February 18, 2009

• Three Old Saws Revived, Again

  This may be too emotionally hard to read, so please skip this rant now and forgive me as an opinionated preacher who needs to process some personal pain.

  When CornSilk was a child, she was diagnosed as having a condition that was then known as Mild Infantile Autism, now known as Autism Spectrum Disorder and other fancy names, the condition is still the same as it was.

  When we told friends at church about her condition and what we knew about it at the time, we got the same replies as two of Job’s three friends.  First, a loving and well meaning Christian saint of God came to my Bride and me and said: “What sin did you commit that God would touch one of your children like that?”  Basically, this was also the medical model the doctors used for diagnosis: “Were you sick when you were pregnant?  What medicines and vitamins did you take during your pregnancy?  Were you abused during your pregnancy?  What unusual occurrences, or tramas, did you experience during your pregnancy?” 

  Then second, another well meaning and sincere Christian friend said: “You must be really close to God for Him to entrust such a special child to your care.”  We wanted to say (but didn’t) that maybe next time we would be careful to keep our distance from God so our children would be safe.  

  Job’s third friend said that the disasters that happened to Job were God’s inexorable will for his life.  Job was not responsible, and could not escape the events because they were his fate designed and designated for him by God.  We did not get that one when we were dealing with CornSilk’s disorder, but we heard it recently.

  Recently a dear and young friend died a tragic death.  I don’t want to talk about that here, but I do want to comment about the various people’s reactions to her death.  

  First, this was not God’s judgment on her or her husband for some imagined sin in their lives.  This was a godly couple, desperately in love with each other.  She was grounded in Scripture (and he is too), with a Godly worldview.  There was no known sin in her life; the possibility of secret sin can never be known 100%, but would be so entirely without evidence and so very out of character that the likelihood is in the range of 10^-15, that is to say, impossible.

  Second, this was a disaster in the lives of her husband, her family and his family, and all the friends that loved her and still love him.  This was not a loving act of our good God.  Psalms 5:4 “For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You.”  The death of one of His blessed children at the hand of the God of love (1 John 4:8 “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”) is a horrible thought and an intolerable theological position, even if well intended by people who have not thought this through completely.

  Third, the idea that God predestines some to present and eternal joy and others to present and eternal condemnation is contrary to logic and Scripture.  The form this was visited on the grieving family was that they should not grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thes. 4:13), because this was the will of the all powerful God whose will could never be resisted; therefore, we should not grieve and mourn because this was His will and plan for her life.  BUNK.  Even a family member said to me that “God needed another angel in Heaven, so he took her home early.”

  The reason all three fail is that they do not take into account the Fall of Man, and the influence of Satan on the world, or God’s laws that he has set in place for the orderly operation of the cosmos.  God is not going to set aside the laws of physics every time one of His beloved children has put themselves in the way of, say, gravity; I don’t have much sympathy for bungee jumpers.  Occasionally God has performed miracles and set aside the normal order of things for his own glory, but these are so rare and unusual that we label them as “Miracles.”

  The only answer I can offer is that there are things that we simply cannot comprehend, that are beyond knowledge and understanding, at least in this life.  Please pardon me now as I go and weep for a while for my friend and for her family and friends.

  • 11:53 pm
  • 2 Comments