When Bad Things Happen preached at Leaside United Church July 20th, 2014

Romans 8:37 – 39 (based on The Message)

I am absolutely convinced that nothing - nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable - absolutely nothing can separate us from God’s love because of the way that Jesus has embraced us all.

Revelation 7:17 The Lamb on the Throne will shepherd them, will lead them to spring waters of Life. God will wipe every last tear from their eyes.”

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This week the community of Leaside suffered a tragic loss, senseless in every possible way. A child of seven, crossing the street, was killed. Everyone, her family, those who knew her, those didn’t – was touched by the tragedy.  A family is in grief, a neighbourhood is in grief. Flowers, teddy bears, small handwritten messages from school friends – messages of love and memory has arisen on the corner. Even those who did not know the family came to lay flowers, to pray, to talk with others. A vigil was held Thursday afternoon, with the agreement of the family.

Israel invades Gaza, and although we are told civilians are not targeted, the pictures we see are children. A children’s hospital is destroyed. Families in grief, neighbourhoods in grief. Rockets go in to Israel, and other children die, more families grieve.

A plane is shot down; among the dead, 100 researchers on their way to an international conference on HIV-Aids which takes as many children as it does adults. A young medical student just starting his career is killed – and in Ajax a family mourns the loss of a child because of a senseless act.

It seems as if the world has gone completely haywire. For us, here, it’s on our doorstep. I don’t think anyone can say they are untouched or unmoved by the tragic loss of Georgia Walsh, a beautiful child with who knows what future might have been before her. The picture of that small little body in the street lingers. We can only imagine what her family is feeling, and what the driver of the car is feeling. No matter how strongly we believe, no matter how we believe our faith upholds us, there is a part of us which says “Why on earth?” and part which wonders, really, if God is real.

Each of us has to work through some myths about death. People will say, for instance, that time heals all wounds. I don’t think the wounds ever heal. We learn to live with the loss, live with the grief, but the wound remains open. Those parents, all of them, will always look around and expect that at any moment, the child will run in the door. Seriously questioning the nature of God is not unusual for people of faith.

Then there’s "let go of the dead child and move on with your own life." This was once a clinical understanding; in reality, lifelong grief is normal, especially in cases of the loss of children. Losing a child challenges a worldview; children are supposed to be hope for the future, and when a child dies, much of a person’s hope dies as well. Closure simply does not happen.

When we speak of the healing of grief, we are treating it as an illness which can be cured. It isn’t. Sometimes the grief gets harder and harder to deal with as time goes on. The first Christmas, the first birthday, summer vacations – things which open up fresh grief and questioning. There will be guilt – why wasn’t I there, I should have been, I should have done……the driver of the van will be questioning everything he is, and his guilt and grief will not end. Some parents will turn completely and permanently away from God and belief of any sort. Others will turn even more toward God, and some will struggle with both.

Another thing we often hear is “It’s God’s will.”, or “God is in control” or “God had a purpose in this.”. If such deaths – a child struck by a car, rockets and bombs killing innocents, a surface-to-air missile bringing down a plane – if such deaths are God’s will, if God somehow causes these things to happen for some obscure reason only God known, then God is not God – at least, not the God in which I believe. If God is in control, that’s the same as saying God deliberately caused all this grief, yet had the power to prevent it; it’s the same as saying God has the power to intervene and stop all war, all disease, all death – and God chooses to – instead – cause war, and disease, and death. I cannot and will not believe that is who or what God is.

Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a book called “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”. In it, he says “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.”

“The painful things that happen to us are not punishments for our misbehavior, nor are they in any way part of some grand design on God's part. Because the tragedy is not God's will, we need not feel hurt or betrayed by God when tragedy strikes. We can turn to Him for help in overcoming it, precisely because we can tell ourselves that God is as outraged by it as we are.”

…and when a child dies because of a set of circumstances which just are, God weeps at the death. God weeps. God loves us, unconditionally, and wishes nothing but the best for all of us. One of the strongest statements of faith we have is our creed. “In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us; we are not alone.” Neither life, nor death, can separate us from the love of God. Thanks be to God.