September 24, 2001
CYBERCOLUMN:
Giving ourselves to God's grace
___By Brett Younger
___On Sept. 12, I went by a newspaper rack at 7:30 a.m. to pick up a Fort Worth Star-Telegram. They were already sold out. I finally found a paper at the third place I looked. Column after column, page after page lamented the news of death and tears. The headlines were stunning: "America in agony," "Terrorism death toll may be in thousands," "Presidentvows America will avenge deaths." The pictures were unimaginable—a person falling head-first from the World Trade Center, a fireman carrying a woman covered with blood, family members in tears.
BRETT YOUNGER
___One day, some family members in tears came to Jesus, paper in hand, and asked, "Did you read this horrible story in the newspaper?"
___Two terrible tragedies have fallen on Israel. A foreign enemy has murdered innocent people. Pontius Pilate ordered his thugs to massacre people who got up that morning and went about their routine without any clue that they were about to die. It’s a sickening story. And in Jerusalem--ancient Israel’s New York--a tower has fallen and crushed people who never knew what happened. The people come to Jesus because they feel overwhelmed by these tragedies: "What does God have to say about this? Tell us why people are killed in evil, senseless tragedies."
___Jesus’ answer isn’t what we want. We might expect Jesus to begin by condemning the enemies’ brutality. The Galileans that Pilate slaughtered were Jesus’ neighbors. Most of the listeners probably thought Jesus would then put his arms around them and give them the kind of uncomforting comfort that so many expect ("Don’t worry, those people are in a better place now") or the kind of un-Christian theological statement that some feel compelled to offer ("This must be part of God’s plan").
___We might guess Jesus would offer a tender, kind word. But instead, Jesus says, "Do you think these Galileans who died did anything wrong? That’s not it. And those crushed by the tower, do you think they are any different from you? They’re not. You need to live for God, right now, because tragedy may come for you, too."
___The early church remembered these words precisely because they’re not what we would expect and they’re hard to hear. Instead of comfort, Jesus offers a warning.
___Sin is at work in New York and ancient Jerusalem. The reason why planes crash, towers fall and evil men slaughter innocent people is that we are part of a sinful world. Our world is filled with thorns and shadows, and tragedies take no detours around good people. Sorrow comes as part of the broken, random rhythm of a broken, random world.
___Jesus turns the truth over to see its other side. Don’t just ask, "Why did this ghastly thing happen to these people?" We also need to ask, and this is almost too frightening, "Why can’t it happen to us?"
___Most of life is ordinary, with stress and conflict, of course, but it’s ordinary life that isn’t especially easy but doesn’t seem all that threatened by deadly crises. In uneventful living, it’s nice to assume that we’re being blessed, that we’re good people having the kind of life that good people can expect.
___We’ve heard people say, "The Lord’s been good to me." They usually mean that they’ve experienced no tragedies and they’re doing well financially. Jesus says that you and I can’t take the absence of crisis in our lives as God’s approval of how we live. We want to keep our distance from the victims of tragedy. "How awful for them!" But Jesus says that when tragedy comes, we need to look at our own lives, too, and let the fact of death and danger shock us into self-examination. Christ wants his listeners to know that in a world where crisis can fall at anytime, we need to live each day to the fullest.
___The reality of sin is almost overwhelming, but there is a second reality, the reality of grace. In the parable of the gardener, the fig tree isn’t getting it done and yet gets more time. We get another chance, and another, and another. Every breath we take is a gift of grace. Every moment of life is sustained by God’s Spirit.
___They asked, "What does it mean when tragedy comes?" Jesus asks: Have you thought about what it means when tragedy doesn’t come? Have you stopped to ask why all of these ordinary days are given to you? Paul Duke writes: "These aren’t ordinary days at all. Don’t receive them lightly as a string of expected benefits. Receive them with open-eyed gratitude as unexpected mercies. These ordinary days are not uneventful. They are the days of crisis and decision. For these are the days we have been given to take hold of the extravagance that God has poured upon us, and to fulfill our promise as God’s daughters and sons."
___We need to feel the frailty of our lives. We need to be afraid of the dark if it makes us turn toward the light. We can’t insulate ourselves from disaster, but we can decide how we’ll live.
___Have you ever heard anyone pray, "Thank you, God, for giving us another day"? That prayer almost seems to picture God begrudgingly deciding to let us live another day. The generous God of Jesus bears no resemblance to any unloving picture of God. And yet in the deepest sense Jesus invites us to see all of our days as a gift.
___When they came to Jesus with tears in their eyes and asked him about the worst tragedy they had ever experienced, Jesus said, "In a dark and frightening world we need to give ourselves to God’s grace."
___Brett Younger is pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth.
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