Why?

In his latest book, Phillip Yancey chose as the title, The Question that Never Goes Away. That question – Why? – is one that haunts most of us at times in life, especially those times when evil has raised its ugly head in shocking ways. I remember a sermon Frank Harrington preached while he was the preacher at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta where he said something like “you can hardly have Easter in the south without some awful destruction caused by a tornado.” The inevitable question of “why would God allow a tornado to disrupt our celebration of Christ’s resurrection?” was the issue that sermon was addressing – and not unlike the issues Yancey focuses on in The Question that Never Goes Away.

One of the big “Why?” events in our recent past was the shooting that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. Near the end of Yancey’s book, he notes, “Though evil and death still reign on this soiled and violent planet, the event commemorated around the world shortly after the Sandy Hook shootings represents our best, true hope. Jesus entered this world in desperate, calamitous times in order to show a way to the other side.” (page 142)

Sitting here in my comfortable office, surrounded by all kinds of resources, not the least of which would be people who care about me and about whom I care, I can understand exactly what Yancey means and see how what he says reflects the message of Scripture. But that hardly means I will never experience moments where “Why?” is the only question I care about. Because of my “present realities” I am confident that when “Why?” is the question of the day, my faith in the promise of God, revealed in its fullest sense in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, will sustain me. 

In Romans 11:13, Paul reminds us that “we know the age in which we live, it is now the hour for us to arise from our slumber.” The age he has in mind of course is the age of the kingly reign of Christ – it has already begun. The hour suggests the very moment in which his first readers are living. And guess what, they too have multiple reasons to ask “Why?” I’ve come to think that a reasonable understanding  of Paul’s over-arching “age” and his focus on “hour”  suggests that hour means “the tension point” in which we live. Howard Marshall appropriately describes “age” as “the in-between-the-times-time.” That is, we live between what God has already accomplished in Jesus and what has not yet happened for eternity. In these “tension points” that describe our lives, “Why?” will be a regular question.

But rather than getting stuck in the unanswerable question of the day, Yancey suggests that these moments give incredible opportunity for followers of Jesus to respond in kingdom –like ways. Not in the sense that God caused the awful things so we would have something to do, but in the sense that until the not yet is reality, such moments will happen – and our response is to be Jesus to the world.

One of the stories he tells revolves around the horrific tsunami that hit Japan in 2011. Just reading Yancey’s description of the aftermath is shocking. While touring the destruction sometime afterward, Yancey talked with some relief workers with Samaritan’s Purse. “They were living in cramped communal housing and working long hours without pay. ‘We don’t proselytize,’ one told me. ‘We don’t need to – the people know why we’re here. We’re simply followers of Jesus trying to live out his commands. Just before handing owners the key to their new home, we ask if we can pray a blessing on the house. So far no one has turned us down.’” (pages 64, 65)

I remember hearing two of my heroes in the faith talk about a similar experience in a different part of the world, a place where the gospel has yet to make much of an impact. I won’t mention their names because of where they serve. But I can say what they said, “It almost makes you want to pray for another tsunami, because in those kinds of moments, followers of Jesus have untold opportunity to model what it means to be a Christian.” They were adamant that they weren’t asking us to pray for a tsunami, but very clear that when such moments happen, Christians have untold opportunities to model the life of Jesus of Nazareth in ways that are amazing.

Little wonder that Jesus reminded His disciples, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35, NRSV)

What I do wonder about is how we managed to allow the gospel to be viewed by so many in our own culture as about little more than a list of the sins we can’t do when the One who is the gospel has called us to live as He did.