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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.

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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.

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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).

 

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The Silence of God

GethsemaneEthan’s Dad: “Silence is golden.” Except when it’s not. You might think that when there are four children 8 years of age and under running around you, you have more than enough noise, and you long for quiet. But when you know there is a voice missing, jabbering from another two year-old that you should be hearing in the din, the chaos isn’t enough. Instead what you hear is a sound of silence that pierces your soul.

As Ethan’s mom hinted at in her last post, lately I also have been thinking about another kind of silence: the silence of God.

“It’s enough to drive a man crazy; it’ll break a man’s faith
It’s enough to make him wonder if he’s ever been sane
When he’s bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And the heaven’s only answer is the silence of God.”

-Andrew Peterson (The Silence of God)

There seems to be an impression among some Christians that God is only silent when we are distant from Him. That is to say, the only times we don’t hear from God are when we are enmeshed in deliberate sin or when we don’t like the answer we are getting about a request we have made to God. But this is, at best, only a half-truth.

To begin with, unless you are so distant from God that your conscience is dulled, the fact is that a Christian does hear from God quite loudly in the midst of deliberate sin. God lets us know in no uncertain terms that what we are doing is wrong. That’s why it is a deliberate sin. And if we don’t like what God is telling us when we ask for something, then He isn’t actually being silent, is He?

But I think in a way what these Christians are really saying is that God is never actually silent; we are just turning a deaf ear to Him. Now, this might sound like good theology to you, but as well-meaning as it may be, it is flat wrong. The silence of God is a very a real and agonizing experience for believers the world over.

“It’ll shake a man’s timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God.”

Moreover, the Bible does not shy away from this fact.

Job suffered with excruciating pain and loss for a stretch of time before God spoke to Him, and even when God broke the silence He did not fully explain to Job all of the reasons for his suffering. (See Job 38-41).  When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were sentenced to die in the fiery furnace, Scripture records that the three of them stated that “even if [God] does not [save us from the blazing furnace], we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Daniel 3:18). The clear implication is that the three men were not told by God beforehand what would happen to them when they were thrown into the fire. In the period of time between the Old and New Testaments, the people of Israel lived for over 400 years without any revelation from God about their salvation through a Messiah. John the Baptist passed time in prison under Herod without hearing anything from God as to whether his ministry had made any real difference. Finally John — in apparent desperation — sent some of his followers to Jesus to ask Him whether He really was the Messiah. (See Matthew 11:2). The Disciples spent the Saturday after Jesus’ death in despondency and silence (a period worth pondering in a future post).

Are we to write off all of these people’s recorded experiences as false impressions about God? If those examples are not enough, how about Jesus himself, who exclaimed from the cross: “My God my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

“Oh,” you say, “that was different because Jesus was taking on the sin of the world in that moment. God had to turn away. The same is not true for us.” But I think Jesus’ question was expressing the culmination of His entire experience during the crucifixion. It’s likely that God’s silence started the moment Jesus was led away from the Garden of Gethsemane by the Sanhedrin’s guards. Jesus came to earth and experienced what we experience. Did He bear more pain that we ever will or could during the crucifixion? Absolutely. But Jesus’ experience with the silence of God — perhaps more than anything else could — reflected His humanity.

“And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God.”

In asking this question — “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” — Jesus echoed the words of David as recorded in Psalm 22. So David too experienced this silence. And, in fact, the Psalms are full of reflections on the silence of God. For instance, David in Psalm 13 inquires:

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

“Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
and my enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.”

Psalm 42, the beginning of which is often (and I believe wrongly) quoted in a happy fashion, says:

“As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
‘Where is your God?'”

Psalm 77, which to me is one of the best passages in all of Scripture, pulls no punches:

“I cried out to God for help;
I cried out to God to hear me.
When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands,
and I would not be comforted.

“I remembered you, God, and I groaned;
I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.
You kept my eyes from closing;
I was too troubled to speak.
I thought about the former days,
the years of long ago;
I remembered my songs in the night.
My heart meditated and my spirit asked:

“‘Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?
Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?
Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?'”

And then there is Psalm 88, which is perhaps the most depressing expression of God’s silence in all of Scripture. It contains lines such as:

“You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.
Your wrath lies heavily on me;
you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.

“….

“I call to you, Lord, every day;
I spread out my hands to you.
Do you show your wonders to the dead?
Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
“Is your love declared in the grave,
your faithfulness in Destruction?
Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

“But I cry to you for help, Lord;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
Why, Lord, do you reject me
and hide your face from me?”

Why would God include these expressions of anguish in Scripture if the experiences were not real, and, perhaps more importantly, appropriate? God does not shy away from His silence, so why should we? The expressions of silence are there often enough that we are almost forced to face the prospect that the silence is purposeful. So why would God sometimes choose to be silent in our most painful moments, the very moments when you would think we need Him the most?

When we ask the question “why did this happen?” what we really mean is: Why weren’t You there, God? Why didn’t You stop it? Isn’t that, in part, what is behind Jesus’ haunting question: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”

Yet, so often when we ask that question, what follows is silence. In our case, we screamed the question, over and over: Why did Ethan die? Why did you not tell us earlier that he wasn’t breathing? Why didn’t you stop this? Why couldn’t the paramedics save him? Why didn’t you bring Ethan back, like you did the son of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17-7-24), the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), Jairus’s daughter (Luke 8:40-42, 49-56), and Lazarus (John 11:1-44). We received no answer, no comfort, no reassurance. Just cold, dark, silence.

It has taken me a while to realize, as I indicated above, that perhaps this silence was intentional. In fact, I think the “Why” questions might be important not so much because of answers you hope to receive, but instead precisely because they are accompanied by silence. It does not seem so at the time, but if God is not going to supernaturally intervene, then silence is really the only appropriate response in a horrific moment like that because there is no answer that will satisfy other than “I will give you your son back.” Yet God has already chosen, for whatever reason, not to provide the satisfying answer. And He is no fool. God knows that when that is the case, the response from His child will be anger, disappointment, confusion, and despair. The truth is, in that God-forsaken moment — and for a while afterward — if His answer was not “I will save Ethan,” I did not want to hear from God and He knew it.

I think that the silence occurs because the answer to “Why?” will not satisfy if it does not include an immediate fix to the brokenness. And when you sit in the silence what you start to realize is that God is not who you thought He was. This may sound like a negative thing, but that is only the case if you think you have God figured out. And if you think that, then your God is too small because He fits into your finite mind. He stretches far beyond that.

“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,’
declares the Lord.
“‘As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.'” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The unvarnished truth is that God is a lot more concerned with how we answer the “Who” questions of life than He is with answering our “Why” questions. For one inquiring mind, Jesus answered the question: “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29-37). The answer is: everyone. On another occasion, Jesus asked His Disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” And Jesus approved Peter’s answer: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” (Matthew 16:15-17).

And in the silence of God, this last question is the most important question of all: when your world comes crashing down around you, when the unthinkable tragedy is your reality, when you weep until you have no strength to weep anymore (1 Samuel 30:4), who do you say Jesus is? If He is just some friend or spiritual mentor or great teacher, He is useless in that moment. But if He is who Peter said He was, then He makes all the difference in the world.

Because that person, that Savior, cares for you beyond all measure and He proved it by dying for you. He didn’t just tell us He loves us, He demonstrated it in the most agonizing way conceivable to our finite minds, by dying on an instrument of torture. And beyond that, if He is who Peter said He was, then Jesus isn’t even just some martyr who died a horrible death in our place. He is alive, meaning He overcame death, and He is capable of extending, and eager to offer, that same gift to us — and to our little ones whose lives were so tragically cut short.

This is what real faith is about: it is about foregoing the “Why” based on the “Who.” If we can accept that, then we can keep on living — if not in complete peace — then at least in genuine hope. “And this hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who God has given to us.” (Romans 5:5).