Trying Week...

Published in the Brechin Advertiser on 25 April 2013

Sorry to have missed last week and had thought to fit a nice sweet thought about how good it was to hold grand-babies and such then it turned into an insane week with all the goings on in our world. There have been bombings, explosions, earthquakes and other natural and not so natural disasters affecting people around our world. I, along with many, keep asking why these things happen and how a loving God can allow such insanity? I know the theological answer, but have to admit along with many others that that answer is not very emotionally satisfying in the face of these events.

Evil things happen and evil people commit these acts that baffle the best of us. Yet the scripture tells us in Jeremiah 17:9 that “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?” So in reality rather than ask how someone can do these kinds of things, the real question is; what keeps everyone from losing the plot and doing worse than we do? So I have to thank God for his grace that makes it so all the world is not completely wicked all the time.

The other question that gets asked often is; where was God in all of this. Well, there are days I almost laugh at that one. We, our overall society, are trying to do everything we can to get God out of every public place, out of the public square, out of schools, hospitals, work places and from what I hear in some places, even out of the Church. I hear and read of Christians more concerned with being ‘PC’ than sensitive truth tellers. So we kick Him out then wonder where He is...? Really-- OK How is that working in our world, how has that worked in the past? The question to ask really is: How dare we question where God is when we have pushed Him out? Morality and standards on the decline the further we get from God and then we are shocked at wicked acts by wicked people. Well at least I am, even if I do know the answer—sort of.

But, I say there is still hope, there is still a future that can be greater and better then we can imagine in Christ. Titus 2 has a verse that I love to quote, that I’m sure I have shared even here before, that says: “Looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of our Great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.” But the text doesn't end there because it finishes with the solution to the problem. Verse 14 says (Jesus Christ) “who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”

The solution to evil is not to get rid of religion and God but rather to get Jesus Christ principles into lives of people so they can be redeemed from iniquity, evil and wickedness and instead be zealous of good works or excited to do good things in place of evil.

Shocked, hurt but not surprised at evil, mourning with those that mourn. Weeping with those that weep in times of trouble and great loss. But still wanting to share the answer to the problem and to even those that say they don’t want the ‘Jesus answer’ He is still there. And until those without a Jesus answer can come up with a better one, I’m sticking to this one.

Sad, but hopeful,

Rev. Jon Bergen