Faith and Darkness | Texas Tragedy
Beds are empty tonight. Families facing a darkness they never knew possible. This isn't supposed to happen to anyone, especially kids. Bullet leave guns which lead to loved ones leaving families. Death stings.
When I worked as a hospital chaplain I often thought about darkness, Christianity, and faith. How they mix and how they feel hard to put together at times. As I grappled with unimaginable sorrow and tragedy within the hospital I learned that the Christian faith is most helpful, and God seen as most caring, when we do not try to put a neat little Christian bow around suffering.
You can't try and explain away tragedies like this. You cannot dive into reasonings and whys, there is no reason. I am not saying that God is not sovereign or that He isn't working within all of our lives. He is.
I am saying though, that suffering cannot be fixed on this side of Heaven. When tragedy strikes your family, no Christian theology, no phrase, no understanding of the reasonings will bring back dead children. They don't stop pain. We need something beyond that as we face our darknesses.
If you believe in a Christianity that absolves you of facing hard days and grappling with darkness, you forgot what the leader of your faith faced Himself, darkness and death.
So where did I find the meeting place of God in darkness? Does God care at all about our pains in this life?
I found a Psalm that was very helpful for me. It didn't pretend suffering was small or easily explainable. It didn't even seek to explain suffering. It simply says that God sees our tears and cares. Psalm 56:8 - "You have kept count of my tossing; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?"
So tonight I remind you, we do not have a King so lofty and above our difficulties that He sweeps away our tears with disdain. No, we have a King who has descended into the pain with us in Jesus, who felt pain and knows darkness. You do not cry alone as you grieve. Your God knows darkness too.
Jesus understands where you are, more than you realize. May this Psalm be a gentle reminder, your pain is not unseen by the Lord. For now, we have his promises to comfort us. They help us trust in the Lord when it is difficult to understand what on earth is going on. But Christianity also provides hope, hope that one day all darkness will be gone. And the initiating of that transition from darkness to light begins when we will hear with our own ears and feel on our own faces, the gentle hands of God, wiping away our tears—
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.” And the One seated on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”
-Revelation 21:3-5
Until that day, please know that tonight God sees your tears and cares for you. He is putting things in motion to show His love for you until the day when He finally can personally wipe away every tear you have ever cried. He cares.
Sad with hope,
Josh.