A Very Sad Day

If you keep up with this blog, you've no doubt noticed that I haven't written anything since Sunday afternoon. As the father of a 7 month old and as pastor of a very active church, I sometimes wonder if the goal I set for myself (to write something every day, or at least every other day) was biting off more than I could chew. From lack of sleep at night, to diaper changes, to play-time with Anna Faith. From house-hold chores such as mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges (which I haven't yet done) to taking out the trash. From church meetings, to hospital visits, to teaching Bible studies, to writing sermons, my plate is already pretty full. Yet none of those is the reason for not posting something since Sunday. Instead, the reason is far more grave, far more heart-breaking.

By now the world has learned of the awful crime/tragedy that occurred here in Orangeburg early Monday morning in which two small children were murdered at the hands of their own mother. When we hear this news, it triggers the simultaneous emotional reactions of anger, rage, grief, fear and even disgust.

One wonders what pushes a person to such a horrendous breaking point? Sure, we can explain it away as “pure evil”. But that to me, is not sufficient. Nor is it always completely accurate. And yet we cannot escape the reality that such an evil thing happened and we are torn up inside with conflicting emotions as we struggle with “where do we go from here?!”

This, of course, opens the door to the inevitable questions of “How could a loving God allow this to happen?”, and conversely, “Why didn't a loving God prevent this from happening?” Officially, this struggle to make sense of the problem of evil is called “theodicy”.

As a pastor, there are a few other pastors and theologians I look to for insight into this issue; N.T. Wright, Leslie Weatherhead, Oscar Romero, C.S. Lewis, Karl Barth, Martin Luther King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer being a primary among them. But in situations such as this, heady reading and intellectual debate—even of a theological nature—is not what most of us need. Instead, what we need simply, is to be comforted. To know, somehow and in some way, that God has not abandoned us in this dark time, but rather, is very near. Near enough, in fact, to hold those children in his loving arms.

And what comforts me is this belief: that when children die, they return to the One who made them and who loves them and who said (in St. Matthew 18): `Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.'

Of course, I realize that this is an issue of faith—a person obviously has to believe it and trust that it's true before it brings them any comfort. But when (and if) they do, they'll find that it's the only comfort there is in a situation like this.

O Lord, you keep little children in this present world, and hold them close to yourself in the life to come. Receive in peace the souls of these two children who died so needlessly Monday, for you have said, "Of such is my kingdom of heaven." Comfort also those of us who mourn; and give us grace, in the presence of death, to worship you, that we may have the sure and certain hope of eternal life. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.