Why God?

When things do not go the way that we think that they should or that we want them to go, we cry out, “Why, God?

When something horrendous like the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut breaks out, those who suffer the direct effects are hit by such a shock that they are left with little other than to ask and cry out, “Why, God?”

Since we all have suffered shocking things in our lives and we all have suffered some form of loss and grief and anguish and heartache, we all relate to the circumstances of such an event so that we all are inclined to cry out, “Why, God?”

But deep down we know that this is pretense.  We are only pretending not to know why these things happen.  We pretend not to know because to admit that we know the reason is to face reality honestly, which leaves us with accountability, very painful accountability.  We do not want to face this.  We would actually rather allow things to become worse than to face the truth openly and honestly so as to confront the real problem and to deal with it.

Moreover, we know the futility of asking, “Why, God?”

After all, God has plainly told us why.  Even if He had not told us, the answer is plain for us to see.  There is no real mystery here.

No one can escape the truth.  The truth is unavoidable.  We attempt to find ways to bury it or to hide from it, but eventually the truth comes to the fore.  Eventually the light of the truth drives away the shadows in which we lurk so that we stand exposed by the light.

This is true both individually and societally.

Why does shit happen?  It happens because of the sin that is in the world, sin that inheres to each one of us and to society as a whole.  We are sinful people.  We are a sinful society.

We ignore the truth.  We bury the truth.  We lie.  We accept what is wrong and try to excuse it.  We allow what is right to be ignored and denied and even to be persecuted.

We have allowed God to be replaced with free will.  We have allowed creation to be supplanted by evolution.  We have allowed absolute truth to be diminished to relativism.  Theology is rejected for psychology.  Divinely revealed knowledge is cast aside for subjectively deduced reason that is given the pseudonym of science.  Grace is renamed as decision or commitment.  Love for neighbor and brother is replaced by tolerance.

We excuse the sacrifice of children by calling it “choice” and even a “right.”

Is it even possible to find a movie that does not have revenge as part of the plot?  Revenge, murder, selfish gain, selfish disregard for the safety of self and of others through extreme sports and fast driving.  Even running red lights is presented as cool.  Stealing of vehicles and breaking traffic laws is promoted as exciting and even acceptable.  Irresponsible and promiscuous sexual behavior is displayed as the norm.

The answer for people’s problems is taught to be some form of pharmaceutical wonder drug.  Depression is no longer counted as a reaction to grief and suppressed anger so that it now is a disorder caused by chemical imbalance that must be controlled medically.

And then we see the results of our defiance and cry out, “Why, God?”

Thankfully, God is not satisfied with merely answering our belligerent demand.  He does not stop with simply answering the question of why these things continue to happen and to become even more prevalent as society moves farther and farther from Him.  He presses onward to give the answer to the problem.  He actually puts the answer into action.

In slightly over a week we will again celebrate His answer, His solution, His salvation.

For those who are genuinely weary of the pretense and the perpetual denial of truth that always leads to the same disappointing end, He has provided His Gospel.  For those who are truly tired of seeking answers for themselves, He has given His Church on earth and the means of grace.  For those who honestly admit their own helplessness and cry out for real help, He says, “Come to Me and I will give you rest.”

Perhaps it is time that we stop crying out defiantly with, “Why, God?” and come together to cry out with relief, “Thanks be to God!”  This is the great gift of the Christmas season.  His name is Jesus.

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Johnny Cash - Hurt

Today I viewed a movie that included this Johnny Cash song at the end:



As I heard this song I heard Johnny’s broken heart as well as the broken hearts of many people in the world, some whom I know closely.  Some are very dear to me personally.  Some I care for dearly, even though barely knowing them.  Yet their pain is steeped into my memory and beyond, even into my heart and soul.

This song, especially the final stanza, made me think of the sad theft that has occurred in most of what is today called Christianity.

The full lyrics are listed at Lyrics.
Here is the last stanza:

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

These words very powerfully resonate with the false doctrine of most of what is considered to be Christianity today.  These words reflect the image of humanity lost in self-reliance, knowing nothing of God’s pure grace.  Most Christians confess this very same empty doctrine of works righteousness.  Sinful man cannot keep himself.  Sinful man is blinded to the way so that he seeks where he may, but never finds the way that he seeks.

I have watched those I love allow to be brushed from their sacred heads their everlasting crowns of life, to be exchanged for flowery temporal wreaths placed upon their whitewashed tombs, tabernacles of clay.  Those who once rested securely in the promises of their baptism now seek to find their own way, calling their own decisions and their own efforts at godliness the way of the Lord.  Those who once humbly confessed the faith of Jesus have turned to boasting of their own faith in Jesus.  Those who once longed for the blessed Communion of the body and blood of the Lord now trust in the fellowship of coffee and donuts.  Once they professed the creeds, but now they promote tolerance of mixed confessions.  Where they formerly united in the historic liturgy and rich proclamation of the ancient hymnody, they now divide themselves into multiple worship services of diverse style and focus, even bragging of the blended nature of their contemporaneity with the world. Their own personal witness has been elevated in superiority over the doctrine and practice of the apostles.

“Judge not lest ye be judged,” and “I cannot judge another person’s heart,” has become the mantra by which all who profess the holy catholic Church are judged and condemned as “unloving” and “intolerant.”

Yes, this song by the Man in Black is a very sad song.

Sadder still is the song of those who reduce the Gospel to a nondescript guideline of how personal faith in Jesus and seeking to live a good life, or at least a better life and treating others with some level of respect, is how Christianity and the Church is rightly defined.  This song is far sadder even than Johnny’s, for Johnny at least realized that his way was not the right way.




Johnny Cash - Hurt

Hurt (3:37)

Enough of Lent

For me, there is never enough of Lent. Lent is the season of the Church year that gets me through the tough times. For me it is more uplifting than even Easter. As much as I love Easter and the glorious hymns of the Resurrection, their joy and glory come only in connection with the austere season of Lent.

I remember as a child and a teenager often being disappointed on Easter because we did not sing enough hymns. And my family attended at least three services on Easter Sunday. But especially as a teenager, I wanted to sing every hymn of the Resurrection in the book. Why? The season of Lent made me hungry. The season of Lent taught me why the Resurrection is both absolutely necessary as well as why it is possible.

It is the Lenten theme that carries me through every day. Yes, the awareness of the resurrection is my hope, but the theme of Lent is what makes the hope of the resurrection real.

Lent is God’s cure for depression. When I am feeling down and depressed, it is the hymns of lenten focus that lift me up. I also sing “The Lord’s My Shepherd, I’ll Not Want” (TLH 436) regularly, but the hymn that I can always count on to lift me out of the depths is TLH 146: “Lamb of God, Pure and Holy.” Nothing in this world has been able to drag me down beneath the reach of this hymn. Other Lenten hymns will come into my heart throughout the year as well, but this one is very easy to memorize and carry in my heart and mind. Moreover, this hymn does not mess around with anything other than the raw power of God. When I am hurting and despairing and depressed, this hymn unleashes the raw power of God to drive out all but the glorious power of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Death itself is rendered powerless by this simple hymn and what it preaches.

The Comfort of Romans 8:28

     And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

This is a truly comforting passage from God’s Holy Scripture. These words, recorded by the Apostle Paul, speak to our hearts in times of trouble, in times of deepest distress, when we imagine that the darkness that fills this world and the days of this evil age is too great to endure.

This particular verse is magnified by the words that follow:

     And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. (Romans 8:28-34)

When examined in the greater context of the entire epistle, verse 28 becomes so much greater than the darkness of our times that the light of God’s grace fills us with hope that cannot be extinguished. For that light and that hope are from everlasting, even from eternity.

Following the word order our passage is translated:

     “Moreover, we know that to those loving God all things He works together (synergizes) into good according to the setting forth called being.”

Synergei, which means synergize or work together, is third person and singular. This is why we know what we know about these things, because they do not work together for our good on their own, but rather, God synergizes them into good for us. God is at work in the midst of absolutely everything that is happening and He synergizes all things with His good and gracious will for us so that they must turn out for good to us.

This, St. Paul informs us, is the synergy that God works “according to the setting forth called being.” This is an ancient way of speaking, going back to the very first recorded Scriptures from Moses. (Exodus 29:23; 40:4 & 23; Leviticus 24:8) This “setting forth” is the exact same term used for the shewbread that the Lord set forth to be continually before Him in the Sanctuary. This shewbread is the body of the Lord Jesus, who stands in the presence of God interceding for us. This is the body of Christ that is given in and with the shewbread that is broken and distributed in the Sacrament of the Altar in the divine service each Lord’s Day. This is what makes us the “according to the setting forth called being.” This is what makes us truly to be the body of Christ, gathered in His name. According to the body of Christ in the Sacrament, we are the called being.

Truly this is terribly wonderful! For not one thing of this depends upon what we do. Rather, everything that we do as the body of Christ, the “called being”, depends upon the “according to the setting forth,” the shewbread that is on the altar for the priests of the New Testament to partake. Yes, as St. Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, we are the “royal priesthood” for whom the shewbread is reserved. Thus we are maintained in the Holy Communion of God to partake of all good things in communion with Him. As such we have been generated through Baptism as “those loving God.”

It is through Baptism that we are “conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” It is through the blessed Sacrament of the Altar that we are maintained in His image as His brethren.

Because these Sacraments are God’s synergism and not ours, because He is the one who joins the natural elements to the power of His command and promise, they accomplish the good that He has purposed for us. And since all things are synergized by God according to this setting forth of the body of Christ for us, all things are worked together into good for us. God works all these things together to call us to repent of our own efforts and our own goodness so that we trust Him to be our God and Savior and rely upon Him for all that we need both of body and soul. As long as we continue in the synergism that God works for us, everything is good.

This is why St. Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 11:29 “For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.” For it is not possible to receive God’s holy synergism except in accord with His setting forth in the body of Christ gathered as the “called being.” If we do not discern the body of Christ, how can we be gathered as the body of Christ? If we are not gathered as the body of Christ, how can we partake of the good things that are offered only in His body? But, rightly discerning the body of Christ, we continue in the communion of the saints, the called being, those loving God. Then we truly know that God is synergizing all things into good for us. Then we abide in the complete and absolute confidence of His grace, mercy, and peace, even when everything around us appears to be darkness and dread.

Impending Darkness

Yesterday has been labeled by a number of bloggers as “Black Tuesday” and “a black day in the LC-MS” or “a dark day.” This has been the response of many to the action of the LC-MS to terminate the KFUO-AM program: Issues, Etc. This response is the expression of shock and grief over the unexplained actions of the LC-MS in terminating a program that brought a sense of hope and light to the lives of those who lent their hearts, ears, and attention to the message of this program.

Some have expressed shock and indignation that such an action against the listeners and against the program staff should be enacted during Holy Week.

Really, though, what more appropriate timing could there be? After all, did the Lord Jesus not promise that those who follow Him will be treated in like manner as He was treated? What is more, is not Holy Week a time of impending darkness? Is not Holy Week not the time in the Church Year where we celebrate the darkness that the Lord Jesus faced on our behalf? Is this not the season of impending darkness that reaches its darkest on Good Friday, when the Sin and Evil of the world and the prince of darkness come against the Light of the world and work their worst against Him? Was this week not a time of confusion for those who looked to Jesus? Was this not the time that led to Judas betraying Jesus into the hands of evil men for reasons of “programming and business”? Was this not a time that led to the scattering of the sheep and to Peter’s trinitarian denial of the Lord? Was this not a time that led to the sense of the loss of all hope according to human reason and strength?

When times grow dark and appear to be growing darker, this is when we need to remember the promise of the Scriptures regarding our good and gracious God.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. . . . (Rom 8:28)

It is important that we never forget the source of our light and our hope. It also is important that when we recognize the source of darkness that we do not continue to bind ourselves to the darkness. When we recognize a way that leads to more darkness, the Lord calls us to come to the Light. While Jesus marched to the cross, darkness surrounded Him and His disciples. But the Light continued to shine in the darkness. The Gospel was most certainly not being vanquished, not even at the darkest hour of Good Friday. In fact, this was the Light’s brightest manifestation, which continues to fill the world with the light of life even today.

So, then, whenever the darkness seems deepest, this is when we may look to the body of Jesus and see that He is the one who has taken the darkness upon Himself for us. The dark hours of our life can serve to draw us into ever deeper dependence upon the glorious preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So when the Lord brings us into a trial that seems especially dark, rather than sinking into despair or grief, we are free to rejoice and to sing “Hosanna in the highest!” As we turn to the crucified Lord of glory, we truly see the light that cannot be comprehended or overcome and our hope and our confidence is renewed.

The way of the cross is the way of the resurrection.

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