Bad Things

John 17:1-5

January 28, 2024 • Mount Pleasant UMC

I still remember where I was when I got the news. She was a child, just around kindergarten age, when she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Her smile was infectious and she was so well-loved by our congregation. And she didn’t look sick. In fact, her smile and her joyful attitude stayed all through her treatment. All the trips to the big city hospital. All the times when she surely didn’t feel all that well. All the times there were things she couldn’t do because of the cancer. That didn’t keep her away from church, from her friends, from her smiles. And we prayed. We prayed hard and often for her healing. And we believed God would heal her. Surely her story would not end with cancer’s triumph. But it did. The other day I remember from that time is when the call came that she was gone. Her funeral broke her parents. They only occasionally came back to church after that. When people reached out, they were told, “No one knows what we’re going through.” That was true. But the lingering question as the family drifted away from their faith was this: “Why did God let this horrible thing happen to such a sweet little girl?”

Talk with anyone who is struggling with their faith for very long and you’ll probably hear a similar story. Many of us have them or we know of one. It’s the ever-current question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” For some, that’s a very personal question. For others, they are thinking more globally. Very often, the question of the Crusades comes up, when Christian soldiers went to kill Muslims and “take back” the Holy Land. Or others will ask about racism. Philip Yancey tells about growing up in a church where racism was front and center and no one saw any contradiction between loving God and hating people of a different skin color. Bad things happen. Bad people happen. It’s reality. And when bad things and bad people get intertwined with faith, it brings about bad religion. That’s what we’re looking at during these first few weeks of the year, asking the question of whether or not we can find a deeper faith even in the midst of the rubble caused by bad religion. This morning, I want to look at this question of bad things happening to good people, and how we can respond to those who struggle with such things.

Now, I have to tell you: it’s dangerous to plan to preach on this topic. This has been on the schedule for a while, but this week, our staff has had one thing after another happen to them—nothing really catastrophic, but difficult and challenging nonetheless. It was the day both Jess and I blew out tires out on our cars this week that I confessed what I was working on for this sermon. And then I apologized because, you know, apparently we needed to live it out so that I could preach it.

Anyway—so why do bad things happen to good people? I have been asked that question many times, and maybe you have too, but there’s a problem with the question itself. We have this assumption that we’re the “good people,” right? The “good person” is always “me” and that’s why we ask the question. The thing we’re really asking is, “Why do bad things happen to me or to someone I love?” A couple of weeks ago, I took part in a panel discussion with our Cub Scout pack as they are working on their “Duty to God” requirements, and one of the questions we on the panel were asked is, “Do you ever make mistakes?” That was an easy one to answer—internally. Of course I make mistakes. But to answer the question out loud, in front of people I don’t know very well—well, that’s a different story. Yes, I make mistakes, but I think the deeper question there (or at least the one we should be asking) is, “Do you ever sin?” We like to rank our mistakes, don’t we? These mistakes are not so bad, those are a little worse, and those you need to go to church for. But that’s not the way it works. The Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). All. Not some, all. The psalmist put it this way: “All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Psalm 14:3). Even Jesus, when he was called a “good teacher,” responded this way: “Why do you call me good? No one is good—except God alone” (Mark 10:18). Of course, Jesus was God, but his point there is that we can’t really call anyone “good” except God. In other words, the question is flawed. Bad things happen to people, regardless of whether we think they are good or not, because none of us are. Only God is good, and bad things happen to all people.

And the reason bad things happen is because the world is broken. The world is not the way God intended it to be, and we wonder how that can be. How could God let it get in the shape it’s in? Well, he didn’t. God did not bring sin into the world; we did. God did not break the world; we did. And God does not cause bad things to happen; we do by our persistent refusal to follow his way. Bad things happen to all people because the world is broken. Death entered into the world because we broke the world. Paul describes it this way: “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). So when we ask that question the way we ask it, we’re blaming God for something we did. But God is good, and this is not the world he longed and longs for us to have.

So, let me meddle a little bit more. Sometimes we try to explain death, the ultimate “bad thing.” We try to offer comfort to a friend when someone they love has died. So we say things like, “God took them home” or “God needed another angel in heaven” or something like that. Let me tell you the truth: not only are statements like that unhelpful and hurtful, they are also theologically incorrect. When we say that, we’re once again blaming God for the sin and brokenness in the world, the sin and brokenness that we have caused. I’m not saying God doesn’t welcome us home to his kingdom; that’s very clear in the Scriptures. But death and decay and sickness and disease and mourning and crying and pain are all a result of the sin we brought into the world; they are not God’s desire, which is why we have that tremendous hope told to us in the very last book of the Bible. When all is said and done, when God’s work is done, the world will be a place where there is no more brokenness, no more sin, no more pain and crying and mourning. And to me, the most beautiful part of that promise is this word: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 21:4). Who is going to wipe away the tears that the bad things of this world have brought? Does the have some angel lined up for “tear duty?” Nope. It’s God himself doing that. Wouldn’t you think the creator of the universe has other things to do than wipe away our tears? I would think so, but the Bible says he is the one who will stretch out his hand and wipe away all the tears you have cried here on this earth. That’s a powerful hope. That’s something to long for.

However. If I haven’t upset the apple cart enough yet, let me throw one more thing out there. While that is our hope, that is not our goal. The goal of the Christian faith is not, as we often seem to think it is, being saved so we can die and go to heaven. Jesus doesn’t save us just so we can float on a cloud forever. Yes, we are promised eternal life with Jesus; that’s the hope the Bible points to. But we’re not just saved from sin so we can sit around and wait to die. Jesus saves us so we can start living eternal life now. One of my professors put it this way: “This is what Jesus died for, not merely that we can be freed from guilt and go to heaven, but that we might share the righteousness of God, and be lights in a dark and darkening world” (Oswalt, OneBook: The Book of Isaiah, Part III, pg. 69). Jesus saves us so that we can live eternal life now and push back the darkness and, yes, the brokenness of this world now.

Our challenge is we’ve forgotten that eternal life begins the moment we trust in Jesus. In the Bible, the word “eternal” can mean unending or timeless, but it also refers to a quality of life that we simply don’t find anywhere else (cf. Whitacre, John [IVPNTC], pg. 406). It’s the kind of life Jesus is describing in the first part of his prayer on his final night before the crucifixion. A lot of scholars and preachers call John 17 Jesus’ “high priestly prayer” because he is praying for everyone on that night before the cross. It is the longest and most personal prayer of Jesus in the Gospels (cf. Card, John: The Gospel of Wisdom, pg. 177). But in this first section, the part we read today, Jesus is praying for himself. He begins by saying that “the hour has come” (17:1). At various points in John’s Gospel, Jesus resists acting or doing what someone asks him to do because his “hour” has not yet come. But now, it has. The time has arrived. The crucifixion and his ultimate act of obedience to the Father has come. And Jesus’ one desire in this prayer is this: that he will be glorified so that he can give that glory to the Father. Now, we’ll come back to what that means and looks like in a moment, but I want to skip down to verse 3, where Jesus defines eternal life. Hear his words again: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (17:3). Now, granted, it’s a little weird here for Jesus to be praying about himself by name; that would be like me saying, “Lord, please bless Dennis Ticen, whom you love.” Yeah, I don’t pray that way, and Jesus probably didn’t either. Most scholars believe this is really John’s summary of Jesus’ prayer, so it’s more a literary way of speaking than the way Jesus actually spoke (cf. Whitacre 406). But, again, that’s not what we want to focus on.

Jesus says “this” is eternal life. This is it. It’s not something that is given to us at the moment we die. It’s not just simply more life or unending life. I used to think about eternal life as just one day after another after another. And I would wonder: what am I going to do with all that time? But that’s not what eternal life is. And it’s not life confined to a specific place, like heaven (Hunter, What Jesus Intended, pg. 93). It is life that begins the moment we come to know God through Jesus, and that’s not just “knowledge” like you might learn from a book or a class. It’s knowledge that comes from understanding, from being in a relationship. It implies speaking to one another, being sure of the connection. It’s the kind of relationship you might have with a spouse or a best friend, firsthand knowledge, not passing or general knowledge. You know God through Jesus. So eternal life begins when we decide to allow Jesus to be our closest friend, to save us from our sin and put us in relationship with the one true God. It’s not a quantity of time; it’s a quality of time. It’s not about living forever (though we are promised that); it’s about living better.

Eternal life is always observable. Often when I fly, I fly at night—mainly because I’m cheap and don’t see any sense in paying more for the same flight during the daytime. But I love when we’re getting ready to land and coming in over whatever city I’m going to. The city is lit up, bright and shiny, and there’s no way to hide that city because of all that light. And that’s a good image for the way eternal life should function in someone who believes in Jesus. Jesus himself said, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14). Today, he might say, “A town that is all lit up cannot be hidden.” And in the same way, someone who is full of eternal life, who knows Jesus, cannot be hidden. Jesus went on in that same passage to remind his listeners that you don’t take a light and hide it. You put a light on a stand so that it lights up the whole house (Matthew 5:15). Those who have eternal life are supposed to shine their light; people should be able to tell that we know Jesus because knowing him results in “a good life, a servant life, a liberating-others life, a life that models God’s intentions and spreads the scent of good religion” (Hunter 94).

Eternal life starts now, and yes it will go on forever. But it starts now as we live a life for the sake of others, a life that makes a difference in the world and cooperates with God in pushing back the darkness of this world. That’s how we glorify Jesus and then he gives the glory back to his Father, when we live life for his sake and in relationship with him. To try to do it all on our own, to try to gain glory for ourselves, to life selfishly and greedily, “does not lead to being an ambassador of Jesus, to good religion. Only Jesus’ quality of life in and through us can do that” (Hunter 95). Can people around you tell that you love Jesus? Do they see a difference in your life? And do they know that the difference is because of Jesus? To use Jesus’ words, does your life give glory to God? Does your life reflect an eternal perspective?

Hewitt Sawyers has been a pastor in Franklin, Tennessee for many decades. He grew up in the town that has often been called America’s “best small town,” but Sawyers, being a black man, knows another side of the city. He knows many people from his church who would not go to the town square because there stood a Confederate monument, and for them it is a reminder of the injustices they have suffered throughout their lives. When things like this began to become part of the nation’s conscience, Sawyers met with other pastors from the area—black, white and all shades in between—and they began to talk and pray together about how they should respond. Rather than taking the route that many in the country did, which was to tear down statues and plaques that made some people uncomfortable, Sawyers led this group instead to place additional plaques and statues in the town square. They acknowledged that slaves had been sold in the very courthouse that stood on the square. They talked about the race riots that had taken place in Franklin. And they erected a statue dedicated to honoring the US Colored Troops who also fought for their country. Rather than screaming and railing against racism, Sawyers and his friends decided to do something with a bit more eternity in its perspective. What if instead of fighting against what was, they instead began a conversation that acknowledged the divinely-given worth of every human being? What if they admitted that even the church had been complicit in the sins of the past, but rather than dwelling there they began to tell a fuller story (cf. Hunter 96-99)?

Because we have to be honest—the church is not perfect. God’s people don’t always get it right. You only have to read a few minutes on social media to see that. I often wonder if anyone is ever won to the Gospel and to Jesus by reading our arguments online? I have yet to meet anyone who has said, “You know, when I see Christians arguing over things like whether or not this celebrity is really a Christian, it makes me really feel the love of Jesus.” Or, since we’re in an election year, it’s vital that we consider how our politics and our faith intersect. Do we have more faith in our political candidate or in the God who is above it all? Which defines our story more: our political convictions or our faith? How do we live with an eternal perspective when we go into the voting booth? I’ll remind you again of Chuck Colson’s words (and you’ll probably hear this more as the election approaches this fall) that salvation is not coming on Air Force One, and we shouldn’t act like it might. Because it won’t. No matter who we elect in the fall, the world will still be broken. The question we have to ask in these days is whether or not we are bringing healing or breaking the world more. So when we meet people who are struggling with why bad things happen and why churches are sometimes in the middle of it, let’s not try to explain it away. Let’s be honest and confess our sins. We’re not perfect and sometimes we get it wrong. And we want to do better. We want to live our life now in the light of eternity. That’s one reason I love the example that Pastor Sawyers lived out. He could have complained and pounded the pulpit about everyone else’s sins against his people, but instead he chose the path of love, the path of eternity, the path of a fuller story. And that kind of life gives glory to God.

But, I pretend to hear you say, there are things that happen in life over which we don’t have control, things like cancer and other diseases, which can wreck a life. I mean, we are all living in a world that has been so completely changed by a pandemic, by an invisible virus that seemed to be everywhere and took so many lives. How do we live with an eternal view when those kind of things happen?

Well, first, let me say it again: it is my firm conviction that disease and death are a result of the sin humanity brought into the world. God did not and does not cause those things. But I do believe God can use those things to shape us. One way or the other, such things make us into the people we are becoming. And since I’m being rather honest this morning, I’m just going to put it out there that we didn’t do too well as the body of Christ with the pandemic. The “big c” Church seemed to react one of two ways. There were those who spent the time afraid, who lived in fear for a long, long time. And don’t get me wrong: the virus was dangerous. I get that. And we had to take precautions. We did that here at church when we reopened. But there’s a big difference between taking precautions and living in fear, and many Christians lived in fear. The other reaction, and the one that seemed to get the most press, was we reacted in anger. How dare anyone tell us what we could and could not do. And honestly, friends, the church was often as mean and angry as the world. And when other diseases come, we often react in those same ways: fear or anger. I’m afraid of dying or being sick. I’m angry that “God did this to me.”

But there is a third alternative, the one we’ve been talking about this morning, and that’s to live with an eternal perspective. No matter what happens in this life, no matter what disease or calamity comes our way, our hope is secure and our faith does not change. Remember what Paul told the Romans? “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). What can separate us from the love of God? Nothing, absolutely nothing. And this was written by a man who did not have an easy life. He was arrested (many times), shipwrecked, nearly killed by stoning, and probably suffered an eye disease that made it difficult for him to do much of anything on his own. Yet he faced each and every day and each and every assignment with faith, not fear. Even at the end of his life, when he probably has an idea of the violent death that awaits him, he writes to his young son in the faith these words: “The time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:6-7). Paul lived with an eternal perspective, and we can too. We face whatever comes with faith, not fear, knowing that the God who loves us is greater than it all.

Marv was the first guy I met at the new church. He came in on Saturday when I had a wedding and said, “I heard you needed a sound man.” And I did. Marv was dependable, faithful, and a person who loved Jesus deeply even though he might not talk about it much. Marv served in quiet but important ways, and when he said he was going to do something, you could count on it. Then Marv called me. His kidneys were shutting down and he was going to have to go on dialysis. So he did. Every week he fought against his failing body. But the day came when Marv called me again, this time to tell me the doctors said the dialysis was no longer effective. And besides that, Marv was tired. He never gave up; don’t hear me say that. But he faced reality that, aside from a miracle, he was not going to make it. And the miracle didn’t come, though we certainly prayed for it. That phone call was the last time I talked to Marv; he died just a few days later and a few days after that we got to have a wonderful celebration of his life. Marv never despaired, though I’m sure he had days when he felt like giving up. But you wouldn’t have known it because Marv lived with eternity in view and the kind of faith that shaped every moment of every day.

So why do bad things happen to good people? As I’ve suggested this morning, I think maybe that’s the wrong question because bad things happen to everyone; it’s a broken world. Bad things happen, and the question is not if but when. The better question is this: how do we live when bad things happen? How do we live in a way that brings glory to Jesus so that others can see him living in us? Can we trust and believe that God is faithful even when we are hurting? That’s the kind of faith the world longs to see. That’s the kind of faith that will make a lasting difference in you and in the world around you. And that’s the kind of faith I want and need. How about you? Let’s pray.