THIS WAS NOT THE WILL OF GOD!

Words from William Barclay [1907-1978] resonate deeply within me this morning. As a pastor, I have frequently been in situations such as he describes - and always felt the same as he did!

He speaks of a 24-year-old daughter who died in a bizarre accident with no possible explanation. The chief investigator described it as so impossible that it could only be described as "an act of God".

Barclay sees this as a blasphemous phrase!

"What kind of God can people believe in when they attribute the accidental death of a girl of twenty-four years of age to an act of God? How can anyone who is left possibly pray to a God who would do a thing like that?"

[Barclay continues] "During my own parish ministry I was never able to go into a house where there had been an untimely and tragic death or sorrow and say, 'It is the will of God.' When a child or young person dies too soon, when there is a fatal accident, maybe due to someone's mistake or misjudgment, that is not "an act of God", neither is it the will of God. It is, in fact, the precise opposite of the will of God. It is against the will of God, and God is just as grieved about it as we are."

I have made this very same statement repeatedly over the years to parishioners in the face of terrible pain and loss!

[Barclay continues] "If a terrible and an incurable disease strikes someone, if a child is run down and killed by a motor car, driven as it may be by a reckless or drunken driver, if there is a disaster in the air or at sea or on the railway or on the roads, that is not the will of God. It is exactly and precisely what God did not will. It is due not to God's will, but to some human failure or to some human mistake."

He ends with the following:
"God gave men free will because there could neither be goodness nor love without free will and exactly for that reason the action of men can run right counter to the will of God."

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The image of God grieving with us is a POWERFUL one!

It reminds me of a few closing lines to James Weldon Johnson's poem, The Creation:

This great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in is his own image...

Jesus wept at the death of His friend, Lazarus!

Imagine! A god who weeps! A God who acknowledges in His Word to us that "There is a time to cry...and a time to be sad" [Ecclesiastes 3:4].

A God who included in His Book a section titled: Lamentations! [A lamentation is an expression of sorrow or mourning.]

A God who sent to His people a prophet who became known as the weeping prophet - Jeremiah!

A God who responsively reached out to an inconsolable Mary on the morning of His resurrection. Jesus immediately removed the barrier to her recognition so that He could comfort and encourage her!

I remember a story told by United Methodist Bishop, Earl Hunt, while I was a young student at Asbury Theological Seminary.

He told of being a young pastor appointed to follow a pastor who had been in place for many years.

Upon hearing of the death of a child in one of his families, young Pastor Hunt went immediately to the home. Upon arriving, he shared a scripture of hope with the family and prayed with them.

At that point, the former pastor arrived at the door. Upon entering, he opened his arms and the family fell into his embrace as he wept with them and prayed over them.

The young pastor Hunt was struck immediately - not with anger or jealousy - but with an increased sense of understanding about what it meant to be a pastor!

Part of the role of a pastor has traditionally been to walk with those who are hurting and, in doing so, give them an increased understanding that God is hurting and grieving with them! 

But the CEO role that has been thrust upon maturing pastors in recent decades doesn't encourage or model this level of caring. I had a conversation recently with a younger person who is active in their church. When I shared about Pastor Jerry Dodds [Bethel EPC] coming to visit Debbie while she was in the ER a while back, he simply commented that he couldn't even imagine his pastor doing something like that! 

It struck me: could this be one of the reasons that we are seeing such a decline in church attendance in America? Perhaps that's a topic for the next blog?