Those lists of names no longer seemed tedious!

I so enjoy books of the Bible that I’m sure I hadn’t opened previously in years.  When was the last time you read Zephaniah?   Look at the message of love you’re missing in Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”  God is waiting to pour out His love to you on every page of the book He has written!

There is much more I could say, but this has already gotten longer than intended.   The bottom line, though, is this:  You have a God who loves you so much.  He desires a deep, intimate love relationship with you.  His love is etched into His Word.  I urge to open it up and begin reading as you never have before.

This entry was completed on January 1, 2010.

This morning I got word that my uncle has advanced lung cancer. It was tough news to receive on the morning of New Year’s day. Very tough. My mother’s youngest brother.

My connections with Uncle Earl over the years have been too thin, yet I’ve always admired him and cared for him. He’s a gifted, sensitive, and self-effacing man whose wry humor always keeps things in balance. What I heard this morning is that the disease has advanced so far that no chemotherapy or aggressive radiation treatments will be used. I’m not beyond having hope, but so far we haven’t heard anything from the medical community that offers human hope.

The news gives a certain perspective to life. It reminds me once again that life is “a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). When I was much younger and doing my first Bible read-through this verse in James caught my attention. I’ve now had nearly 45 years of reminders since noticing it: of having national and international figures die as part of the daily news; of losing relatives, friends, and acquaintances. I still miss my father who has been gone for over 20 years. Life is brief and uncertain: a mist.

Even in reflecting on the pain that goes with such losses this entry is not meant to be a lament. There are different ways to view death. Two weeks ago I attended the funeral of a man who touched my life years before at a key moment. Willard Aldrich was then president of the college where I held a short-term staff position. He invited me to shape my anticipated seminary studies with a view to become a college educator. I took his advice. When he died he was 100 years old and his memorial service was a celebration of how his life had touched many, many others.

When my uncle passes from this life—whether sooner or later—he, too, will have touched many lives. Sometimes in very small ways—my enjoyment today of listening to the banjo was birthed in Earl’s lively plucking and strumming—and his two daughters, my lovely cousins Blythe and Lynne, have become significant contributors to two major Seattle-area companies, Starbucks and Boeing. Gifts beget gifts.

So it is that today a double reflection has emerged: of having a new year ahead of us, with all its potential opportunities; and the reminder from Willard, and the news about Earl, that life is only a mist. One reflection is about the near term of today, tomorrow, and this coming year. The other is about the longer term reality of life and death.

Let me start with the longer term future. One of my deepest certainties of faith is that death is not an end but a beginning. As I shared in my last entry, “On Christmas Day”, one of the great motif’s of the Bible is that God the Father determined in the beginning to create a bride for his Son. And all of us who “kiss the Son”—I’m thinking here of Psalm 2—will have the joy of being included in the event foreshadowed in Psalm 45: of the Son being given his bride. This picture of the Son’s marriage with his collective bride—all of us who know and love him—culminates at the end of the book of Revelation with the wedding feast of the Lamb.

The point of this “big” view—extending beyond our present existence—is that this life only raises a curtain on something much, much greater than whatever it is that this life offers. And the Bible regularly reminds readers that this world, despite its moments of joy and promise, has been broken by our deeply rooted alienation from the Creator. It gives us enough promise to make us long for a better place and time, but it never gets us there. Heaven is not a current address for any of us.

And yet we are called citizens of heaven as soon as we embrace the Son who grants us his Father’s eternal life. Our response to him loosens our embrace of other ambitions—all the promises of the pseudo-heavens this world offers us. As the old folk chorus puts it, “This world in not my home, I’m just a passing through . . .” Life is a mist.

The second reflection is shaped by this bigger picture. Today is the first day of the new year. No one knows exactly how the year will unfold but most of us are optimistic about it: we hope to enjoy family and friendships, to make plans for work, studies, travels, and so on. By tradition a new year offers new opportunities: something of a blank slate to begin writing anew. We need that, don’t we! It’s the mercy of a fresh start.

What we must not miss, though, is that in most cases the bigger picture will show a single trajectory of travel from year to year. Our basic ambitions don’t change just because we take down an old annual calendar and put up a new one. Instead our lives are ruled by our greatest desires—or by our “will” as it’s often labeled in our Western Stoicism. Yet it’s actually our hearts that define our directions in life. So even having the clean slate of a new year offers no real mercy unless our hearts are well-directed for the new year. And only a new heart offers promise of a better direction in the new year.

So let me return now to the letter written by James, and the “mist” discussion I noted above. That text comes soon after an earlier discussion of two types of wisdom: one from “above” and a wisdom that is “not” from above! Listen, then, to James:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13-15)

That little addition, “if the Lord wills”, is all that differs between making plans one way or in another way. One is an exercise of human independence from God; the other is an exercise of engaging God’s providence: the certainty that he loves us and is ready to work in all our circumstances for his ultimate and very good purposes. Everything in this life is meant to get us ready for that coming wedding feast.

Embracing the wisdom that comes from above or, on the other hand, a wisdom from the world, will define each of our new years. God wants us to look ahead and when we do, to be among those who see Christ waiting for us.

So, even with whatever jolting news we may find awaiting us in this year, let me wish all of you a “happy New Year” in the embrace of the Son! Only there will we find the peace God wants us to enjoy.

And—with all of what I’ve just written as context—please, pray with me for my Uncle Earl and his family. I love them and still hope for his recovery.

Recently I was visiting with a friend who was once a pastor. His marriage is broken—already into years of separation with no restoration in sight—yet he longs to be together with his wife again. In our conversation he touched on the promise of Romans 8:28—”for those who love God all thing work together for good”—as a confusing text. His frank prayer is familiar to many of us, even if our circumstances may differ: “My God, how can anything good come out of this?!” 

I won’t try to offer an answer here but I do want to probe the question he raised. To begin let me confess that I never feel so limited as in moments when a tender word or some wise counsel might soothe, heal, and restore. I tend, instead, to share the lessons of a professor and lecturer. By now I know that is not what is needed! So I sit silently, pondering the problem, aching with and for my friends. And I pray. 

So allow me to think aloud, still pondering our conversation. Maybe there’s a counselor who will read this and be stirred to help this dear couple, or others like them. This post will be very brief and simply suggestive. Other thoughts are invited by readers. 

I started my reflections by considering the broadest biblical frame possible—looking to the accounts in Genesis and in Revelation as the beginning and the end of the present age. In both books sin and pain are paired realities. Before the fall there was no pain or death. There was no distrust. There was no rejection or fear. Pain began with sin. Even ordinary illnesses—or any form of physical suffering—are linked in the Bible to Adam’s fall. Earthly catastrophes including cyclones, fires, earthquakes, and tsunamis, are all linked in the Bible to the fall: as the groaning of a cursed cosmos, cursed to a slow death because of Adam’s sin. Yet in the end, at the conclusion of the book of Revelation, we find that every tear will be dried. The curse will be lifted. Suffering and sorrow will flee away. A new heaven and earth will replace the old. 

Huge amounts are written in the balance of the Bible on the collective issues of pain, suffering, and God’s providence. Providence is the common label for the theme of Romans 8:28—addressing God’s successful oversight and interventions in a world filled with sin and pain. 

In the broadest consideration we turn to the hope of eternity: the answer offered by God’s final judgments and the restoration that Revelation promises us. A clear application of this answer is offered in the faith chapter of Hebrews, in 11:39-40. 

And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. 

The point here, in a context of those whose lives ended badly yet without their faith being lost—some killed, sawn in two, some destitute, some afflicted—seems to be that the fabric of God’s overall tapestry has yet to be completed, so the happy final viewing must wait until others, ourselves included, are woven into the whole and thus bring it to completion. What is assumed throughout is that for all who live by faith there is a happy ending that will make sense at last: the “promise” will be finally received. 

Another insight, using a narrower frame of reference, is that God is not as interested in our stability, security, and comfort as we are. As we live in the capsized, upside-down world of Adam’s fall, we are not meant to feel at home. But we are assured that God never fails to use sin as an unintended (by Satan, that is) source of benefit for his followers. The story of Joseph in Genesis is remarkable in that respect. Two lines of narrative run in tandem: God’s blessings and Joseph’s miseries! Read it and see. God gives Joseph dreams of a wonderful future and, as a result, his brothers hate him and consider how best to be rid of him. He becomes a slave to Potiphar. He is falsely charged of attempted rape and sent to prison. Years go by. And, with these misadventures the alternate narrative continues to report that “God blessed him in all he did”. Our impulse is to shout at the text, “Well, then, God, get him out of there!” In the end God does intervene, but only after more than a decade has gone by. Joseph, in the end, was satisfied with God’s care and able to separate the two narratives when he spoke to his brothers afterwards: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20). 

The same sort of double dimensions are found in the stories of Job and the man born blind in John’s gospel (chapter 9). Both Job and the blind man are forced to endure some very, very difficult experiences in life. Yet in both cases we discover the forces of good and evil are being distinguished in the process: Satan and the “friends” in Job are linked; and the skeptical leaders who harangued the newly-healed blind man in John 9, are exposed and diminished in the stories.  Job and the blind man are seen as faithful.

At other times we see God allowing the people he loves to experience harsh judgments in order for them to feel the weight of their sin—the book of Habakkuk is a gritty summary of God’s willingness to allow the sinful attitudes and activities of one group (the Chaldeans) to crush another group of sinful people (the people of Judah). The ultimate outcome is that, after the Babylonian exile, the persistent habit of whoring after foreign idols ended for God’s people after they were restored. This theme of moral repair is also captured in the New Testament: “whom the Lord loves, he disciplines.” 

I will end here. The triad of our title for this post—”pain, patience, and providence”—is as much as I can bring into some sort of focus for now. We suffer, but we need to be patient. Why? Because God is providentially ruling over all our circumstances so that, for those of us who are with him—”who love him”—everything is sure to be explained in ways that make sense. Even those things that are clearly wrong, broken, painful, and difficult to live with. That’s what it is to live by faith and not by sight. But, you can be sure, I’ll be more than curious when we get to heaven to see that final tapestry!

The irony wasn’t lost on me. All my writing of the past three months evaporated in a keystroke. The subject of my writing? Sin. The cause of the lost file? A computer virus that wiped out both my back-up file and my hard drive. I hadn’t made any print copies of the project so I had no way to recover what was lost except to rewrite it from scratch. The broken condition of some computer savvy sinner had intruded in my life in a very painful way.

Minutes later I was walking through the city sidewalks of London praying. I knew that the Bible has a number of imprecatory psalms—psalms that ask God to bring judgment down on the heads of those who have given themselves over to evil. All the words I needed for a feisty psalm were roiling through my heart as I stormed ahead. But the actual words expressed were a simple repetition: “Thank you, Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Again and again. For more than thirty minutes. 

Why the odd response? Because a number of years earlier I’d had another painful moment. I won’t go into the particulars here . . . only to say that it was another event where sin was ugly and active—and, in response, I was ready to write some vinegar-flavored psalms to memorialize the experience. But on that day there was another piece in play: Scripture memorization. I had a packet of verses to memorize with a new verse for each day. That day my verse was 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “In everything give thanks for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” I was stunned by this pairing of a terrible moment and a blissful verse—it wasn’t an accident. The verse was meant for that day and that occasion. It was so startling that I responded by shouting at God. 

“Thank you, thank you, God! Are you happy now?! But for what? I don’t get it!” 

Still, I kept reciting the verse again and again—for most of a half-hour. And I become increasingly and genuinely thankful. Not through some self-stirred reformation of heart but by the dawning of a major insight: God was giving me a chance to grow! I could either live by faith or I could treat the world as a broken place where God operates as a peripheral figure who can only pick up the pieces after a crash. The verse-for-the-day was my chance to toss out that very lame version of God. 

Here’s what happened: the longer I gave thanks the more I had eyes to see the world—including my immediate situation—as God’s turf. He remains in control even in the face of sin and some badly damaged relations. So my prayers weren’t changing him but were changing me. I was learning to treat God as the only true God, an active God, and a caring God. 

That first exercise set me up for every personal tragedy that has since followed—including my lost writings about sin. Including the moment when my father’s death was reported to me. Including some painful moments among my professional relationships. Including a host of hurtful moments that come with life in a broken world. 

“Thank you, Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you! This hurts so much . . . but I know you love me! You’re God and I trust you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” 

Since then I discovered that this insight is a foundation for living by faith. The apostle Paul, in Romans 1:21-22, summarized the pathway of Adam’s rebellion when he linked a refusal to give thanks to a refusal to treat God as God: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools . . .” 

Thanksgiving and wisdom, linked as inseparable companions in the Bible, are now paired in my heart. It doesn’t mean that sin doesn’t bring pain. It does! It doesn’t ensure a proper response every time a challenge comes. But it offers a different way of viewing life so that sin is never given an ultimate status. God is still in charge, always and in every way. 

And—to finish off where I started this testimony—my second effort in writing about sin was more informed than my first draft could ever be. And for that I’m eternally thankful! As for the computer savvy sinner, may God have mercy.

This is a new iteration of a story I’ve used in talks and in earlier informal compositions.

The Bible will strike most objective readers as odd, very odd.  Why?  Because it has so much gross content: sin, arrogance, murder, incompetence, hatred, brazen betrayals, and much more.  The startled reader who takes up the book without having a prior faith commitment is likely to ask, “Is this the best God can offer us as his own ‘Word’?”

It’s a fair question, given that evil erupts in just the third chapter of the whole and is finally resolved with just two chapters to spare at the end.  As those who take God to be the ultimate communicator and who treat the Bible as the written venue for his sharing his heart with us, what do we make of this downbeat approach?

The answer comes by reversing a single mistaken expectation that many readers bring to the Bible: the book does not intend to present a godly world.  Instead God let’s sin happen and then traces its outcomes.  In the Bible God lets the blame for sin rest on humans.  He allows sin but does not cause it.  He never perpetrates evil yet we find that in his remarkable mercy he often rescues sinners.  In fact he freely offers mercy and rescue from the beginning to the end—and his own son is the agent of rescue though it costs him his son’s life.

One insight is uniquely important: God confronts evil by letting evil expose itself as evil once and forever.  A better day will come.  In the meantime God allows every heart real freedom—even the freedom to hate him.  Only then are we truly free to love him.  The heart cannot be coerced to love: it is always free either to love or to hate.  The Bible is a story of these two options expressed as human history. 

Let me try to make the point with a parable.

The Strange Cruise

The builder of the greatest of all cruise ships, after the final work of fitting out, turned over command to the captain to begin her inaugural cruise.  The ship was crowded with cheering passengers who lined the railings as the crew threw off the mooring lines.  A harbor pilot was present to guide the great boat out of the harbor—a harbor with only one jagged shoal to avoid—to the open sea and on to the gala cruise.

The propellers stirred up a full wake and the ship began to make good headway when the pilot whispered something to the captain.  He nodded and then, to the amazement of all those on the bridge, ordered “full speed ahead.”  The ship’s heading was directly towards the shoal!  It took only a few minutes—with all protests stifled by the captain’s glare—for the ship to reach the terrible threat.  She shuddered as a massive gash was torn under the waterline, the rocks easily ripping through the double hull.  As the ship plunged forward her many bulkheads were breached one after another until the flooding waters caused her to list heavily.

Most of the startled passengers raced for their cabins, some for security and others to collect precious possessions.  But the damage was too severe for any delays.  The great liner shuddered, rolled suddenly and was fully capsized in just moments.  The harbor was deep enough that those who fled within the boat’s belly were now captives in the interior cabins, kept alive by air pockets and able to see only by means of their dim emergency lights.

Yet within minutes the terror felt by the passengers was replaced by new emotions.  Some wondered if this was some sort of “reality” experiment and began to smile as they looked for hidden cameras.  Others began to search for rooms that were less flooded and, once in place, restacked the furnishings so that the former decks became the new overheads, and vice versa.  Ceiling fans were draped with bedspreads to serve as tables of a sort.  The upside-down quickly became the right-side-up.  The idea that this was a grand game show grew stronger and stronger.  Yet as time passed some crew members appeared telling everyone to move to areas in the hull where rescue divers would be likely to arrive.  But they were not welcomed—“you’re lying!”

Some even formed a Cruise Committee made up of the most confident and imposing proponents of the extreme reality show theory.  Their first act was to round up and imprison crew members who were trying to ensure a fair and proper distribution of salvaged food and drinking water.  As days passed those who had better emergency lights began to offer their cabins as tanning booths—for a price.  Fights also broke out between those with dry rooms and those whose rooms were partly flooded. 

Those who wanted to take over the better rooms depended on the Committee for Security to help them drive out the former occupants—for a price.  Others who already had dry spaces soon realized they needed to guard their cabins by investing in the Security Committee.  Within a week of the capsizing all those who were aligned with the Committee were thriving and a special banquet was planned.  The Committee Director assumed that some of the reality show hidden cameras were certain to be in the Grand Room, so everyone gathered there, pushing aside soggy debris to provide a dance floor on the former ceiling.

As the party was well underway some shouting broke out.  A few crew members who had managed to avoid capture came into the great upside-down hall, accompanied by a man in an orange wetsuit.

“I’ve come from the surface!” he called out.  “We have a set of rescue chambers now attached to the hull ready to get you out of here.  On the surface we have a ship waiting to take you on board.  You’ll be safe if you follow me!”

Those passengers who had not joined the Committee for Security began to cheer, but only for a moment.

“Stop him” the Director thundered.  “He’s lying!  He’s a plant by the crew and he’s just trying to interrupt our cruise adventure!  Only true believers can win the jackpot!”

In just moments the man in orange and his crew member companions were all captured and dragged away.  Then the party resumed. 

But some passengers who believed that the capsizing was real—and not part of a strange reality game—began to look for a rescue capsule.  That group, a small minority, found the capsule and were rescued.  But the others preferred their cruise, even as the air turned toxic, the food and water ran out, and the battery-powered lights died.  So did the passengers.

For those who were rescued a remarkable banquet was held the following noonday in the brilliant sunshine of the beautiful harbor hotel.  It was sponsored by the builder of the capsized cruise ship.  His son had been lost during the rescue efforts, but he still gave himself freely to the survivors, delighted that they were alive and well.

Fifteen years ago last Tuesday the killings started.  In just 100 days almost a million people were killed.  Nearly two thousand years ago last Friday God’s Son was killed.  The conjunction of the two remembrances in one week was striking to me even though the events are distant from each other in time and scale.  For all their differences I see them as closely linked in important ways as I’ll explain below.

Today is Sunday, Easter.  On Friday, Good Friday, I attended an evening service at the  New Life Church.  I returned there for the Easter service this morning.  The church building was constructed last year so this is the first Easter weekend held on the campus. 

Less than a mile further up the road is one of the major killing fields in Kigali—at least it had been in 1994.  Thousands were marched up the hillside road, past our present church location, to a compound where they were then slaughtered.  This past Tuesday that location was the main setting for Rwanda’s mourning and reflection.  Thousands attended, President Kigame included, in a nationally televised service.  More poignantly there were many attending who are now orphans—remainders and reminders of whole families.  They are called the survivors.  Extended families—fifty or more in some cases—had been extinguished, most killed by machetes and all too often by ‘friends’ and neighbors.  Some were even betrayed by spouses if they had been born to the ‘wrong’ tribal group.  Mercy had gone missing.

Construction of the church was slowed last year when bones, bits of clothing and personal items were found just under the top layers of earth.  A part of the soil had been soaked with blood fifteen years earlier.

In Jerusalem the ground had also been soaked with blood at the foot of the cross.  The size of the stain was small but the grief of the surviving family member was just as real.  He ripped the one garment he had at hand from top to bottom. He watched as his beloved Son was killed by crucifixion at the hands of merciless soldiers.

On Friday we sang and prayed.  After the time of personal prayers we shared together in taking communion.  Never has the reading of Matthew 26:28 and 1 Corinthians 11:28 had as much impact on me as this Friday night.  All week we were recalling days of blood-letting—and now on Friday we shared a unique day of remembering an unspeakable death: “for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

I’ve met a number of Rwandan survivors by now—and I realize there are at least two types.  Both of the groups I have in mind are somber as they remember who and what they’ve lost.  Grief is an emotion that can revisit us even years after a loss.  But one group still lives as the victims of the genocide.  The other group lives in light of Easter Sunday.

Victims—in the sense I’m using here—are those who share a set of common features.  There is, for one, an unexamined sense of moral entitlement that transmits the virus of evil to the next generation.  By that I mean that victims tend to elevate their status to a transcendent standing among peers because their pain is accepted as tragic and, therefore, as uniquely elevated.  With that it can be perpetually elevated as a status for life. Inexplicably the perpetual victim then feels free to damage others without feeling grief for what they’ve done.  So they become victimizers as well as victims—spilling out gratuitous gifts of pain and distrust on innocent bystanders, perhaps in order to have others feel how their own pain and insecurity feels.

A fraternal twin of moral entitlement is bitterness.  Bitterness continues to chain victims—often unwittingly—to their victimizers.  Victims live as reactors rather than as actors because their hatred towards the perpetrator sustains a captivating focus that blurs and subsumes every other vision for life.  Why?  Because the perpetrator remains at center stage in the victim’s emotional gaze.  He or she—or they—become inescapable companions for as long as bitterness holds sway.

Another dimension is stillborn hope.  The victim remains oriented to the past rather than to the future.  Pain is reviewed, tasted, tested, and renewed until every other emotion is dulled to silence apart from the deep ache of betrayed trust and the resulting tragedy of self-absorption and the associated addictions of self-medicating behaviors.

Finally, victims are deeply lonely because others around them are ill-equipped to sustain, vicariously, the consuming energy of hating another.  So friends and even family eventually abandon any true emotional bond with the victim—for the sake of their own health—and replace it with increasingly detached pity and sometimes with actual separation. 

The victim, then, is a person who was broken and who prefers to stay that way by adding new layers of victimhood.  So their tragedy multiplies as the first perpetrator continues to hurt, and hurt, and hurt again—even if he or she has long since departed.

Today—Easter—is the day that celebrates the end of victimization through the pooled blood of Jesus on Friday and the empty tomb on Sunday.  In this sequence of days Jesus was both the ultimate victim and the ultimate healer.  To know him is to find comfort and to be able to share comfort with others.

Let’s return to the Rwandan genocide.  With that tragedy we can also speak of the holocaust of World War II, of Bosnia, of Darfur, of the Garden of Eden.  In each case evil erupted and death followed.  In each of these the victim treats God as responsible which then locates God in the status of an ultimate perpetrator.  This closes God off as an option the victim can look to for relief.  Bitterness undermines faith.

What is so remarkable about how the entire Bible treats this subject—it’s called theodicy—is that it always rejects the victim’s charge that God has done what is evil or is in any way chargeable.  Yet, in a seeming paradox, the Bible also treats evil as something God rules over to his own good ends.  

An example of this comes in the story of Joseph’s life in Genesis 50 where his brothers who had betrayed him years earlier gathered to meet with him after their father Jacob died.  They were worried that he would now repay them.  Joseph at that stage had the power to execute them if he wished.  Yet he answered softly, “As for you, you meant it for evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”  His statement is remarkable.  He cited one event—the brothers’ betrayal—and two agencies: God’s intent for good and their human intent to sin. Human accountability was not dismissed—the brothers would still have to face God—but God owned the events themselves as something he meant for good.

The victim will quickly ask, “That’s nice but how can such a narrow event be equated with genocide!”  Good Friday and Easter are pivotal in offering a response—and these two days are the basis for confidence among all who live by faith rather than as victims.

The cross is another example of divine and human double agency.  Consider, for instance, how Jesus spoke to both sides of his looming crucifixion.  Of Judas, his betrayer, he said, “It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”  But to Peter, who tried to rescue Jesus from capture by using his sword, Jesus intervened: “Put your sword back into its place.”  Only through the crucifixion could “the Scriptures be fulfilled”.  So, the Biblical application of a double moral agency was at work here: the Son of God was murdered in a terrible injustice and, in God’s eyes, this was the ultimate expression of evil; while at the same time the cross represents God’s ultimate mercy through Christ’s role as our atoning sacrifice.

The Gospel of John puts this together as a theme.  Evil is the product of rebellion which is unfolded in John 3.  God loves the world enough to send the Son on a mission of redemption; but the world loved—and still loves—darkness instead.  This was not a surprise to God—the freedom of heart that humanity has been given allows us to love the creation rather than the Creator; to love self and pleasure rather than God; and to love independence rather than dependence; to worship personal security rather than God.  And to blame God for our own evil.

What humanity didn’t expect and still doesn’t seem to grasp is what I call the slosh factor of sin.  The sins of individuals and societies stir together like a series of intersecting waves that form unexpected synergies of tsunami-like power.  World War I began with an assassin’s bullet in Sarajevo that cascaded unexpectedly into a tragedy for dozens of nations.  Examples of this can still be found.  Today the use of recreational drugs by a host of individuals—each viewing their choices as too small to matter—threatens whole governments.  American loan policies—when set free from the boundaries of honesty—unleashed our current economic crisis.  God allows all of this to happen because he allows us freedom not to love him.  The parable of the prodigal son and the loving father’s open arms is God’s answer to theodicy.

So it was that the 1994 tragedy in Rwanda has been linked to policies by colonial rulers decades earlier that cascaded into murderous ethnic hatred.  One small feature—ethnic identification cards—became a virtual death certificate for any Tutsi Rwandans once the genocide began.  Small events and policies—there were many others—led to a tsunami of shed blood from April to July fifteen years ago.

Now, back to Easter.  God’s glory is that with his own freedom to love he gave the Son over to a mission of death.  The theme of theodicy was shared by Jesus in John 12:

The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

The plan of the cross was to have Jesus reverse the slosh factor.  The analogy Jesus used was from agriculture: seeds for planting are needed to generate a multiplied harvest of seed for food.  The sacrificial actions of a few extend by multiplication to bring life to the many.  Yet the point of the seed being planted was that a sinless man would need to die: Jesus, by being “lifted up” in crucifixion, despite being sinless himself, would then “draw all people to myself.”  This was the basis for God’s glory—that God’s plan was to expend his Son’s life in order to extend his mercy to many.  Love is the antidote to evil. 

Rwanda’s tragedy is answered by the ultimate victim who was never willing to take on the identity of a victim.  Jesus came to the cross willingly.  It was his Father’s purpose to have the Son take on human nature so that humans could unite with both his death and his life.  By entering into a real union with Jesus through the Spirit’s new life from above, each believer is freed from the rule of evil.

Here’s the bottom line of this story: God is not the author of evil.   But he allows evil to be exposed for what it is and for what it does: it breeds death.  But in his Son’s death God has co-opted evil for good to all who join in Christ’s death and then live in his life.  In our Easter service today those survivors who were elevated as victims last Tuesday but who now have new life in Christ are not victims but victors—now sharing in Christ’s eternal life.  His shed blood trumps the shed blood of Rwanda by showing how love trumps evil, bitterness, and slavery.  God is not the author of evil but the author of salvation: “Christ is risen.”  He is risen indeed!  And so are we who now love him and share in his life.