This week my town mourns a
broken creation. Our world is stalked by
death. Children shoot each other, bridges
fall on people, and monstrous chaos incomprehensibly careens into some of our leading citizens' dreams. Easter
means nothing unless we face this squarely.
Not long ago, a bereaved son, who had lost his
mom to cancer, told me he did not want to hear anybody say, “God has a plan;
God has a plan.” I don’t blame him. If
there is anything crueler than death, it’s telling the bereaved that God
orchestrated their loved one’s murder in order to accomplish some inscrutable
good. That’s more insensitive than
saying humans are nothing more than bio-chemicals; and, therefore, a mother’s death
is nothing more than a change in chemical composition. No, the grieving son’s instincts are right. With the perfect mixture of rage and grief,
he cried that his mother’s death “is just not fair.”
For many, unjust suffering seems to argue
against faith in God. One young man once
pointed me to a video about some small creature who cruelly keeps its prey
alive while it slowly sucks its life out.
“How,” this person asked, “could a loving God create a cruel world like
that?”
“Because Jews and
Christians believe that the process of creation is obstructed and unfinished,” I
responded.
He seemed unaware of
this. My questioner didn’t know that
Christians believe alien forces of death have lodged themselves into an ongoing
creative process and that it is a central tenet of Christian faith that God in
Christ entered creation’s experience, suffering a most cruel and unfair death. Nor had this man considered Jesus’
resurrection being a kind of renewed act of creation which shakes the unjust order
to its foundation. When God raised
Jesus, this Jesus became the “first-fruits” of a “new creation” where Lion and
lamb will one day lay down together.
As the earth shook on
Easter morning the angels announced the news to which church bells continue to
give advanced notice: death and injustice will be damned. While they are presently still with us, they will
not have the last word.
