June 18th
"In loving memory of James."
We lost a good friend to cancer this week. James was only 27...
Why Lord? Why do these things happen? Why are people left abandoned, accused, at the mercy of powers they can not control? Why is life so unpredictable? Where is the sense of fairness, of justice, or meaning?
There are many senseless tragedies like this, throughout the World, like that of the crucifixion of Jesus, that will continue to be a feature of life on earth. We do not welcome them. We do not understand them. They sap our faith and leave us cold. Yet.... still... God calls us to put our faith in Him. Still..... God promises that, although for a while we may feel utterly abandoned by His love and far from His presence, the experience of abandonment will not be the final word.
Entrusting one's life to this kind of God, as the Psalmist did and as Jesus did, changes everything. Suffering can be understood not as something to be avoided at all costs, but as something to be accepted, even at times embraced on behalf of others, with the knowledge that God shares the suffering of the afflicted. Death can be understood not as the ultimate insult to human sovereignty, but as something to be entrusted to God with the assurance that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God.
For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.
Psalm 22:24
Heaven
