Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands · 2 Comments

Death is Wrong

Ethan’s Mom:

Written September 2020:

“What is your most persistent thought about facing death?”

That was a question in our BSF study last week. Yep, it was.

The context was a discussion of the end of Jacob’s life in Genesis 49. After Jacob blesses and prophesies about his sons and their descendants, he reiterates his desire to be buried in Canaan, in the same cave as his father and grandfather. We have walked with this man through the last several chapters, watching him evolve from a deceiver who took what was going to be given to him to a father who played serious favorites with his family, to an old man who seems to have finally grown into the faith of his fathers. He has lived quite a life. Although there are some outstanding promises, He is “gathered to his people” in the best way possible — in his old age, surrounded by his family, confident in his God.

People in the leader meeting and my discussion group took the bait so carefully laid out by the question writers in the preceding questions. There was lots of talk about looking expectantly towards heaven, leaving the troubles of the world, and being with Jesus. One leader even threw her hands up and used a word like “ecstatic” or something similar in describing what her response to a fatal diagnosis would be.

Excuse me?

To be fair, the question was written about facing one’s own mortality, not death in general. It’s not that I haven’t thought about my own mortality. After all, I have my very own, paid-in-full cemetery plot. Sometimes I stand on it when visiting Ethan’s grave, but it can feel really weird to touch your final resting place when you’re only 40 and in good health. In contrast to my pre-2017 self, I actually think about death a lot. I talk about it more than I ever dreamed, especially with my children. Several times a week, Ethan’s twin will say how he wants to go visit Ethan in heaven or ask when Jesus is bringing Ethan back to earth. And yes, my persistent thought about facing my own death now is that I am following a path that Ethan has already traveled and at the end of that path comes a reunion that I long for every day.

But not until I was doing my exercise video of the day and kickboxing with unusual vigor that I realized something was seriously bothering me about all of this. I still couldn’t articulate exactly what until Greg asked me at lunch “how did the death question go in your group?” Then it hit me. The bigger question that I would have rather answered is “what is your most persistent thought about death?” And for that question, I definitely know my answer:

IT’S NOT RIGHT.

IT’S SO WRONG.

IT’S NOT FAIR.

March 9, 2022:

Recently, I read an article that made me revisit this post I started over a year ago and could not bring myself to finish. The author expresses what I was struggling to put into words that day as she considers the overwhelming death rate over the course of the pandemic (note: this article was written before the tragic events in the Ukraine started to unfold, which further underscores her point).

“I worry that, as people whose eternal fate is good news, we forget death is still bad news. God gave us life as a gift. Death isn’t our chance to level up into the presence of God; it’s the end of something God delights in and calls good on its own terms. Death is wrong.”

Death is wrong. Period. Whether a person lives a long and full life or a baby is stillborn or an anti-vaxxer dies of COVID, death is a separation, a punishment, a curse. We all deserve it, but we weren’t designed for it.

I feel this very keenly during the season between the twins’ birthday in January through the month of March. Conscious and subconscious manifestations of grief increase in frequency and intensity. Hurts that have scabbed over are raw again, and triggers seem to be everywhere. There is sadness but there is also anger. I find myself with a much shorter fuse with people around me, especially my kids.

What is the root of this anger? Why does it all seem so incredibly unfair when I know intellectually that my family isn’t exempt from tragedy? I think it’s because death is unfair. We were created for relationships, for eternal fellowship, for life. Whether those relationships are marred by sin in this world or severed by death, we know deep down in our core that things aren’t supposed to be like this.

A wise friend told me something on the first anniversary of Ethan’s death that I will always remember this time of year: “There is nothing good about a death day.” March 10th is a day for mourning, not celebration. There is nothing good about a death day – because there is nothing good about death.

But as hard as it is to remember this evening, five years removed from cradling my child for the final time, death doesn’t have the final word. Tomorrow, I will pray “A Liturgy for the Loss of a Child” from Every Moment Holy: Volume II at Ethan’s graveside. Included among the stanzas of lament are these strong words of resistance:

Do not let my love turn bitter. Let it turn fierce instead — fierce in its defiance of death, fierce in faith, fierce in its resolve to seek first the Kingdom of my God, tenacious in pursuit of that which is eternal, tender in compassion toward the suffering of others, invested in acts of kindness, mercy, creativity, reconciliation, and restoration — convinced that all lost joys mourned in this life are but pale preludes of the fullness to come.

I do not know how this can be true. If I listed all the lost joys that I mourn in this life, I would still be typing on March 10, 2023. How that pales in comparison to the fullness to come, I just cannot fathom. Even still, these words reverberate deep within my soul, in the place where I know Christus Victor is coming to vanquish my ultimate foe. He must.

Until then, “Let us linger in sorrow long after those around us deem it acceptable. Let us refuse to minimize the pain of losing our relative, our friend, our neighbor, our coworker. We may mourn for the rest of this life knowing that in the next, our God who conquered death will wipe away every tear.”

Come Lord Jesus.

Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands · 1 Comment

A Birthday with Bereavement

Ethan’s Dad: We have just concluded the Christmas season, pondering Christ’s coming to us as one of us, born as a baby in a stable. The very One who is above all things lowered himself to become a human infant, with all the confusion, helplessness, and utter dependence on others that entails. Five years ago today, our twins, Noah and Ethan, did the same thing, in a precarious way, no less, being born in an ambulance being driven to a hospital in an ice storm. Little did we know at that time how vulnerable Ethan actually was (though his mother always had an inkling that he was somehow different). Jesus did not have Ethan’s health issues when He was born, but the fact that He experienced the general vulnerability of infancy helps me when I think about Ethan on this day.

Identification is not everything: no matter how similar another person’s experiences may be to our own, everyone experiences life in a unique way, and it is good to keep that in mind whenever you think you know what someone else is going through. But shared experiences are integral to bonding and to persevering through difficult experiences. The Creator of us also became one of us, and so there is no corner of our being of which we can say He is unfamiliar or does not understand. I have always believed that the Lord was with us on that anxious (and for my wife, extremely painful) ambulance ride, just as the Lord was with Joseph and Mary in that stable on that cold night so long ago. But then He showed up in the flesh for them, and, in the ultimate reversal, He needed them just as much as they loved Him. My wife brought ours into the world on this cold day five years ago, we nurtured them the best we knew, and Jesus said, “whoever cares for the least of those among you has cared for Me.” (Matthew 25:40).

But the book of Matthew also recounted another event that occurred within a couple of years after Jesus’ birth that rarely receives notice. In modern Bible translations, it is referred to as the “Massacre of the Innocents,” and it comes to mind because, as hard as it is to think about, I also have always believed that the Lord was with me on another ambulance ride with Ethan that occurred two months after the twins’ birth, and that ride always also accompanies this day.

At the time of Jesus’ birth, King Herod ruled over the Jewish province for the Romans. Herod was, by any standard, an abjectly evil king who never hesitated to employ violence in order to preserve his grip on power. During his reign, he murdered his wife, three of his sons, his mother-in-law, his brother-in-law, and many others who he perceived were threats to his position. Matthew does not provide that background; instead, he relates the event in short order. The wise men had failed to return to Herod after finding Jesus — despite his request that they do so — because God had warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod. In Herod’s twisted mind, Jesus was a threat to his power because the wise men had told Herod that a messiah, the “king of the Jews,” had been born within the past two years in Bethlehem. “Then Herod, when he realized that he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage. He gave orders to massacre all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men.” (Matthew 2:16). Joseph and Mary fled with Jesus to Egypt before this massacre occurred because God warned Joseph about Herod’s plan.  But no such warning came to the rest of the families in Bethlehem, and Herod’s order of infanticide was carried out with precision.

The details of this event render it apparent why it is not often dwelt upon in churches or Bible studies. Matthew tells the story in passing to explain why Jesus ended up in Egypt, which fulfilled a messianic prophecy. But such a traumatic event deserves some pondering because, for the parents who remained in Bethlehem, it involved what is every parent’s worst fear: that one of their children would suddenly face death, and there would be nothing they could do about it. The Bible recognizes this by having Matthew pause to acknowledge the pain of those families who became collateral damage in this tale of the Christ, by quoting Jeremiah 31:15:

“This is what the Lord says:

‘A voice is heard in Ramah,
mourning and great weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.'”

There is more to that reference than just another fulfillment of Scripture. There is pain and suffering and senseless loss caused by the sinful desires of a cruel king whom God allowed to be on the throne. Many reasons can be produced as to why Herod was there, such as his grand building projects — one of which included the new Temple in Jerusalem — his interest in the Jewish king that helped the wise men find Jesus and spurred Joseph and Mary’s flight to Egypt, and, thinking ahead, so that Herod’s son could be involved in Jesus’s trial before the crucifixion. But the excruciating pain and loss caused by Herod’s rule also deserves notice. We may not be able to understand why God allowed this ugly abhorrence against innocent children, but we do a disservice to truth and faith if we just ignore that difficulty.

Unfortunately, the pain and loss described Jeremiah 31:15 is all too familiar to us. Our baby was not murdered, but he was taken from us suddenly and without explanation after he had been preserved through that perilous delivery and was to undergo surgery to repair his broken heart. The fact that God sees and acknowledges the pain of such losses is not an answer to why it happens, but it is worth something to know that God is not entirely aloof or detached from our personal tragedies that, in the larger scheme, seem to become mere footnotes in history. In fact, God’s identification goes well beyond acknowledgment, because He experienced the loss of His only Son in an excruciating and unjust manner.

The implication of fulfilled prophecy also offers some solace because such fulfillment means that God knows the future and arranges affairs to accomplish His grand design. The whole story of Jesus’s life is a testament to that truth, and while we cannot fully comprehend how the vagaries of evil come into that design, knowing that the evil does cannot derail God’s ultimate purposes is a lifeline for faith when our circumstances are dire.

A third, somewhat unexpected, balm comes from a further reading of Jeremiah 31. The chapter is actually relating a prophecy of joy, containing such lines from the Lord as “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness,” (v. 3) and “I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.” (v. 13). But most interesting to me is what comes immediately after verse 15:

“This is what the Lord says:

‘Restrain your voice from weeping
and your eyes from tears,
for your work will be rewarded,”
declares the Lord.
‘They will return from the land of the enemy.
So there is hope for your descendants,’ declares the Lord.
‘Your children will return to their own land.'”

In the immediate context, of course, the passage is talking about a return from exile for the Israelites, but the broader application is to the final promised land “the better country — a heavenly one.” (Hebrews 11:16). Thus, God does much more than just acknowledge the torturous agony that comes with losing a child; He promises that one day our children will return to us in the new place He has prepared for us (just as His Son returned to Him in glory). (John 14:2; Hebrews 11:16). And, of course, this is why Jesus came as that helpless baby: so that this seemingly relentless evil that haunts our days on this earth would not be the end of the story. The Massacre of the Innocents reminds us that great sadness and pain remained in the wake of the immense joy of Jesus’ birth, but it also proclaims to us of the hope of glory. (“Through Christ we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand, and so we boast in the hope of the glory of God.” Romans 5:2).

And so it is for me on this day. I rejoice in the joy of celebrating Noah’s birth and presence with us. He is adorable and maddening, brilliant and confounding, silly yet sometimes deeply serious, boundless with energy and appetite for dessert. Our lives our infinitely better because he joined us five years ago. Yet our hearts ache for his missing brother, who may have been like Noah in some ways, but undoubtedly would have contrasted in other respects. Like those parents in Bethlehem so long ago, we are left to celebrate this day of Ethan’s coming without him, while holding on to the truth that one day he will return to us because this is what the Lord says. It is an incomplete celebration that awaits that joyful morning of reunion made possible by Immanuel. Happy Fifth birthday, Ethan! We love you always and forever.

Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands

Reflecting on Keller’s Catharsis

Ethan’s Dad: It surely is not a coincidence that on this day of days, I came across this article from pastor and author Timothy Keller. Even though I disagree with his Calvinism, I have always appreciated Keller’s work, which seamlessly conjoins spiritual insight with intellectual rigor. This article is no exception, offering deeply personal reflections on his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer interspersed with quotes and theories from a range of thinkers. Keller’s honesty on the subject of his seeming impending demise is refreshing and — as Walking in the Shadowlands shows — the thought process he shares and the realizations he has gained are very similar to those we have experienced in the days and years since that March 10th on which we lost Ethan. Keller’s ruminations boil down to the fact that there comes a time when you are so profoundly shaken by something that continuing to live requires more than just intellect or just emotion or just material things: it requires raw transparency, wallowing in the moment, resonating with Scripture, and aching for the reality we cannot see. When Ethan’s mother and I sit beside his grave on this day, we do not do it just to mark an event or to be morbid or to be pitied or to prevent a festering wound from healing. We do it because Ethan’s life and the loss of him matters to us in a way that shapes everything else, because his loss personally intertwines finality and eternity in a way that nothing short of Keller’s experience could. In short, we do it because of the one thing that outlasts everything else: love. The way we truly know that Jesus loves us is precisely because He died for us; therefore, death and love are forever linked, but we know that love is stronger than death because love endures after death, and Jesus’ resurrection is exclamation point of that truth. We love Ethan and we believe that God loves him even more (though it is difficult to imagine that “more”), which is why we believe we are going to see him again. That belief does not change the reality of Ethan’s present loss, of this awful pain, or of the abject darkness that accompanies our memories of this horrid day four years ago. But it does provide genuine hope because it is based on what remains when all else is torn away. We love you with all our hearts Ethan — catch you on the flip side!

Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands · 1 Comment

Four Years Ago This Day

Ethan’s Mom: I have been getting a lot of those “Remember this day __ years ago” notifications from my photo service in the last few weeks. I always hold my breath when I open those between January and March, both hoping and fearing that the memory will include pictures from 2017. What we didn’t know as February turned into March that year was that we didn’t have much longer to take pictures of Ethan. Four years ago in March, we were in the final days with our son.

Four years ago last week, I received the images from the twins’ newborn photo shoot. Those portraits popped up on my phone and brought me right back to that photography studio. The heat was turned up to keep the half-naked babies comfortable, and I was sweating through my clothes. Ethan was so fussy that day, but between me and my mom, we bounced and fed and burped enough to get some good pictures of him awake by himself and sleeping sweetly with his arm wrapped around his brother’s. I treasure those photos but mourn the fact that there will be no more portraits.

Four years ago this week, we attended an award ceremony for the local fire department at which the crew that delivered all four of us safely to a hospital in an ice storm were named “Firefighters of the Year”. The pictures of the ceremony and the decorated cookies I ordered as a small gift for each of them popped up yesterday. I remember the very parking spot we used at the library on that day. I remember the Fire Chief’s thick southern accent asking which one was Jefferson and which one was Shelby, referring to the fact that the boys were born in two different counties en route to the hospital.

Four years ago today, we were at the cardiologist’s office for a follow up visit. I remember holding his arms still during the EKG and then learning that our son may have an additional heart condition in addition to the ventral septal defect which would require open heart surgery. That was the day the cardiologist attempted to reassure us about the implications of this additional problem by saying that it was OK to let him sleep in his crib, he wasn’t going to die in the middle of the night.

But then there we were, in the emergency room exactly one week later when Ethan did, in fact, die in his sleep. Four years ago next Wednesday – March 10, 2017. I remember what pajamas he was wearing. I remember where I collapsed in the yard watching the ambulance drive away, another kind firefighter taking Ethan’s twin brother before I dropped him. I remember almost running into the sliding glass doors at the ER because they didn’t open fast enough. I remember splashing water on my face before we left and looking up at a person I did not recognize in the mirror.

Four years ago on March 15th, our family gathered around us as we laid Ethan’s body in the ground. I remember the extremely cold but sunny day, the fuzzy blue blankets provided by the funeral home, the train whistle at the perfect time during the eulogy, confirming that Ethan will forever be known as our little caboose. I remember going back to the church and eating mashed potatoes before taking my place in the receiving line, and I remember the faces of those who cried with us that day.

Our friend and minister once used the phrase “deep in the weeds” to describe my state of being that first year. It was true – at that time I could not see anything around me but sadness and confusion. Many of the paths I walk along now have weeds along the way, interspersed with the beautiful landscapes of life, but some days (holidays, birthday, anniversary of loss) those weeds shoot up and block my entire view again. I can think of little else, and there seems to be no means of escape. As one of my children’s favorite books says, “We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we have to go through it.” And here I am at the beginning of March, going through it again. I know in my head that it will pass – Easter is coming and that helps shift my mindset from 2017 back to the present and even to the future – but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like crazy in the meantime. So if you think of us in the next two weeks, pray for us and let us know you are thinking about us down here in the weeds. I’ll see you on the other side.

Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands · 1 Comment

Acknowledging the Paradox of God’s Control

Ethan’s Dad: Those who read the last post know that I now want to embark on a deeper exploration of what we Christians really mean when we say “God is in control.” I have had much of what follows written for a while, but I have hesitated in committing it to this space because, frankly, this whole area just isn’t easy, and the last thing I want to do is make any Christian feel stupid for holding to a different understanding of it. But Andrew Peterson says in his book Adorning the Dark that in the creative process intention matters more than execution, by which I think he means you should not let the fear of expressing your thoughts imperfectly keep you from expressing them at all. With that in mind, I am going to press forward, in the full knowledge that the waters into which I am about to wade are much more vast than my mind is capable of navigating with any degree of precision. I do so anyway because, for me, what happened to Ethan demands that I confront it.

I mentioned in the last post that the callousness of the statement “God is in control” is one reason you should not repeat it to a person who has just suffered a tragic loss. Another reason is that it isn’t true — at least not in the sense that many Christians mean it when they say it. Rather than be pejorative, I will illustrate the viewpoint to which I am referring by quoting from a book I read called You Can Trust God to Write Your Story by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and Robert Wolgemuth. I use this book not because it is unique in its view; on the contrary, there are many works that express the same notion. This just happens to be the latest I read which espouses this view.

The authors begin one chapter in which they discuss their view of what “God’s providence,” i.e., control, means by quoting with approval from someone else:

“‘How unspeakably precious and sweet it is when we can believe that God our Father in heaven is absolutely directing the most minute circumstances of our short sojourn in this wilderness world. That nothing, however trivial, takes place, whether it relates to the body or the soul, but is under His control, that is ordered by Himself.'” Mary Winslow

Later, they pick up this theme with the following explanation:

“The word [providence] also speaks to His wise, sovereign rule over every detail of His creation. Now, this is admittedly a subject that can stir up animated arguments. But there are basically two options. Either 1. God sovereignly causes, and or permits, everything to happen that happens in our lives and in this world, or 2. God stands by and watches passively and powerlessly unwilling or unable to do anything about what happens. … Where would we be without the certain knowledge that He’s got the whole world in His hands and that every detail of our lives and days is ordered by our all-wise, all-knowing, loving God? … To be helpless victims of chance, tossed about on the storms of life; that would be forever disconcerting and tragic. Thank God, it is not the case.”

As this excerpt shows, when some Christians say “God is in control,” they mean to be precisely that black-and-white about it: that literally EVERYTHING in our lives is absolutely controlled by God. To these people, when Jesus said, “There isn’t a sparrow that falls to the ground apart from God’s will” (Matthew 10:29), Jesus was actually saying that God caused the sparrow to fall.

What is entirely left out of that explanation (and essentially makes no express appearance in You Can Trust God to Write Your Story) is the existence of evil. “When the enemy comes like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.” (Isaiah 59:19). “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8). Evil is real; Satan has genuine power; the whole world has an unnatural aspect to it. To minimize, ignore or even deny this is to contradict a clear message from the Bible.

To me, you cannot have an honest discussion about God’s providence unless you frankly face the existence of evil in this world. Glossing over evil shortchanges God’s justice, Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross, and people’s pain.

If what I have just said is true, then why would some Christians hold to what I would call the robotic view of God’s providence? I believe it is born from a good intention: to acknowledge God as all-powerful. But the view is driven by a false dichotomy. As the passage from the Wolgemuths’ book above indicates, such Christians think you must pick between a God who stages every minute of life like a marionette player controls puppets or a God who lacks the ability to do anything in the face of natural chaos. If that is really the choice, then it’s no wonder they pick the first option.

But the logical conclusion of this view of providence, to put it in stark personal terms, is that God killed Ethan. I reject that notion as an outrageous and unnecessary slander of God. Ethan died because we live in a sinful world in which life is sometimes senselessly cut short. However, if God controls absolutely everything, then the presence of sin in this world cannot be explained.

By definition, sin is rebellion against God. It is the reason humanity is condemned by God and it is the reason Jesus had to come and be the perfect, sinless sacrifice to save us from eternal damnation. It is one thing to say that God planned Jesus’ redemption of our sin from the foundation of the world; it is entirely another thing to say that God wills us to sin. The former is true because God knows everything that will happen before it occurs and so He planned a way to rescue us from ourselves. The latter is not possible because God cannot desire or will us to do that which is against His will, i.e, to do evil. The reason we can be condemned for our sinful actions is because we bear responsibility for our own choices. But that is not possible if there is no real choice, if God actually plans and controls every minute detail of our lives. The only way Jesus’ sacrifice has eternal meaning is if there is real choice: choice for humanity to follow or reject God, and choice for Jesus to lay down His life or not. Otherwise, the Garden of Gesthemene is a joke: what kind of struggle is Jesus having in the Garden if He has no choice in the matter? Jesus prays: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42). Luke goes on to obverse that “being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” (v. 44). Isn’t this what true obedience to the Lord involves: foregoing our own desires and submitting to His will? That type of obedience isn’t possible if the only will in existence is God’s.

I completely understand why people have a difficult time comprehending how it is possible for God to be all-powerful, but that He allows things to happen that are not what He desires, or to put it another way, God’s sovereignty and our liberty coexist. One verse that well-illustrates this paradox quotes Peter in his speech at Pentecost to a large crowd of Jews saying: “This man [Jesus] was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men [the Romans], put Him to death by nailing Him to a cross.” (Acts 2:23). There is no doubt that the crucifixion of Christ was a wicked act perpetuated by those who willingly succumbed to evil desires, and therefore deserved condemnation for for their deeds. But of course it had been God’s plan for forever that the Messiah must suffer and die. The one does not negate the other. This is why Jesus would say on the Cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34). Those people were in need of forgiveness because what they had done was wrong, outside of God’s will for them, even though the crucifixion was part of His plan, and, in fact, was the very reason Christ could seek forgiveness for them.

As head-scratching as this paradox may be, if faith teaches us anything, it is that the truth is not limited by our understanding. Indeed, throughout the story of God’s redemption of humanity, simplicity and incomprehensibility co-exist. We know that humanity was given a choice, but we do not fully know why God offered one. We know that God came into our world as a human baby, but we don’t completely understand how God could be fully human. We know that Jesus came to save us, but we cannot fully comprehend why He would be willing to do such a thing given who we are in comparison to Him and our repeated rejections of God. We know that Jesus died on a cross, yet we cannot fully grasp how the eternal God could cease to live. We know that in His death Jesus was separated from God the Father, but given that Jesus is fully God we cannot conceive of what this separation could entail. We know that Jesus rose from the dead, but in our own experience we have never known or seen anyone come back from death. At a certain point, we have to accept these things on faith even though we cannot fully understand or explain them.

So, is it really asking too much to believe that it is possible for God to know all and to be able to orchestrate the grand design of His will without His controlling every single thing that occurs in this world? In other words, I am simply saying that God allows things to happen that are not within His immediate will. If this wasn’t the case, why would Jesus command us to pray “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”? (Matthew 6:10).  When we pray this, we are asking that this present evil age would pass away and that all creation would come into conformance with His will (and that we would be His instruments for ushering this new creation into existence).

Those things outside of His will do not catch God off guard; they do not throw Him for a loop and force Him to drastically alter His ultimate plan for humanity. But those things do grieve Him. God certainly desires that people would not make the wrong choices He knows are coming. It hurts Him to watch us experience the tragedies that are inflicted by the cruelties that mar this fallen world. Such hurt and pain, and the desire to see us make better choices — to follow His will more closely — would not be possible for God if all of what occurred was controlled and purposed by Him.

To be a Christian is to believe that there is immense evil in this world and in us which requires a Savior beyond ourselves to rectify, and that Jesus is that Savior because He is is God in the flesh, who bore our sins on the Cross unto death, and then overcame death by rising again, thereby confirming that He is greater than the evil in this world. Thus, God is, indeed, sovereign over evil, but He is not a party to it.

There is no perfect way to explain how this could be, but one way to think of it is the idea of relinquishment of control. Jesus repeatedly called Satan the “prince of this world” (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). In one of those passages, Jesus says “the prince of this world is coming. He has no power over me.” (John 14:30). In Job 1:12, God tells Satan: “Everything [Job] has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” God didn’t tell Satan what to do, but only the limit of what he could not do. Thus, although God’s Power is clearly greater, and the power Satan has is dictated by what God allows, Satan has real power and control in this world. I believe that the same is true for people. God has granted us a certain amount of control over our own lives; it obviously is not ultimate control because we are subject to so many other forces: natural, satanic, and heavenly, but there is control.

As human beings we cannot help but ask: but why would God allow such horrendous evil? Why must some children die so young? Why are there viruses that wreak havoc without warning?

I cannot give a truly satisfying answer to that perpetual question. But one possibly helpful analogy, though not a perfect one by any means (no analogy related to God can be), is democratic government. In that theory of government, the people have ultimate political power to govern how they live their lives, but they cede some of that power to a central governing authority so that certain tasks, like security for society, can be better accomplished. Well, it just might be that the reason God relinquishes some of His authority to Satan and to human beings is because it is the best way to achieve some of what He seeks to accomplish with His creation. If we return to that passage in John that I quoted earlier, after Jesus observes that Satan has no power over Him, He continues: “But [Satan] comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” (John 14:31). So, Satan had a role in testing and torturing Christ, and those actions would illustrate Jesus’ love for God the Father and for us. What if God’s willingness to cede control, which allows for the existence of evil, helps manifest His love for us and our love for Him?

In fact, at least in this existence, there cannot be love without choice. God chose to create us; He did not need us to sustain His existence. He desired our existence: creating us was a labor of love. Love, by its nature must be freely given, and freely received. And if love is a choice, then there must be an alternative. So, there can be no choice if there is no evil.

Because God loves us, we must trust that there is a purpose behind this evil. I don’t mean a purpose to the evil thing itself, but a purpose to the experience of suffering. As in, there must be something we are meant to gain from this painful life that will make the next one more meaningful than it otherwise would be. After all, surely you have wondered why God doesn’t just skip this part and take us all to Glory so that we can avoid this whole mess. This chaos causes us immeasurable pain, and seeing us suffer grieves Him more than we can know, so that seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through given that He is all-powerful and could just hit the fast-forward button, if you will, and take us to our true home. But think about what else we would miss if He did that — if he removed any experience of evil from our lives. We would miss the full extent of His love demonstrated through Christ, and we would miss countless opportunities to display love to those who are suffering (I miss too many as it is) and so to experience love at a level that is otherwise not possible.

And I think there must be even more that we would miss without experiencing evil that we cannot comprehend on this side of Heaven. The Apostle Paul hints at this in 2 Corinthians 4:6-7 when he says:

“God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine in my heart to give me the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But I have this treasure in an earthen vessel to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from me.”

Would we truly understand that we need God, and how much we need Him, if there was no evil? God knows that our greatest joy comes in being with Him because we were made for Him and in His likeness. But in order for us to come to that understanding, perhaps it takes really strong medicine, a cure that from our perspective feels far worse than the disease. It is a little like a parent telling his or her child what the wise choice in a situation would be, but the parent knows he or she has to let the child make his or her own decision, so that he or she can truly learn why the wise choice was the best one — even if it means watching the child choose poorly. Maybe God has to allow evil to unfold so that we learn what life without God really means.

As I said at the beginning of this post, these reasons absolutely should not, dare not, cause us to minimize evil and suffering in our own lives and in the lives of others. But in the long term, we have to trust that even this pervasive evil and suffering is ultimately, eternally for our good because God is all good and all creation was first good before it was marred by evil.

So, is God in control? Yes, but at the same time He allows us to decide whether He should be in control of our lives. What we do, because of sin, is do things our own way. In His grace, hopefully at some point we notice that we are not really in control of a lot (hello coronavirus) and that even in the things we do control we tend to screw up. That way, it becomes painfully obvious that we are in need of a Savior. If we accept Him by understanding that He is able to accept us, even with all of our flaws, because of Jesus’ perfect sacrifice, and we truly desire to live for Him, then the rest of our time on this earth is about continually relinquishing control of our lives to His Spirit’s leading. For our goal is to be “crucified with Christ, so that we no longer live, but Christ lives in us.” (Galatians 2:20). In a very real sense, then, God relinquishes some control to us in order for us to learn that it is best to relinquish control to Him.

Relinquishing that control does not mean you will have no more trouble. Jesus makes no such promise; instead, His promise is that “in this world you will have trouble, but fear not because I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). In other words, do not believe the lie that because bad things happen, He will not make it right in the end. He will because He has defeated sin and death. We have to have the faith to wait, to persevere, to see what He already knows.

Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands · 1 Comment

When Fortune Cookie Theology Isn’t Good Enough

Ethan’s Dad: So since we last made an entry here, everyone’s lives have been affected in some way or other by the COVID-19 virus, more commonly referred to as the coronavirus. Some parts of our lives have been put on hold, and for some their worlds have been completely turned upside down. If you are in that last category, please know that we are praying for you.

There is so much that has been, and could be, said about the virus and the chaos it has created. But one thing I certainly think the situation has starkly demonstrated is that there is a lot about our lives we do not control. You cannot really control whether you will get the virus or not (you can enhance or diminish probabilities, but that isn’t the same as control). You cannot control what effect the virus will have on you if you do contract it: will you be asymptotic, severely afflicted, or somewhere in between? You cannot control how the stock market will react to the measures that have been taken to mitigate the effects of the virus. And so on it goes.

A natural reaction people often have to the realization that they do not control as much as they believed they did is to feel fear. It is the same for things we cannot fully understand: a natural fear accompanies a lack of knowledge or a lack of control. For Christians, this fear can be managed, mollified, or even defeated by the thought that God is in control and that He understands all that is going on.

We have already been through an event of horrifying chaos in which we were completely helpless, watching our son’s life expire without warning, no matter how much we screamed for it not to be so.  And in the immediate aftermath of that horror, we had our share of “armchair theologians” tell us that it was all okay because “God is in control” and “everything is part of His plan.”  In attempting to absorb those responses, I came to understand that in such a time, the proclamation that “God is in control” turns into a mantra, a crutch that is used to quickly move past difficult questions rather than to honor God’s truth.

When “God is in control” acts as an incantation in the face of all we don’t understand, as the full-stop answer when we have no answers, then it loses its value as a foundation for faith.  When someone is in the midst of overwhelming grief, there is no capacity to delve into what “control” really entails, and so, rather than the statement serving as a faith conversation starter, the “good Christian” — the hurt Christian — will immediately nod his or her head and say no more.

This is one of the reasons you should not blithely say “God is in control” (or a variation of it) to a fellow Christian who has just suffered a tragic loss. You may think it sounds comforting, but to someone who has just lost someone irreplaceable, it is belligerent and cold. The sheer finality of the statement does not allow the sufferer any space to grieve, to fume, to question. It says: “Don’t be sad. Don’t worry. Don’t wonder. Just accept that this is how God planned it.”

I can tell you from personal experience that the person who is suffering the loss will not appreciate what you are saying; he or she will resent it, loathe it, scream (at least inwardly) about it, and then feel guilty for those perfectly acceptable feelings. (It was only later that I learned to extend some grace toward those who would share this “bit of wisdom” with me, a grace born from the realization that it can be extremely difficult to find a “right way” to comfort someone suffering a profound loss). In the end, you are not ministering to that person with this trite expression; you are really just trying to make yourself feel better about what has happened because you don’t have a good explanation for it. But hey, at least you were able to say something Biblical about it, and that’s a lot better than saying nothing, right?

Actually, this might surprise you, but one of the best things you can do is to say very little, and instead just be there to listen — even if the person suffering isn’t saying anything. Mind you, I am not saying that you should just pretend the terrible thing didn’t happen for fear of upsetting the person more. Acknowledgment of a person’s loss is crucial. There has never been a moment in which my wife and l have wished that people would just act like Ethan did not die, because failing to acknowledge that is like saying he never existed, he never mattered. Just because you cannot specifically identify with a person’s loss because you haven’t suffered the same thing does not mean you cannot acknowledge it. By mentioning the one who was lost, you are not going to cause the sufferer to feel a deeper despair than he or she is already experiencing. You will be honoring the rightness of the grief because it shows you know the loss was real.

But beyond the acknowledgment, listen and give the one who is grieving room to express true feelings of anger, bewilderment, and even some despair. Allowing that honesty without sermonizing can be its own witness to that person. If you want to do something with the Bible, then go to the Psalms with them. Read Psalm 13 or 77 or 88 with them so that they can know it is okay to feel as they do. For why else would such expressions of despair and questioning be in God’s Word? Loving in this kind of a situation is not about spouting fortune-cookie theology to solve a problem, but about listening to the questions, the expressions of anger, and the sighs of anguish and despair.  It is about being present while giving space for real grief.

That is about all this post can handle.  Since I have fired a shot across the bow about what God’s control might really mean in relation to evils like a child’s death or an insidious virus, I will follow up with another, much lengthier entry. But for the moment, remember that when it comes to the throes of grief, listening is far more important that dispensing answers.

Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands · 1 Comment

Catch You on the Flip Side

In my last blog post, I shared some about the beginning of my experience as a BSF discussion group leader. We are now almost 3 months into our class, and I have 14 ladies in my group, 6 of whom are currently pregnant. One is an unexpected 4th pregnancy, just like my twins, and that has brought up a lot of emotions. Leadership has been challenging in ways I expected and in ways I didn’t. It has been a blessing in ways I expected and in ways I didn’t as well.

As with my other 3 years of BSF, God seems to be zeroing in on the lessons I need in this stage of my journey through the shadowlands; however, that doesn’t mean that those lessons are easy to receive.

It’s been a tough few weeks here in my head and heart heading into the holiday season. In BSF, we have been talking a lot about suffering as we went from discussing Peter’s miraculous jail break in Acts 12 to his writings in 1 Peter. Suffering is a tricky topic for me. On the one hand it is really hard to fight the tendency to judge others’ stories of suffering against mine. On the other hand, I don’t want to really face the depths of my own suffering; the grief is still sometimes so raw.

The week we talked about the jailbreak was hard because it prompted a discussion about why James was executed by King Herod while Peter was miraculously delivered from danger the night before his show trial. Well, those sorts of questions are really tough for anyone to face head on, I think. When you can identify with James instead of Peter, it gets even harder. Both were “top 3” disciples; both were being prayed for by the church. Why the huge disparity in their stories? And why was James a little blip in the chapter that goes into such details about Peter’s rescue? He almost seems like an afterthought.

There is a family we know whose little girl was almost born while her mom was one of many, many people snowed in at work during a bad storm almost six years ago. But she wasn’t; Ethan and his brother were the ones born in an ambulance on the frozen highway. This little girl was diagnosed with a heart defect that was similar to Ethan’s. In fact, the day we found out about his VSD, her mom was one of the first non-family members I called, looking for advice and encouragement, knowing that she had a successful open heart surgery the summer before. After Ethan died, it was excruciating to see this preschooler living a normal life, starting kindergarten, even getting discharged from cardiology follow up visits. My son didn’t live long enough to have surgery to fix his heart. This is insane to admit, but I would find myself being jealous that Ethan didn’t “get to” have open heart surgery, like it was a prize that he didn’t win. Even though the heart defect was not the primary cause of death, it is still hard to think about all the prayers that were answered for her but not Ethan. It has gotten easier over the past two years, but I still have moments of secret bitterness towards this innocent little girl. That’s just one example. Every time I hear or read “God is so good!” in response to someone’s physical healing, I just cringe. Why wasn’t he good to my baby, too?

The next week’s lesson was from 1 Peter, and it was still hard but more hopeful. The lecture that week had several points that really resonated with me, but I want to focus on the section concerning “New life in Jesus shifts a believer’s focus to HOPE.”

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled and unfading, reserved in heaven for us who through faith are guarded by the power of God for salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3–5)

Our BSF teaching leader said that in suffering, God can “develop and refine our faith, loosening our grip on this world and leading us to trust the unseen reality of God Himself.” Nothing has loosened my grip on this world more than my child leaving it.

When Ethan’s dad leaves for his BSF group on Monday nights, the kids are usually still finishing up dinner. They have this game that has developed over time. Everyone tries to be the first to yell, “Catch you on the flip side!” when he comes in the kitchen to say goodbye. Whoever is beaten to the punch yells back, “No, no – catch YOU on the flip side!” They continue this back and forth for a few minutes, then Ethan’s dad will yell “Catchyouontheflipside” really fast and duck out of the kitchen.

This always makes me smile but the other day it occurred to me how profound this little game really is. They shift their focus from leaving to the hope of their reunion, and that makes all the difference in their parting.

My favorite quote from the lecture was “Eternal realities stabilize us and sustain us in daily realities.” I might consider getting it tattooed on my arm. If there is any other way to make it through the daily realities of traumatic bereavement, I surely don’t know of it.

I will never get a handprint turkey, never see Ethan in his preschool Thanksgiving program. Instead of thinking about stocking stuffers for Ethan, I went to Hobby Lobby to pick out new Christmas decorations for his graveside. I am planning ways to celebrate my twin boys on their 3rd birthday at Disneyworld, despite the fact that one will not be with us at “the happiest place on earth.”

Those are just a few examples from the past week. I could go on with a whole list of big and small daily realities that have knocked me off balance or made me want to quit altogether, but a pity party is not the goal of this post. The point is that the only thing that keeps me from utter despair when facing moments like these are, in fact, eternal realities stabilizing and sustaining me.

God is good, even though I cannot always feel or comprehend this truth.

I will not have a handprint turkey, but one day I will hold his hand.

I will not celebrate Christmas with him this year, but one day we will sing together in the presence of the Savior.

Jesus has made a way for my family to be together in a place that is so much better than Disneyworld I literally cannot conceive of it. And we get to stay, together, FOREVER.

Catch you on the flip side, my sweet Ethan. Catch you on the flip side.

Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands · 2 Comments

A Purpose in Prison

File:1627 Rembrandt Paulus im Gefängnis Staatsgalerie Stuttgart anagoria.JPG

Ethan’s Mom: This summer, I was contacted by the leader of our BSF chapter after being recommended for consideration as a group leader for this year’s study. For those unfamiliar with BSF (Bible Study Fellowship), it is a worldwide interdenominational Bible study that follows a specific format in all of its local chapters. Members interact with scripture in 4 ways each week — personally answering questions regarding a scripture passage, discussing their answers in a small group, listening to a lecture from the local teaching leader, and reading notes on the passage published by BSF. The study usually concentrates on a single book of the Bible over the course of a school year. I started BSF in 2016, and my first study was on the book of John. I could write a whole separate blog post on the ways I have seen and heard God work in my life through the blessing of BSF over the past 3 years. If you have read any other blog posts, you have heard us mention it before. I truly love BSF, and in many ways, attending small group and lecture has been easier for my broken heart than church services on Sunday morning.

But nowhere in the world is totally safe for a mother who has lost a baby. A sight, sound, or comment can bring me right back to the trauma resulting from Ethan’s death or the twins birth in a heartbeat. (Case in point — even typing the phrase, “in a heartbeat” carries such painful connotations for me, and I tried for a minute to come up with another phrase.) This is also true of BSF. Our class has many wonderful older or middle aged women in attendance and leadership, but a significant proportion of class members are young mothers who come and bring their infants and preschool children, who attend an excellent children’s program while the ladies are in group and lecture. After losing a baby, it can be very painful to see and/or interact with pregnant women or those with babies. Sometimes the things “normal people” express anxiety over or complain about seem so trivial in the shadow of the tragedy we’ve experienced. I see those moms that bring twins to class and think how I should be able to chat with them about the unique struggles of raising multiples, but I’m not technically doing that. I admit that it is difficult not to resent that those moms got to keep both of their babies.

Because of this, I prayed and discussed my concerns with Ethan’s dad before committing to lead a small discussion group. I felt like this was something that God wanted me to do, and truthfully, I was very excited about being involved with the leadership team and attending their weekly meetings in addition to our class meetings.

Then I received my class list. 13 young moms, 11 who had registered babies or preschoolers in the children’s program. When I called to introduce myself, I found out at least 3 will be bringing infants to group with them. In my mind, I started picturing these cute, stylish young moms with their perfectly delightful babies and toddlers in tow while I bring two boys and the shadow of someone missing.  These moms don’t need me and my messy theology.

The next day I attended the BSF Summit leader training simulcast with the other area classes. The day was filled with prayer and teaching, and at the very end, they showed a video. I admit, when it started, I wrote it off as cheesy BSF propaganda. The video was a dramatization of Audrey Wetherell Johnson founding BSF in the 1950s. Ms. Johnson had been a missionary to China, even suffering as a prisoner in a Chinese concentration camp during WWII. The video shows her in the camp, sick and cold, explaining to a fellow prisoner that all she wants is for people to love the book in her hands (the Bible) as much as she does. Then it flashed forward to a speech she gave to a ladies mission society after she had returned to California. She frets about what to wear, noting that she didn’t have to worry about being stylish when she was teaching pagans. After the lecture, five women ask her to lead them in a Bible study.  She returns home and complains to a friend that these women didn’t need her, they already knew the Bible. However, her attitude and demeanor betrayed her heart — she didn’t think those California housewives really needed her when so many others had “real” problems. “Why am I to give more to those who have so much?” she asks. The answer comes in a flashback to the concentration camp — a Chinese woman says, “I thought all you wanted was for people to love that book.” So she says yes, still unsure why the setting of her story changed from prison to the suburbs.

But God had a bigger plan. He grew the small Bible study into a worldwide movement that now has over 350,000 class members in more than 40 countries, including her beloved China. She couldn’t see the outcome in her lifetime, but God was faithful to honor her heart’s desire for the Chinese people as a result of her obedience.

My heart’s desire is for Ethan to be remembered, valued as a person and part of our family, and used in God’s kingdom, just as I pray that my living children will be. I don’t see how sharing him with people “who have so much” accomplishes that, but maybe I won’t know in my lifetime. Maybe God will use Ethan in ways that no one could even imagine today.

As He tends to do with important things, God brought this point home again soon after the summit. My mother-in-law gave me a wonderful book, “Perfectly Human: Nine Months with Cerian” by Sarah C. Williams, a professor at Oxford. The author’s daughter, Cerian, received a life limiting diagnosis of skeletal dyspepsia at a 20-week ultrasound. Near the end of the book, Sarah describes an eye-opening moment after Cerian’s loss at a lecture on “the gift of self” given by a Catholic theologian. She had intentionally avoided inviting a colleague who had earlier insisted that not terminating the pregnancy was irresponsible and questioned if her husband was pressuring her to give up her “right to choose.” Sarah runs into the woman on the way to the lecture, and she decides to come along. The lecture sparks an intimate moment between the two women, in which Sarah realizes the reason her colleague no longer believes in God. She goes on to say:

“I realize looking back that I was in danger at that time of getting locked in my own sorrow and grief and cutting myself off from other people. My colleague showed me something important, and her friendship drew me out of myself. Everyone hurts. We all hit the boundaries of our capacity at some time or another.”

Honestly, it can be tempting to cut myself off from other people. Many times it actually feels like I was cut off from people through no choice of my own. Grief is incredibly isolating.  People have avoided us and made ridiculous small talk to avoid mentioning anything about Ethan’s death. I have found this to be true of acquaintances as well as close friends. But I know that refusing to acknowledge the joy or even the pain in others’ lives is no way to live. It is hard not to play the my-pain-is-bigger-than-yours game, but who wins?

I was starting to feel pretty good about all of this when I found out through a seemingly random chain of events that one of my original group members had twins. I asked the leadership team for details, saying that sometimes twins are hard and I would do better if I was prepared. Turns out, this lady has twin boys almost the exact same age as mine. I had to grab onto the counter to steady myself when I received the message. This was my biggest fear – that someone in my group would have twins, 2 year old boy twins at that! The leaders offered immediately to change her to another group without anyone knowing why, so all that was resolved before I talked to her. After the initial rush of emotions that brought up, I realized that God brought that to our attention prior to class time because it was beyond what I can handle at this point. “A bruised reed he will not break” (Isaiah 42:3).  I am pretty sure that would have broken me.

This whole roller coaster was leading up to this week, when our actual first BSF group Tuesday. My mental pictures weren’t too far off, actually. I’m sure they all graduated high school after Y2K and have never heard the distinctive sound of a dial up modem. I felt so old!

It was awkward to introduce myself as the mother of 5. One other woman has a child in kindergarten this year, the rest have kids 2 and under. Two women had babies with them. Two are pregnant, and both are also the mothers of toddlers so the statement was made that they would just be lining everyone up for diaper changes. Before I knew it, I commented that it wasn’t terribly long ago we had three in diapers. Adding in my head, “but that only lasted two months and then we had to donate the stockpile of size 1 diapers.”

So I came home again feeling the weight of balancing being honest and real vs. sharing too much with these women. I’m sure they don’t want to hear about a baby dying of SIDS; it just hits too close to home. I thought I had softened my heart towards them and was ready to be a shepherd to this group, but I didn’t feel very shepherd-y later that afternoon.

I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of the funk. People asked how it went — OK, not great but OK. It was a comfort to pull out the familiar format of notes and questions to start on at home, just like always. Then I read this in the very last paragraph of notes:

Ask God to grip your heart with the truth that He is fully in control and fully good. When trials come, remain in God’s Word and with God’s people. Ask Jesus to draw you close to Him and turn you outwards to others. How might your “prison” be part of Gods plan to make Jesus known and loved to the ends of the earth?

The prison reference is in regard to Paul, but it stopped me in my tracks. One of the comments I made several times in the early days of overwhelming grief was “I feel like I have been given a life sentence in prison for a crime I didn’t commit.” The rest of my life stretched out in front of me like an endless march of identical dark days. There was no time off for good behavior. There was no hope of freedom.

Knowing that, read the quote again. It starts with that tricky tension in reconciling God’s goodness with his sovereignty, a persistent theme in our blog posts. I knew the part about staying in God’s Word; that is what I thought the structure and in-depth study of BSF brought to me. I hadn’t considered that BSF is also a way to remain with God’s people. My experience may indeed feel like a prison, but prisons didn’t stop Paul from shepherding his fledgling churches. The only way I can proceed to turn outwards to others is with God’s provision, one day at a time. That is a recurrent theme as we walk in the Shadowlands, but provisional grace is a lot easier to write about than to trust. So I will leave us with this song/prayer for tonight:

“Give us faith to be strong
Father, we are so weak
Our bodies are fragile and weary
As we stagger and stumble to walk where you lead
Give us faith to be strong
Give us faith to be strong
Give us strength to be faithful
This life is not long, but it’s hard
Give us grace to go on
Make us willing and able
Lord, give us faith to be strong

“Give us peace when we’re torn
Mend us up when we break
This flesh can be wounded and shaking
When there’s much too much trouble for one heart to take
Give us peace when we’re torn
Give us faith to be strong
Give us strength to be faithful
This life is not long, but it’s hard
Give us grace to go on
Make us willing and able
Lord, give us faith to be strong

“Give us hearts to find hope
Father, we cannot see
How the sorrow we feel can bring freedom
And as hard as we try, Lord, it’s hard to believe
So, give us hearts to find hope
Give us faith to be strong
Give us strength to be faithful
This life is not long, but it’s hard
Give us grace to go on
Make us willing and able
Lord, give us faith to be strong
Give us peace when we’re torn
Give us faith, faith to be strong”

Faith to Be Strong by Andrew Peterson

Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands

On the Road to Emmaus

Road to Emmaus

Several weeks ago a pastor at our church gave a sermon based on the story of the Road to Emmaus. For anyone who might be unfamiliar with it, the story can be found in Luke 24:13-35, and it is about who two followers of Jesus encountered when they were walking to a village about seven miles from Jerusalem on the day Jesus rose from the dead — before that news had widely spread. There are many fascinating aspects to the story, but this time when I was reading it one particular fact struck me in a way it had not done before. The story begins like this:

“That same day two of Jesus’ followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem. As they walked along they were talking about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself suddenly came and began walking with them. But God kept them from recognizing him.

“Jesus asked them, ‘What are you discussing so intently as you walk along?’

“They stopped short, sadness written across their faces. Then one of them, Cleopas, replied, ‘You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days.’

“‘What things?’ Jesus asked.

“‘The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth,’ they said. ‘He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people. But our leading priests and other religious leaders handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This all happened three days ago.

“‘Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive! Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, his body was gone, just as the women had said.

“Then Jesus said to them, ‘You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?’ Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

What struck me was the line: “But God kept them from recognizing him.” (Luke 24:16). The immediate question that comes to mind is why? Why did God prevent these followers from recognizing Jesus the moment He appeared to them? As the story relates, the men were clearly distraught by the events of the crucifixion. As I attempted to convey in my last post, His followers’ whole worlds were turned upside down when Jesus was killed. These men tell Jesus that they had “hoped he was the Messiah,” and then those hopes were seemingly dashed by Jesus’ sudden and gruesome demise, which they probably witnessed. So, why in the world would God prevent these grieving men from recognizing Jesus standing in the flesh before them?

Of course, you start to get some sense of the answer as the story unfolds. First, the men honestly told Jesus what they believed: they thought Jesus was a great prophet and teacher, but they were unconvinced that He was the Messiah. Jesus then explained the Scriptures (what we today call the Old Testament) to them as they were meant to be understood, with Jesus at their center. His teaching was so powerful that the men literally begged Him to stay with them longer even though they still didn’t actually know who He was.

“By this time they were nearing Emmaus and the end of their journey. Jesus acted as if he were going on, but they begged him, ‘Stay the night with us, since it is getting late.’ So he went home with them. As they sat down to eat, he took the bread and blessed it. Then he broke it and gave it to them. Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared!

“They said to each other, ‘Didn’t our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?’ And within the hour they were on their way back to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven disciples and the others who had gathered with them, who said, ‘The Lord has really risen! He appeared to Peter.'”

After the encounter, the men didn’t sit around or go to bed; they got right back on the road back to Jerusalem to tell the Disciples what had happened to them. They were practically bursting with the news. These men, who had been followers, were now true believers in Jesus as the Savior of the world because now they had to tell people about Him.

Thus, by the end of the story, it becomes clear that God kept the men from initially recognizing Jesus for their own good. Their belief needed the uncertainty, and, dare I say, the pain, that came from not understanding what had happened to Jesus. It needed those prompting questions from a seeming stranger to bring their honest doubts to the surface. The men also clearly needed guidance from Jesus to traverse this spiritual journey from anxiety to exuberance about Jesus, but they did not really know that was their need. In short, in order for the men to experience a progression from factual knowledge about the Bible and Jesus to genuine understanding and faith in who Jesus really is, the men had to be kept in the dark for a little while. Timing was crucial to a correct understanding of the answers they sought.

So, you might be thinking: “That’s all very interesting with regard to how people come to a saving knowledge of Jesus, but why are you writing about it in this blog that is dedicated to Ethan?” And the answer is that I think God can be telling us more than one thing through the stories He has preserved for us in the Bible. I have no doubt that the story of the men on the Road to Emmaus is about a journey toward faith in Jesus. But it also can have something to say about how God raises His children.

No one knows us better than God because He made us. “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13). He knows what we need, and, just as important, when we need it. So, when this story says, “God kept them from recognizing Jesus,” it suggests that there are times that God purposefully does not reveal to us the answer to a question we ask — even when we desperately want an answer for good an understandable reasons — because the timing is not right for us to receive that answer. For reasons we cannot fathom at the time, we must walk through a period of pain, uncertainty, inquisition, and spiritual guidance from the Lord before we are prepared to fully grasp the import of the answer.

If you think about it, we do the same with our own children. Children ask questions all the time that we know the answers to, but for a variety of reasons we do not provide them with an immediate direct answer. In many cases, we do not reveal the answer because the child is not ready to understand the answer. It is better for the child that the answer waits for a more appropriate time. This can be true for something as simple as a birthday surprise or as profound as how they came to be. In fact, there are even times when we will tell them the true answer because it is unavoidable, but they will not come to grasp the full import of that answer until many years later. I know this last one to be true from telling our other children when we came home from the hospital on March 10, 2017, that Ethan was not coming home. Our other children are still too young to really understand what his absence means.

The question I always ask God is Why? Why would You let our Ethan die so young, before we could see all he was meant to be? Why would You perform this miraculous work of creating so precious a creature inside his mother — together with his brother Noah — and then let that “wonderful work” die in our arms? (Psalm 139:14). Why would You allow this harrowing experience of twins being born in the back of an ambulance in an ice storm, only to then watch one of them expire after being raced to a hospital in another ambulance? Why would You have him be born with a hole in his heart, so that each of his days before a necessary (but supposedly common) surgery were a painful struggle for him, only to have him leave us before he could have that operation? Why? Why? Why?

Aside from the cold reality that evil really does exist in this world, God has not given me an answer. And to be honest, I believe that I am going to live the rest of my life — however long it is — without receiving an answer. I know that sounds depressing. And again, to be honest, there are a lot of times that the silence that surrounds that pleading question is just that: depressing, forlorn, dark — much like I imagine those men on that Road felt two days after Jesus had cried out from the Cross “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” before He breathed His last. (Matthew 27:46).

But it is also good to remember that this does not mean there isn’t an answer. The answer to Jesus’ question from the Cross came the moment He took His first breath in that tomb Sunday morning. The answer to those men’s questions was standing right in front of them even though they did not yet know it. It is a mistake to be believe that just because you do not receive an immediate answer to a heartfelt question that no answer exists -– or that you will never receive it. Sometimes the when is just as important as the what.

And I believe that there is a reason I have to wait for the answer to my question. I am well aware in saying this that it means God is purposefully allowing me to travel this road of uncertainty, doubt, and yes, even pain before I receive the answer. That is not an easy thing to accept, but the truth is often not easy; it is, however, necessary. And, by the way, that does not mean it is easy for God to make me wait, just as it is sometimes hard for me to keep an answer from my own children. God knows that I ache, and grieve, and wonder, and I believe that it rends His heart to watch me go through this experience. (Psalm 56:8).  But if sometimes what is best is not what is easiest, then that is as true for God as it is for us. So, in His infinite wisdom, He keeps the knowledge from me even though it pains Him to do so.

But please do not misunderstand: I am not saying that God thought Ethan needed to die in order for me to experience some kind of spiritual progression in my life. Some well-meaning Christians, in a round about way, say things like this to fellow believers who have suffered excruciating losses in an attempt to offer meaning for a senseless event. It isn’t true. What these people do not realize is that what they are really saying is that the loved one the fellow believer lost was just a pawn for God’s work in that believer’s life. That is an insult, not a comfort. How could this be if Ethan, like all of the other precious ones who are tragically lost through no fault of their own, is “fearfully and wonderfully made?” (Psalm 139:14). Pardon me for the bluntness, but this idea that all things occur for your own betterment is an extraordinarily selfish view of life. There is a distinct and important difference between understanding that God can produce good from the ash of tragic circumstances and saying that tragic circumstances are for our good. The former is Biblical truth; the latter is nothing less than the denial of the existence of evil.

What I am saying is that for some reason, I am not ready for the full answer to this question of Why. I think it is likely that at least part of the reason is simply that my finite existence is incapable of understanding it. Regardless, what is important for me to grasp is that sometimes God does not give us an immediate answer, not because it doesn’t exist or because we don’t deserve one, but rather because it is absolutely necessary for us to wait in order for the answer to have the meaning it is intended to have. And so I must wait. But I do not wait as one with no hope:

“It is wrong to say that the Almighty does not listen, to say the Almighty is not concerned. You say you cannot see him, but He will bring justice if you will only wait.” (Job 35:13-14).

One day I will have an answer, but it will be better than just a mystery revealed; it will include setting this wrong aright again.

“Yes, the Sovereign Lord is coming in power. He will rule with a powerful arm…. He will carry His lambs in His arms, holding them close to His heart.” (Isaiah 40:10-11).

I will not just get to see why; like the men on that Road, I will get to see Who is the answer. And I will see Him holding Ethan in His arms . . . waiting for me.

Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands · 1 Comment

A Perpetual Saturday

Ethan’s Dad: I never really gave much thought to that Saturday. It wasn’t that I was flippant about it or that I purposefully ignored it. It was just that, in the Christian tradition I grew up in (and I think most others), all of the focus is placed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. In many ways this is perfectly understandable.

Good Friday is the cataclysmic crisis point in which everything comes crashing down, the unthinkable occurs, and abject evil appears to win. For Christians that day is the definition of the ultimate sacrifice by the only One capable of making it for our sins.

In the starkest of contrasts, Easter Sunday is the glorious climax, the triumph, the grandest of all happy endings. It is the impossible of resurrection from the dead occurring, and yet it was simultaneously inevitable if Jesus was who He said He was because death could not hold onto the Author of life. For Christians that day means a new and ultimately eternal life with God.

So it is little wonder that Saturday is overlooked or even forgotten as it bridges these two profound and all-important days. But you don’t traverse a chasm without a bridge, so it is a required part of the journey, and — I have come to realize — it is more precarious than at first it might seem to be.

Can you imagine for a moment what that day must have been like for Mary, the Disciples, and others close to Jesus? Jesus had completely changed their lives: shown them miraculous signs reminiscent of wonders spoken about by ancestors of old, opened the doors of love beyond their previous comprehension, given them a brand-new purpose for life, and offered a hope unlike any they had ever known before. He had promised them an eternity with Him.

And then it all came to a sudden and sickening end in the span of one dark day. It must have been extremely confusing for them to watch Jesus be arrested, let alone witness Him beaten, then offered to the crowds, and then crucified like a common criminal. Everything they had known, believed, and hoped was instantly shattered beyond all recognition the moment Jesus breathed His last on that cross. It had to seem almost surreal, like it had to be a nightmare that they would surely awake from at any minute.

But when Saturday dawned, the darkness was still there, and it was, if anything, more oppressive. The sheer intensity of the trauma from the previous day was replaced by the stark void of the loss. Jesus really was not there. His leadership, assurance, and love were gone. More immediately, His presence was missing. And somehow they had to go on.

Remember that they did not know what would happen on Sunday. Jesus had tried to tell them, of course, but they just couldn’t understand it. Honestly, in a way you can’t blame them. It was all unlike anything that had ever happened before. Granted, as I have said, they had witnessed Jesus precipitate several miraculous events on a smaller scale: feeding thousands with almost no food, calming raging seas and walking on water, raising Lazarus after he had been in a tomb for 4 days. But this time they had watched Him die. And not just any death, but the most gruesome devised by the Roman Empire. It had to feel devastating, bewildering, hopeless. Surely they just wanted to crawl into a shell and never come out.

So they waited . . . and wondered. What was there left to do? How do you hold onto faith when everything you believed is turned upside down? How do you maintain hope when you watch it breathe it’s final breath? How do you continue to love when what illuminates that love is buried in a tomb? The questions are endless and the answers are elusive; they feel out there, yet not accessible. That Saturday they lived in a kind of netherworld — not really dead, but not capable of fully living either.

“So they took His body down
The man who said He was the resurrection and the life
Was lifeless on the ground now
The sky was red His blood along the blade of night

“And as the Sabbath fell they shrouded Him in linen
They dressed Him like a wound
The rich man and the women
They laid Him in the tomb

“….

“So they laid their hopes away
They buried all their dreams
About the Kingdom He proclaimed
And they sealed them in the grave
As a holy silence fell on all Jerusalem”

-Andrew Peterson (God Rested)

If you haven’t already guessed it, the reason for this rumination (other than the fact that it is Easter weekend) is because for my wife and I it feels as if we are living every day in something like that Saturday. You see, on one level, the day of a tragic event is the hardest because the vividness of its devastation haunts you over and over again. But in another sense, the day after is almost harder. At the time, the day of the event seems surreal, like it can’t be happening, like you are watching it from the outside as it unfolds. But the day after the horror, the reality hits you because the frantic energy of the moment is no longer there, and a person you love gone. The stark realization of permanent absence desolates your soul and you can hardly breathe, let alone dare to believe that one day the chasm of that loss will disappear and you will be reunited again.

An irreplaceable presence, our Ethan, is missing from our lives every day. It is an absence we did not ask for or expect. And that absence stretches on, with each new day bringing an ache and unsettledness that never quite subsides. When we say we are “Walking in the Shadowlands,” this is, in large part, what we mean.

An undeniable fact about that Saturday long ago is that God knew what it would be like for those close to Jesus after He was crucified.  God knew about the pain, confusion, and uncertainty, and yet He did not break through the silence to give them reassurance. He let then wait until Sunday to see the answer for themselves. I think it is worth asking: Why did God allow them to endure that Saturday?

The most immediate answer is that He knew everything would be made right again on Sunday. But what if it was more than that? Suppose that the waiting, with all of its attendant anguish, bewilderment, and doubt, was a necessary part of the process for the revelation of the Resurrection.  Would the Disciples have fully grasped the implications of the Resurrection without experiencing what life would be without Jesus’ presence?

Of course, Christians today know how the whole story unfolded, so it is harder to grasp what the loss of Jesus must have felt like on that Saturday.  But we do experience personal losses, sometimes profound ones.  And sometimes, when there is a loss that is wretchingly dear, God asks us to wait the rest of our earthly lives — to trust Him in the midst of the daggers of pain and whirlwinds of questions — until we come to the end of that seemingly perpetual Saturday and see that the loss will be made whole.

For me, then, there is a strange comfort in the fact that dark Saturdays are not alien to Christianity; they are, in fact, apparently somehow integral to it.  It does not lessen Ethan’s loss for me, but it does show me that God knows what I am feeling, and the fact that He has let me experience it is not proof that He is not there, as some would tell you.  Instead, the loss of that precious boy, and the restless unease that accompanies it, imparts a little more understanding of what life would mean without Jesus, without His death, burial, and resurrection.  So, I will keep walking in the shadows and looking forward to dawning of that Sunday when

“the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).