When I am driving or riding in my wife’s car, music is on. For me, it means skipping stations if there are commercials. Or putting in a CD. Like 8-tracks and cassette tapes, CD’s are going the way of the dinosaur, I fear. These days, it’s all about digital streaming. Podcasts. We were listening to one yesterday in the car. It was an interview between the atheist host and ELCA Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber. Maybe you’ve heard of her, read one of her books, seen her in a lecture video. She became the “it” girl for our denomination, entering ministry after a younger life peppered with bad relationships, addictions, and lots of tattoos. She has oodles of street cred because of her relatable, checkered past. The podcast was a great conversation. It was respectful and honest between them, each asking the other good and thought-provoking questions. They were willing to engage and accept one another, even if many of their views diverged.  

Many atheists wonder why God permits bad things to happen. Even Christians can recall events that trouble and upset us. The tragic death of Princess Diana, who did tremendous works of charity. Susan Smith, the South Carolina mother who drowned her two sons in her car. Others who scream out in anguish, “what have I done?!” Does God really have skin in that game? He graciously gives us free will, them gets blamed when these terrible tragedies occur.

Right now, I am struggling to comprehend a senseless, evil tragedy. One of the sweetest, holiest people I know has been victimized by betrayal and the incursion of Satan into their orbit. It helps to consider the injustice perpetrated on the Son of Man. Without that truth, we are truly, hopelessly lost. The last chapters of Job can also help us get a semblance of insight into divine providence. Believe and trust in the wondrous, unconditional love of God, poured out from the cross of Jesus. Christ endured a death he certainly did not deserve. That is the truth that makes sense out of the senseless, hope for the hopeless. In the resurrection we have the joyous, glorious, everlasting response to evil and suffering.

Pastor Art