June 17, 2015

“Where is God in all this?”
Everyone everywhere in the midst of a tragedy

Bombings, shootings, buildings collapsing, terrorist attacks, sudden deaths, crashes and accidents of all kinds always bring out questions about the presence (or lack thereof) of God.

If God were a loving God, why would he let this happen?  If God really is omnipotent, couldn't he have stopped this from happening?  What did I do wrong that God is punishing me?  All these questions and more surface when we are faced with a tragedy or loss of some kind.

And while it's easy to proclaim belief in an all-loving, omnipotent and omnipresent God who allows us to exercise our free will when things are going well, that seems to get more difficult or more complicated when things don't go our way or when disaster strikes.  We want to hold to certain tenets of the faith as long as God doesn't get in the way, while also wanting to be engulfed in holy bubble-wrap to keep us from harm when things go wrong.

But that, unfortunately, is not how it works.  God does not surround us with holy bubble-wrap.  God does not step in and alter the course of bad or hateful decisions.  God does not, generally speaking, suddenly and magically “make everything better.”

If God doesn't do any of those things, then we are back to the original question:  Where is God in all this?

As Christians, we believe that God became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ.  This is an amazingly bold statement of belief:  that the eternal, omnipotent, Creator of everything chose to humble himself and dwell with us as a fellow human being.  But this can also be amazingly comforting when we realize that God Almighty chose to dwell with us as a fellow human being.  It means that our suffering has become God's suffering.  It means that our tragedies have become God's tragedies.  It means that our joys have become God's joys.  Our struggles and accomplishments are God's struggles and accomplishments.  This is all reflected in Matthew's interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 when he writes, “ . . . 'and they shall name him Emmanuel,' which means, 'God is with us'.”

This question of where is God has been on my mind recently with the news of Dan Collins.  On Monday afternoon he had the misfortune of falling down a flight of stairs resulting in eight broken ribs, a collapsed lung and lacerated spleen and liver.  He was transported to the hospital in Tahoe and then airlifted to the Reno trauma center where he spent the past few days in ICU.  Dan, apparently, could have benefited from holy bubble-wrap.

Where is God in all this?  God is with the medics, nurses and doctors who have cared, and are caring, for Dan.  God is with those who minister to Joan while in Reno.  God is with Fr. John Seville, the interim rector at Trinity Church in Reno, who will visit Dan and Joan at the hospital.  God is with all those who are praying for safety, healing and recovery.

Where is God in all this?  God is with us.

Amen.