Most of us are all walking through a shared experience right now.  We are all asked to be in quarantine.  We are all asked to social distance ourselves. And we are all asking questions.  Some of these questions I’m hearing are “why this?” and “why now?”  Maybe a more specific questions is this, “Why is God allowing this to happen?”

 

The “why” with this is real.  I have had conversations with some doctors and other medical personnel in my church.  And they are experiencing the extreme pressure  as caregivers during this incredible time.  I also have connected with others in regards to job loss, fear, death of loved ones and even those who have loved one’s infected with the coronavirus. 

 

 Our first response as Christians when we hear what is happening around us in our communities should be to show compassion.  Look around the world and we are seeing extreme sorrow, fear and heartbreak during these troubling times. A Biblical response is to “weep with those who weep”(Romans 12:15).  That was the answer of Jesus when facing heartbreak and hardship.  When Lazarus, Jesus friend, died and the family was in pain, Jesus chose compassion.  The account is recorded by John, one of the disciples traveling with Jesus, below: 

 

33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. 35 Jesus wept. 36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” (John 11:33-36)

 

If it’s Jesus response, it’s our response as Christians, too.  At that time, Jesus could have given explanation.  But He wept.  It’s important to us to realize God is compassionate towards suffering.  And if that’s Jesus first response in times of trouble, then that should be our first response, too.  That’s why the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35), for all of its grammatical simplicity, is packed with unfathomable complexity. Jesus wept after speaking with Lazarus’s grieving sisters, Martha and Mary, and seeing all the mourners. That seems natural enough. Except that Jesus had come to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead! He knew that in a few short minutes all this weeping would turn to astonished joy, and then tearful laughter, and then worship! So, one would think that Jesus would be a confident, joyful calm in that storm of sorrow. But he was “greatly troubled” (John 11:33), and He wept.

 

Jesus didn’t lead with excuses of why He was “late” or with theological explanations as to why God did or didn’t answer their prayers they were praying to Jehovah and believing for Jesus to heal.  Jesus was delayed in coming, and He did not speak healing from a distance like He did for the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8:13) when He could have. His reasons were good and merciful. But this did not mean Jesus took the suffering it caused lightly.  That’s not who God is.  It says in the Bible about God and suffering, “For He does not afflict from His heart or grieve the children of men” (Lamentations 3:33).  Jesus is sympathetic here because that’s what His nature is like (Hebrews 4:15). And as “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), we see Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus and get a glimpse of how the Father feels over the affliction and grief we experience … especially in times like this.  

 

We need this context as a backdrop as we are thinking about this complex issue  of why God allows this virus to wreck humankind.  The two logical answers I have heard when faced with this question is either “God doesn’t exist” or “God doesn’t care.”  Even recently on Instagram, I saw a picture of God looking down on the earth with this quote: “Just a few more prayers.”  It gave the impression that God was watching the earth in suffering and was sadistically enjoying it. Almost like God was taking pleasure in watching His creation suffer.  

 

From what we know of God, He takes no pleasure in watching mankind suffer.  We know this from the biggest truth that God sent Jesus on earth to suffer and die so we don’t have to spend our lives on this earth suffering and even our eternity in suffering.  Jesus died so we can spend our lives enjoying the pleasures of God’s presence and an eternity in God’s presence.  So, the idea that suffering and evil is something God created and takes joy from, is not true. 

 

So why does God allow this to take place is the basic question we are attempting to unpack today.  I am coming at this from the perspective as a Christian.  I am using the Bible as my context.  I am using my perspective as a Christian to view this pandemic from.  If you are reading this and don’t believe in Christianity, then that is another discussion.  And you can read more about it here. 

 

I like quoting CS Lewis.  Lewis had rejected Christianity in his early teens and lived as an atheist through his 20s. Lewis turned to theism in 1930 and to Christianity in 1931, partly with the help of his close friend and devout Roman Catholic J.R. Tolkien.  Lewis described these changes in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy (1955), an account of his spiritual life through his early 30s.  While becoming a devout Christian, he wasn’t void of suffering himself.  Upon the death of his wife, C.S. Lewis wrote this,

 

 “Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms … But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is in vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside.” C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed 

 

Fortunately, Lewis came to grips with his grief and in the end realized that God not only exists, but that He is indeed all loving despite our sufferings.  Probably one of the greatest challenges faced by Christianity and Christians is the reality of evil and suffering. At times even great thinkers struggle because of the  contradiction between the existence of a loving God and the fact of evil.  Lewis followed up that quote in his same book with this:

 

“God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out its quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't.”  C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

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It’s in times of difficulty that we find out what our faith is made of. Still, for Christians and non-Christians evil and suffering are often at the forefront of our minds, particularly when we ourselves are suffering. Because their will come a time when our faith comes face-to-face with this question: “How could a good God allow so much evil? Why doesn’t He do something about it? Couldn’t God have created a world without evil?”

 

These are important questions and while we cannot solve them all neatly in one short article, we can address evil and suffering and begin to offer some possible solutions to the seeming dilemma. 

 

So how do we respond as Christians?

 

We have to understand that we are all going to die.  None of us are going to live forever.  Many are trying to live forever. For example, take the view of transhumanism.  This is the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology.  Basically, when our bodies expire, we are using scientific modifications to extend our life. Science fiction from the movies coming to life!

 

Dave Asprey (founder of bulletproof coffee, diet, etc.) is someone who is practicing transhumanism as an anti-aging enthusiast.  Asprey has said that he expects to live to age 180. As of 2019, Asprey said he had spent at least $1 million "hacking his own biology," including having his own stem cells injected into him, taking 100 daily supplements, following a strict diet, bathing in infrared light, using a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, and wearing special lenses when flying, etc.  

 

David is just one of many health guru’s who have an inward drive and desire to live forever.  He is not comfortable with dying.  No one is.  And David will spend whatever it takes to prevent it.  And his quest is futile because death is inevitable.  As Christians we understand this with Adam.  When Adam ate from the tree,  death and evil was unleashed into the world.  The understanding of Adam’s sin is important to understanding evil and suffering in the world.  His sinful action resulted in nature being cursed.  Creation became tainted.  Childbirth became painful.  Even all the animals in creation were subject to Adam before the fall of mankind and now are ruthless and attack mankind.  Adam and Eve’s sin unleashed evil in humankind and made ALL of creation corrupt and unleashing evil and suffering into the world. 

 

It should be noted there are two kind of evil: moral evil and natural evil.  Moral evil is where we understand the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character and choices (for example: drunk driving, stealing, rape, murder, etc.).  Natural evil is where we understand that all of creation is corrupt resulting in expressions of global suffering like cancer, natural disasters, shark attacks, viruses, etc. The Bible makes it crystal clear that all of creation is desiring to get back into “right relationship” with our Creator, 

 

19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope,21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”  Romans 8:19-23

 

When we look at any present chaos, we see that the source of it is found in and is traced back to Adam and Eve’s decision to eat from the fruit in the garden which unleashed sin upon the world and ultimately death.  The entire world is ultimately “under the curse of sin” (Genesis 3:17).  Essentially the world is broken because of Adam.  And God continues to reference Adam throughout the Bible.  Adam in Hebrew means “man.” And anytime you see “son of man” in the Bible (it appears 107 times in Old Testament), God is reminding us that we are part of Adam’s lineage and of course, part of the fall. Similar to a President as the representative of a country who represents all of its citizens.  Just like a President can choose to make a call for war and thrust everyone in that country into war, Adams choice to sin put us at war against the original plan of God for our lives.

 

This theological understanding helps us make sense of all the bad happening in our world. From earthquakes, fires, murder, death and destruction, the fall of man has wrecked our paradise and we are now engaging in a battle of good and evil with our souls while under the curse of sin. Even in our own pandemic, we see moral evil expressed from hoarding supplies to the possible creation of the virus in a lab to the natural evil of battling sickness and disease in a fallen world.  

 

There is hope to this curse we are living under. And our hope will always begin and end with Jesus. That’s why Jesus is so important to us as Christians.  The Bible specifically addresses the idea of humankind being under a “curse. ” And the Bible also addresses a future free of this curse and all of its side effects.  Paul was speaking to the citizens of Galatia when he wrote a letter to them talking about the curse of sin on mankind,  

 

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree'" (Galatians 3:13, NIV).

 

In the Old Testament, to be cursed is to be removed from the presence of God, to be set outside the camp, to be cut off from His benefits. That is what we experienced, “spiritually speaking,” when mankind sinned.  But Jesus came to remove the curse from us by putting it on Himself. On the cross, Jesus hung on that tree, was crucified and was cursed. That is, He represented mankind and was sent to “undo” the curse by taking the full measure of the curse on Himself. When Jesus did that, our future changed from death (separated from God) back into life (connection with God).  Jesus’ death restored us back into relationship with God, again! And we will experience our “full restoration” when we get to heaven.  But until then, we are calling out to God and so is ALL of creation to be fully restored back into perfect harmony and unity with God, again!  Romans says it best,

 

19 The entire universe is standing on tiptoe, yearning to see the unveiling of God’s glorious sons and daughters! 20 For against its will the universe itself has had to endure the empty futility resulting from the consequences of human sin. But now, with eager expectation, 21 all creation longs for freedom from its slavery to decay and to experience with us the wonderful freedom coming to God’s children. 22 To this day we are aware of the universal agony and groaning of creation, as if it were in the contractions of labor for childbirth. 23 And it’s not just creation. We who have already experienced the firstfruits of the Spirit also inwardly groan as we passionately long to experience our full status as God’s sons and daughters—including our physical bodies being transformed.”  (Romans 8:19-23). 

 

So, until then, we experience viruses, sickness, disease and all the brokenness of creation.  And the hope in all of us as Christians, even during difficult times like this, is that while we endure on this earth, there is a future that belongs to us with no more sickness, disease, tears or pain.  God says it in the book of Revelation, written by John, one of Jesus disciples who had an incredible encounter with God and saw heaven.  He shares his encounter with God in the book of Revelation as he saw a glimpse of heaven and recorded it below:

 

4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

5 And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” 6 And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. 7 All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.”  Revelation 21:4-7

 

Sometimes we will experience a “fast forward” of bringing the finality of heaven and the restoration of heaven through miracles from our future into our present.  So we pray for a miracle and ask God for that “no-more-tears-and-pain” restoration to happen NOW when we face sickness, pain and hopelessness.   Sometimes we experience a miracle of healing and sometimes we don’t. But Praying to God is placing our spiritual lives and our future in His hands. He can choose to prolong our life here, in this broken world, by giving us the miracle we would have received in heaven now, or we experience our miracle when we get to heaven. While the choice isn’t ours, we trust always that God, who knows our past, present and future, will give us His best because God desires the best for us.

This earth isn’t home because heaven is.  This body isn’t our home because we get new bodies in heaven.  Part of not having the curse anymore is we get new bodies in heaven when we arrive there.  We realize that death is inevitable. So we put up with these “messed up tents” until we get a “permanent home” in heaven.  Paul, who also saw heaven and knows this to be true wrote about this to the early church in the city of Corinth by writing about this, 

 

“For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. 2 We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. 3 For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies. 4 While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. 5 God himself has prepared us for this….”  2 Corinthians 5:1-5

 

Until then, we face a broken world, with broken bodies while living in the midst of broken creation.  That’s why there is evil, sin, disease heartbreak.  All of it made healed and whole through Jesus.  Permanently.  We will experience part of it in this lifetime and we will experience ALL of it in the life to come when we go to heaven. 

 

This is the first truth about why we are experiencing what we are experiencing.  The fact that we are all going to die, someday. But there is a second truth to wrap our heads around.  It’s this:  God is good.  The Bible says it throughout.  Here’s some quick references from the Bible to get you thinking:

 

“The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth.” Exodus 34:6

 

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.”  1 Chronicles 16:34

 

“And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord: “For He is good, for His mercy endures forever toward Israel.” Ezra 3:11

 

“Good and upright is the Lord.” Psalm 25:8

 

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”. Psalm 23:6

 

“The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.” Psalm 145:9

 

“No one is good but One, that is, God.” Mark 10:18

 

“I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living”. Psalm 27:13

 

 

 

But sometimes the problem of evil is brought to us as Christians in the form of a complex question: “If God is good, then He must not be powerful enough to deal with all the evil and injustice in the world since it is still going on. And if He is powerful enough to stop wrongdoing, then He himself must be an evil God since He’s not doing anything about it even though He has the capability.” 

 

So which is it? Is He a bad God or not that powerful?”  

 

The problem of evil and suffering bugged the Kings and Prophets back in the Biblical days:

 

“Evils have encompassed me without number.” Psalm 40:12

 

“Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed.” Jeremiah 15:18

 

You are not wrong to ask the question of pain and suffering in the world.  However, we must understand this: God did not create the world in the state in which it is in. Suffering came as a result of the selfishness of man. In contrast, the Bible says that God is a God of love.  The exact opposite of evil and suffering.  It’s made clear in the book of 1 John,

 

“God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (1 John 4:8-12)

 

God is love.  But genuine love cannot exist unless freely given through free choice to accept God’s love or to reject it. This choice made the possibility of evil and suffering to become very real. When Adam and Eve rejected God, they rejected His love and by their choice, they chose to suffer. God is neither evil nor did He create suffering. Man brought suffering upon himself by selfishly choosing his own way apart from God’s way.  Again, we’ve referenced that earlier, but we just cannot forget that fact.  

 

God is not only good, but God is also powerful.  He is not only the Creator of all of it, but He also remedied all of it.  Through Jesus.  God fixed mankind’s brokenness AND showed the world the true nature of God’s power and personality through Christ.  Jesus is the ultimate expression of God to mankind.  This is key point to understand.  He truly is “the invisible expression of an invisible God” (Colossians 1:15).  Jesus said it plainly, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father” (John 14:9).  How Jesus reacts to the Godly, the religious, the tyrants and the hurting in the Bible is how God exactly feels about these specific kinds of people and situations.  And how Jesus felt and responded is exactly how God feels and responds.  He is quick to forgive the sinner, to put the “religious hypocrate” in their place, care for the children and show compassion on the hurting.  

 

God was powerful enough to stop suffering and death through Jesus Christ. AND God’s answer to suffering is an eternity with God.  And when suffering does come, our awareness that “this world isn’t our home” becomes more real and we are filled with the greater reality that this world isn’t our home but being in the presence of God is where we belong.   When suffering comes, there is a greater awareness of God to those in the midst of suffering.  And with the greater awareness comes a greater comfort that is found in Jesus which is a foretaste of heaven.   The answer for suffering and evil is found in Jesus.  And Jesus said, “where I am, you will also be” as followers of Christ (John 14:1-6).  

 

The result of our suffering will always be the loosening of our grip on this world and a tighter grip on the world to come.  This world, what we have and what we are building shouldn’t be the ultimate security when God is supposed to be.  The goal for us is not to live the “American Dream.”  Our purpose is not for us to “become rich” or to “have the least amount of pain in life.”  The goal, the purpose and meaning of life is to know God.  To know God is to know Jesus.  To know Jesus is to know eternity with Him.  Jesus didn’t die to give us a “better life.”  No, he died to save us from sin and death (Romans 8:2).  And our reward is an eternity with Him.  

 

In the midst of calamity, there is a greater revelation of our frailty and our eternity.  In our world, there is moral calamity and natural calamity.  Moral calamity is the evil actions of men (rape, murder, suffering).  Natural calamity is fires, hurricanes, earthquakes and viruses. Because of this pandemic, there is a new awareness of how important community is, how important our children are, how much we need people and relationships in general.  God didn’t cause this calamity, but He is using it to bring about our need for God and for each other.  

There were calamities in Jesus day.  Some that were memorable to the crowds that Jesus was teaching to.  And the people were asking about both moral and natural calamities to Jesus.  And Jesus response was to help them see the greater need for their eternity.  See Jesus response to the questions below: 

 

 “About this time Jesus was informed that Pilate had murdered some people from Galilee as they were offering sacrifices at the Temple. 2 “Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other people from Galilee?” Jesus asked. “Is that why they suffered?3 Not at all! And you will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God. 4 And what about the eighteen people who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them? Were they the worst sinners in Jerusalem? 5 No, and I tell you again that unless you repent, you will perish, too.” Luke 13:1-5

 

There was clearly a moral calamity of some corrupt political decisions from an immoral government leader resulting in the death of some people from Galilee.  The people assumed God was “punishing them” and Jesus said, “Not at all!” And steered the crowd back to their eternal security.  There was also a question about the natural calamity of a collapse of some towers in the city killing many.  The people thought that was God who caused it and was “punishing them” because of theirs sins.  Jesus cleared it up by saying no and then yet again, moving them towards repentance because Jesus was less concerned about their theological issues about the “why would God allow this to happen” and more concerned about them discovering “where would they go if it did happen?”

 

While we can’t be sure to know “exactly” what God thinks and what God’s doing 100% of the time, we can do our best to understand the mind and heart of God through Scripture.  And while there are questions and doubts, because we will have them, there are those truths that we can always hold on to.  And one that is very real and very true at this time is this: 

 

“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”  Romans 8:31

 

“God is the same yesterday, today and forever.”  Hebrews 13:8

 

God is the same loving, providing, all-knowing and perfect loving God before this pandemic. He is the same during this time and He will continue to be the same after.  He’s always been for you.  And will continue to be for you and your family!