Road Trippin With Rachael

“Why?”

That is probably the question that comes to mind when we are facing a tragedy. Why did God let this happen? Why didn’t he prevent it? Why, if God is in control does he allow these bad things to happen? Why does it seem that those who are doing evil never face consequences, but good people can never catch a break?

The truth is, I don’t know. I can’t begin to understand why God does the things that he does. What I do know if that God’s ways are not our ways. It sounds like a pat answer, right. But when we take a step back and we look at it, we do have to recognize that sometimes God allows these bad things to happen for reasons that we can’t always understand. But there is comfort in this – all things work for the good of those who love God (Romans 8:28). That’s hard to hear. I know it is. I’ve gone through my own struggles of wanting to know why God has allowed things to happen, and I can’t see how they will be good.

As I am typing this, there is a family in my church whose daughter was hit by a vehicle going 100 mph. There daughter was resuscitated on the scene on a Friday night and declared brain dead that Sunday morning. She was an organ donor, so there are now people who will have a better quality of life because of her donations. It seems like that should be obvious how her death is going to benefit others; but for her parents, they still lost their daughter. They still have this gap that now exists in their family. There is still a life that was cut short much too soon, and they are still going to have the trials they will have to go through for the sentencing of the person who hit their daughter.

When I went through my own questioning, I turned to the Gospel of John. I looked to chapter 11, and I came to some conclusions. 1.) Everything is for God’s glory. God is glorified in the good, the bad, and the ugly. And 2.) God shares in our pain – we are not going at it alone.

Everything for God’s Glory

John 11 opens with the statement “Now a man was sick,…” We’re never told what the sickness was, only that eventually Lazarus’ sickness resulted in his death. His sisters had reached out to Jesus, asking him to come. Obviously, Jesus was close friends with the family as he had previously stayed with them (Luke 10:28-42). Then there is this statement that is confusing because of the order that it is made – “Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. so when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was” (John 11:5-6 CSB).

When I read this, I have to admit that it doesn’t sit well with me. Scripture acknowledges that he is loved this family. He loved them very much; he had been in their home and Mary had anointed Jesus with the expensive perfume. Yet, when he hears that Lazarus is sick, he doesn’t rush to his side; he stays where he is at for two more days resulting in Lazarus dying (11:14). To me, this sounds like Jesus is going to let something go. He says that he cares, but he isn’t rushing to do something about the problem, and it is painfully obvious that Martha and Mary believed that Jesus could heal Lazarus. If you follow along in the biblical account, you know that Lazarus does pass away.

And yet – Jesus tells his disciples that “this sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God” (John 11:4 CSB).

It is for the glory of God. I see this all the time in my life. I want something to happen on my time table, or for a prayer to be answered in a specific way, or for God to say “yes” to my request. And when what I want isn’t what happens, I find myself coming back to this verse as a reminder that God is glorified. It’s a stretch for my faith in the harder times to remember that God is glorified through all things that happen. I’m consistently being reminded that even the bad things are meant to point us back to God, and to show how he is glorified through the good, the bad, and the ugly. It is all meant to point us back to him.

If you have been reading along, you also know that Lazarus is later raised from the dead after having been gone for four days (John 11:40). There is great joy for this family that prayed for Lazarus to get well. But more importantly, we get to see through this, God using this situation to point to Jesus as his Son – to prove to the world that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who exercises his dominion not only over the elements, the demons, in the healings or the feedings. He exercises his dominion over life itself, and he is worth of worship, and worth of all glory, power, and majesty.

God Shares Our Pain

God is no stranger to pain. Although he allows people to make decisions that will ultimately hurt them and/or those who are around them, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t know or understand what we are going through.

As we look at John 11, we see that Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (John 11:5), and it was for a purpose that he didn’t make an immediate move to heal Lazarus. God allowed Lazarus’ death so that when Jesus raised him from the dead, those that witness it will believe that he is the Messiah (John 11:15).

I don’t like to think of hard things happening. I don’t like having to accept that there is going to be pain that God could stop; but I also know with every fiber of my being that we live in a world that is full of sin and death, and that those hard and painful things are because of that. God, in his infinite love for us, does give us freedom to make choices. We do have some agency, even though at the same time God knows and works through the choices that are made by the individual. But when the pain comes, and we are faced with the consequences of sin (sometimes ours, sometimes others, and sometimes sin in the world), Jesus is moved by our pain, and he weeps with us (John 11:33-35). God loves his sheep – those that he cares for. He knows what we struggle with, he feels our hurts with us. He’s there with us in our hurts; he walks beside us to bringing healing.

Saying that, it doesn’t mean that healing is instantaneous. It can often mean that God brings people and other resources into our lives that are meant to help us: Counselors (licensed), teachers, therapists, doctors, and yes, even different medications are resources that God provides for people during the hurt and pain. Faith helps and underpins everything else, but these other options are ways that God has provided for you to get the help that you need at different times in your life. Please do not ever feel that you cannot reach out to someone for help when times are hard in life, your marriage, with your children, with your church, work, friends, family, or with your mental health. God wants to come alongside you and he has provided ways for that to happen. And at the end of the hard times, God is glorified through your life.

The Heat is Turned Up

The ultimate result of Jesus walking with Mary and Martha, and displaying his glory through the resurrection of Lazarus, is that the heat begins to get turned up by the Pharisees.

Reasonably, people saw what happened and, I would guess, in good faith went to the religious leaders to tell them about the miracle that they had seen (John 11:46). If you saw something as amazing as a man being raised from the dead, of course you are going to go tell others about it. That is a perfectly natural reaction. After all, when you find a good deal at a store, we post it all over social media – just imaging seeing someone raised from the dead! That would cause a social media firestorm!

The unintended consequence from these good hearted people, and I’m sure there were a few not so good hearted people there as well, was a conversation amongst the Pharisees that went a little something like this: “What are we going to do since this man is doing many sings? If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation” (John 11:47-48, CSB). A few issues that are brought to light. One, they openly admit that they are afraid that their people are going to believe in Jesus because he is performing signs and wonders. They acknowledge that these are things that no mere man could do. Second, they admit that there is fear that the Roman Empire will come and take away the country. I’m personally willing to emphasize more with this rationale than any of the others because at least there is a foundation for this fear. I DO NOT agree with it, but I can understand it. Ever since the Babylonia Exile, Israel had not been an independent nation and had been under the thumb of 5 different empires. The Romans more or less left them alone, despite their constant presence in Israel, they still at least allowed them to worship and had helped to improve the infrastructure of Israel. The Pharisees saw the benefits of working with this monstrous empire, and for them to recognize a king – other than Caesar – will be into invite a fight with a much larger dog than them. Third, it would displace them from power. For all the issues that they had with Roman Empire, Rome had allowed the religious leaders to still lead and be in a place of power over their own people. They may still have a tetrarch to answer to and a governor, but they still had a decent amount of power – and they were afraid to loose it. Their conclusion as stated prophetically by the high priest – “You know nothing at all! You’re not considering that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish” (John 11:50-51, CSB).

Jesus was going to be the scape goat for the religious leaders. They already decided that he had to be removed, but now they decided that he needed to die.

In a strange turn of events, the Pharisees were right. It was only through Christ’s death that we are able to be reconciled to God. When we accept the gift of salvation, we are saved from our sins and are covered by the precious blood of Jesus. Our debt is paid, for what we have done, are doing, and will do. This doesn’t mean that we are sinless; after all, we still live in a sinful, fallen world and that means that we still have to face the consequences of our actions. However, the Devil’s accusations have no weight to them anymore, and we can stand proudly by our Shepherd and say that “we are with him.”

Final Thoughts

Sometimes we find ourselves in hard times. Some of these times are brought about because of decisions that we have made, but some times they come because of the sins that other people have committed or specifically committed against us. But God also provides ways for us to deal with the hurt. He had blessed us with license Christian counselors, teachers, parents, pastors, therapists, doctors, social workers who are able to offer help when it is needed and/or necessary. He gives us his word so that we can have a foundation of faith to build on. Through it all, although it is never promised that it will be easy or that we will come out of hard or dark times without scars, but God will be glorified through the work and provision that he provides in our lives. There is hope that nothing is useless, and that God uses all our experiences to showcase who he is – even when it is hard.