FAQ's @ GSLC:
"Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?"
Pastor Mike Anderson
Sunday, August 19, 2007 - GSLC-South

<--Back to Sermon Archive list

It's funny because a couple of times as I was preparing for this sermon and telling people what the topic was I got the order mixed and said, "The sermon for this week is why Good Things Happen to Bad People!" Although it is kind of funny, I guess we could be asking this question as well.

But today we are focusing on the original question which is "Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People." Most of us have heard of the famous book written by Rabbi Kushner titled "When Bad Things Happen to Good People".

Rabbi Kushner's book was in response to his own suffering. His own son, Aaron, suffered from premature aging, which he died from. Being a religious leader this provoked a personal crisis for Rabbi Kushner. In his words, "I knew … that one day I would write this book. I would write it out of my own need to put into words some of the things I have come to believe and know. And I would write it to help other people who might one day find themselves in a similar predicament. I would write it for all those people who wanted to go on believing, but whose anger at God made it hard for them to hold on to their faith and be comforted by religion. And I would write it for all those people whose love for God and devotion to Him led them to blame themselves for their suffering and persuade themselves that they deserved it." (When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Harold Kushner, p.4)

Rabbi Kushner begins by stating that often people struggle with suffering because they make God the cause of all suffering and try to salvage their view of Him one of the following reasons…

I might add that all of these have an element of truth, but are seemingly trite and cliché if taken only by themselves and Kushner agrees when summarizes,

"All the responses to tragedy which we have considered have at least one thing in common. They all assume that God is the cause of our suffering, and they try to understand why God would want us to suffer. …"

He suggests there may be another approach. Maybe God does not cause our suffering. Maybe it happens for some reason other than the will of God. So he offers several other explanations that leave God out of the equation.
  1. Sometimes there is no reason. Basically this is just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some might point to the bridge giving way in Minneapolis as an example of this. Another example of this is natural laws that cause earthquakes or diseases and affect good and bad people alike.
  2. Some suffering is caused by evil people's actions. Case in point, Adam and Eve were given free will which is intrinsic to our humanness. God took a risk in truly giving us free will and part of that risk resulted in the Fall of humankind. And we have seen over the years and continue to see many bad things happening to good people as a result of Fall. Ie. Terrorism, Mass Murders
  3. Finally, he relates that some of the suffering we cause ourselves for failing to take accountability for our actions, or getting angry at the very people that are trying to help us like God, others, or even anger directed at ourselves.
Indeed Rabbi Kushner has many vital contributions to make to understand suffering, and why bad things happen to good people. The problem is that his conclusion is summed up by what he says here, "I no longer hold God responsible for illnesses, accidents, and natural disasters, because I realize that I gain little and I lose so much when I blame God for those things. I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it, more easily than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die, for whatever exalted reason." (p. 134)

Kushner concludes that indeed all God is all-caring, and yet He is not all powerful, because for Him it is harder to worship a God who would allow bad things to happen to good people, than to believe He is all powerful. The power of God he concludes is the strength He gives us to endure suffering and those who walk with us in our suffering.

The huge theological problem is, though one has to admit there is a lot of truth in his writing, if there is something more powerful than God that that thing is God.

So how do we get at a good theological, biblical answer that answers this one of life's toughest questions without surrendering that God is all powerful?

In our passage today, see a man blind from birth. The disciples incorrectly assumed that he was born blind because of either his sin or his parents. Based on the story of Esau and Jacob, who fought for the birthright in the womb, the rabbis taught that someone could sin in the womb. That's the way they explained birth defects.

Or they could have been teaching on the basis of Exodus 20:5 that the blindness was a result of generational sin that was passed on to the 3rd and 4th generation. But Jesus answers by saying, "Neither this man, or his parents had sinned, but that the power of God might be seen in Him."

I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it in the Message. Jesus responds by saying, "You're asking the wrong question. You're looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world's Light."

Jesus focuses less on the "Why", though he quickly dismisses this man's or his parents sin as a why, and focuses on "What" and "Who". He focuses on what can be done for the man, and who can do it for him, namely He and later by application His disciples.

You see we can spend all day philosophizing and waxing eloquently about the why's, but forget to reach out in compassion. It's similar to the phenomenon of spending all of our time in bible study, without ever putting the principles into practice. Jesus said as long as there is daylight we need to be about the tasks of bringing in the light.

Similarly we can argue in our denominations about who is right, or who has the perfect theology or worship service, and meanwhile we can have a whole generation that sees no relevance in the Church.

So while we may never have answers that fully tell us why bad things happen to good people we have the Answer! We have Jesus Christ. And we have the promise that "We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us!" Philippians 4:13

And Paul who was certainly no stranger to suffering says in Romans 8:28, "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose."

There is a good chance if you are a human being, you are going to go through suffering. We all go through differing amounts at different times. And when that suffering comes we has human beings that trust in God have a choice. We can let the why of the suffering completely consume us and become a victim of the suffering, or we can choose to look for how that suffering can be used for good while it is still daylight.

Importantly the Scripture teaches us to bear one another's burdens. Suffering teaches us how to truly love and how together we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength. Let's watch this video to see how this father and son discovered the power of together …

I'd like to close and say this is not the first Father-Son team to work together. For we know that it is God who sent His perfect Son to the earth. And God allowed the "most good person" to suffer the "most bad death", on a cross. But together they turned His suffering into the greatest good of all time, the salvation of our souls.

May God teach us to endure suffering and learn from it, and may God teach us to walk through it together and grow closer to each other and to Him Amen!!!

<--Back to Sermon Archive list