Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, 2003
John 4:46-53

The Problem of Evil

A group of 29 schoolboys started to climb the slopes of Mt. Ixtacihuatl in Mexico in 1969. Not long afterwards they were hit by a storm. Dense fog rolled in, the snow blanketed the terrain, and lightening struck from all directions. The boys lost their way. They couldn't even tell if they were on a very steep slope or a level surface. They all bundled together to wait out the storm. By the time it passed twelve boys died from the cold. We can only imagine the grief of the parents.

Maybe you heard about the twenty-month old toddler from Fullerton this last Friday. She opened the sliding glass door, crawled to the family's swimming pool, plunged in, and drowned. The police tried for ten minutes to administer CPR, but to no avail. The baby was declared dead. A detective took the cadaver for routine photographs. While he was snapping photos with his camera he noticed that the baby was trying to breathe. With a little help the toddler came to. The police sergeant said afterwards, "It was a very emotional moment for everyone. We thought she didn't make it and then she did. It was the lowest of the lows and the highest of the highs."

The nobleman in our Gospel lesson for today has a son who is dying of a severe fever. The father is near the verge of hysteria. He hiked miles to find Jesus and beg Him to come to Capernaum to perform a miracle. What is the proper response to the horrible things that take place in life? How do we harmonize God's sovereignty with evil? These are important questions. Our Gospel text throws a bit of light on the subject.

John 4:46 states, "So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum." Verse 49 informs us that the boy was close to death. Normally, the parent gets lowered into the grave before the son or daughter; it is tragic when the opposite occurs.

When I visit the cemetery where my father is buried, I can't help but notice the graves of children. Parents sometimes bring toys, balloons, and pictures. Wander around the cemetery grounds and you see an infant here, a two-year-old toddler there, a boy of six, and an adolescent of ten years old. These are the saddest of all gravestones. Actually, the first grave that ever was dug on this earth, was that of a young man, Abel, murdered by his brother, Cain. King David lived long enough to see three of his sons buried. Job was deprived of all his children in one day.

None of us should be presumptuous about longevity. We never know what may happen from day to day. The healthiest are often cut down and taken from us in a few hours, while the old and feeble linger on for many years. Life is but a vapor. For that reason we must be prepared to meet God, ready to die at any moment, and concerned about our eternal destiny. Joined to the Lord by faith and in baptism we are safe in the gracious hands of God. So ultimately it doesn't matter whether we die young or old.

The anxiety of the nobleman over his son's deadly sickness points to the problem of evil. Happily, in our biblical account, Christ was present and with a mere word from a distance, the son was restored to health. For a time, the life of the little boy hung by a thread, but Jesus saved him. Not all stories turn out this way. Some children become sick to the verge of death and come out of it. Others lose their lives.

Human disaster of this type plays itself out a thousand times. The fact that an innocent child dies in the flower of his youth seems terribly unfair. It strikes some individuals as unjust. In fact, it seems at times that there is too much injustice in the world. Besides sicknesses, young people today die suddenly in car accidents; they go down in gang violence; they expire from drugs and suicide. Even when there is no death, the suffering can be intensely horrifying ­ sexual abuse, physical battery, and emotional cruelty. A growing phenomenon is terrorism in which the helpless and innocent are targeted by homicide bombers. Terrorism has become a way of life in Israel, and American intelligence is puzzled that it has not yet spread to the United States. Our good fortune may not last too much longer. And let's not forget the butchery of the unborn. History teaches that ruthlessly ambitious men have never been squeamish about slaughtering innocent men, women and children. Man has an insatiable appetite for destroying his fellow men, and improved technology and education have done nothing to slow it down. On all sides, fear, suffering, poverty, and perversion are only too common.

How does God fit into the equation? The Son of God was there to help the nobleman's son, why can't He stop all cruelty, suffering, and death. After all, we profess God's sovereignty over the whole of creation when we recite the creed, "I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, And of all things visible and invisible." If God really is the omnipotent Creator and providential Sustainer of every minute detail, He must be capable of putting a stop to suffering, so why doesn't He? Why doesn't He do something to fix what is wrong in His world? Does He intend to let His creation spin out of control and go to ruin? Where is the evidence of His compassion? Why is it that at times of deepest need God gives the impression of being inattentive to the prayers of His people?

This is no small problem. Maybe you have already thought about it or encountered it. Some Jewish theologians changed their minds about God's omnipotence after the gassing of six million Jews in the Nazi concentration camps. It was too difficult for them to harmonize that atrocity with a God that is both all-powerful and good. If He were a good God and providentially in control of all things He would have used His power to halt the holocaust. After all, if you were in the position to jump in the water to save a drowning child, or stop a bully from battering a baby wouldn't you do it? Surely God would do the same. To say He doesn't care turns him into a sadist. So, the fact that He failed to stop the unspeakable butchery under the Nazi regime must mean that He was too weak and finite. He is therefore not a God who orders all things in accordance with His perfect will and wisdom. He doesn't foreordain the future nor can He foresee it. This shift among Jewish thinkers has now passed over into Christian circles. Shrinking God's power by erasing His immutability and infinitude is the latest theological fashion in some seminaries. According to the new view God is limited in His knowledge and power and is thus unable to prevent the suffering in the world. How do we respond to these challenges?

First, we must resist the temptation to abandon God's omnipotence, to reduce God to the proportions of a being who is subject to the restrictions and frustrations of our human existence. To do so is both unwise and unrealistic. We are speaking of God, not man, of Him who is infinite, not finite. As Creator, as Sustainer, and as Redeemer, God's supremacy over all his works is complete. The sovereignty of His control is absolute. A changing, fickle, and finite God is no God at all. At best he is one of those fake deities of the ancient Greeks who lived on Mt. Olympus. Why pull God down to man's dimension? Such a deity is certainly not the God of Christianity. The God of the Bible is not subject to chance or the unknown. He determines the end as well as the beginning. [For a more thorough discussion of this topic see Hope for a Despairing World by Philip E. Hughes, and The Roots of Evil by Norman L. Geisler.]

Furthermore, to question the goodness of God is, in essence, to imply that man is more concerned about goodness than God is. The person who knows God cannot do this. A Christian has received God's grace and He knows that God is the source of all goodness. To suggest that a human being is kinder than God is to contradict the personal experience of all godly people. To question the goodness of God is to deny God Himself. For man to demand that God would justify Himself is tantamount to reversing the Final Judgment, what C.S. Lewis called "God in the dock." God judges you; you don't judge God. Believers should be asking themselves often, in fear and trembling, "How will I stand before Jesus Christ at the awful Day of Judgment? How will I answer for my sin and guilt? God's judgment of man is thus central to Christianity, yet men want to put God on trial. They cross-examine the Lord and ask Him to justify His goodness and behavior. And thus, man plays at being God. He sets himself up as the center of reality and the fount of wisdom to whom even God must be accountable.

Do you recall the story of Job, his calamities and suffering? He came close to doubting God's motives until he finally saw a vision of the full greatness of God. He confessed to the Lord, "I know that you can do all things and that no purpose is beyond you. But I have spoken of great things which I have not understood, things too wonderful for me to know Therefore I despise myself; I repent in dust and ashes" (Job 40:1-8; 42:1-6). The lesson? Do not blame God; do not judge Him. He is perfectly good and just.

We learn next in our passage that sometimes affliction can bring about spiritual benefits. John 4:49 says, "The nobleman said to [Jesus], "Sir, come down before my child dies!" Jesus said to him, "Go your way; your son lives." So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, "Your son lives!" Then he inquired of them the hour when the son got better. And they said to him, "Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him." So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, "Your son lives." And he himself believed, and his whole household."

Did you notice how the nobleman's faith increased by degrees? The beginning of his faith emerged when he traveled to the Lord to ask for his son's healing. This faith increased when Jesus gave him the healing promise. Then once he walked home and his servant announced, "Your son lives!" his faith became a true saving faith: "He himself believed, and his whole household." The anxiety about his son led the nobleman to faith in Christ Jesus as His Lord and Redeemer. All this hinged upon the son's sickness. If the nobleman's son had never been ill, the entire family might have lived and then died, lost in their sins. We may not have a perfect answer to all the questions surrounding our afflictions, but good came out of this particular episode and we know by experience that suffering is often a means of grace to amend out lives and draw us closer to the Lord. Health is indeed a great blessing, but sickness seems to have a greater sanctifying effect.

Moreover, the life-giving miracle Jesus performed on this little boy hints at something bigger. It points to the final redemption of man and all of creation. The salvation of the boy may be seen as a microcosm of the salvation of the world. God is in control, and He is moving the course of this world towards a glorious consummation. For things to continue as they are, marred by discord and injustice and frustrated by sickness and death would be ultimately meaningless. It would prove the weakness of God. But things will not always continue as they are. Jesus is coming again at the end of time. The King of glory will return for a wedding. His bride the Church will be united to him and will share His glory in the New Heavens and New Earth. The water of life and the tree of life will be major features (Rev. 22:3). Those of us in Christ will drink from the waters of life and partake of the fruit of the tree of life. And what is the effect of the water of life and the tree of life? A voice from heaven tells us in Revelation 21:3: "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."

Does the existence of evil suggest that God the Father is less than almighty? That is the question we have been wrestling with. Wouldn't the Savior remove moral badness, useless pain and death itself if He could? Yes, he would, and He is doing so! Through Christ, bad people like you and me are already being made good. Brand new pain- and disease-free bodies are on the way, and a renewed creation is thrown in too. The apostle Paul assures us that the "sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18: 19-23). Another saint put the idea like this: "It is enough that we shall have heaven, though we shall pass through hell to get it."

If God moves more slowly than we wish in clearing evil out of His world we can be sure it is for a good reason: to save more people, to sanctify His children, to extend His kingdom, and to purify His bride, the Church. Come now to your Almighty Lord. Bring Him your sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

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