Making Sense of Violent Human Tragedy

A few times a year, I'm called on to write a column in our local newspaper. This month happens to be my month. The article below is an adaptation of my theme from Sunday morning's message, Making Sense of Violent Human Tragedy. I've copied it here for you.

Why does God allow violent human tragedy to happen? That’s probably close to the top of the short list of questions we ask each other and ourselves when an attack like 9/11 or the Oklahoma City bombing or a massacre like Columbine High or Virginia Tech takes place. And it’s a perfectly human reaction that we do. But if we never move on from that initial questioning, we betray the basic misunderstanding have about the Lord and about mankind.

Focusing exclusively on the question, “Why did God let it happen?”, shows that we have a basic misunderstanding of God. It’s as if we think it’s God’s job to never let anything bad happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Apparently we think that He exists for our comfort and convenience. In fact, that thinking is exactly backwards. We are not the center and focus of the universe; God is! We exist for His pleasure and His will. Therefore we can’t assign jobs to God at all. And He certainly is not constrained to take on any task that He hasn’t already assigned Himself in Scripture. That doesn’t imply that our Lord is unkind or unconcerned about human tragedy. Not at all! He is deeply moved and compassionate towards the victims and towards those of us left behind to grieve. But the anger and bitterness that questions God’s goodness and love because bad things happen in the world reveals something deeper in the heart of man.

When we dwell on the question, “Why did He let it happen?”, we show we have a basic misunderstanding of mankind: of each of us. In Romans we’re told that there is none righteous and that all have sinned. In Jeremiah we’re told that our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Throughout the Bible, the Lord repeatedly warns us to face squarely in the face the reality that in us dwells nothing good. Indeed, we are all marred, stained, and ruined by sin. The truth is that evil is in the hearts of all men. And but for the restraining grace of God in our individual lives, each of us could walk down the path of violence and murder.

We have an answer from the Lord Jesus in responding to these types of human tragedies. In Luke 13:1-3, Jesus tells of a group of worshippers that the dictator of the area had murdered while they were in church! The people couldn’t comprehend how God could allow it to happen. Jesus responded that these poor victims had done nothing to deserve this kind of death in comparison with others. And then He turned the focus. Instead of looking at God and thinking He’s unkind and instead of looking at the victims and thinking they were to blame, Jesus said that we should look at ourselves. Tragedies should always turn us to repentance. Noted author and pastor John Piper says, “The point of every deadly calamity is this: Repent. Let our hearts be broken that God means so little to us. Grieve that he is a whipping boy to be blamed for pain, but not praised for pleasure. Lament that he makes headlines only when man mocks his power, but no headlines for ten thousand days of wrath withheld. Let us rend our hearts that we love life more than we love Jesus Christ. Let us cast ourselves on the mercy of our Maker. He offers it through the death and resurrection of his Son.”

When we ask, “Why did God let this bad thing happen?”, we should rather ask, “Why does God allow so much good happen to so many people so often?”. That is the question, and the attitude, for dealing with violent human tragedy.