One of the oldest questions in the world is this: why do bad things happen? This is a question that huge parts of scripture try to answer. It’s part of what is behind the creation story. It’s part of what is behind Job. Why do bad things happen? Now, if you believe in no God the answer is relatively easy: they just do. If you believe in multiple gods, like the Roman or Greek pantheon, then you have more options open up to you. Perhaps some gods are good, some are bad, and the bad ones happened to get the upper hand for the moment. But if you believe in one God, things start to get really tricky. You could believe that this god is not powerful, like the deists who say god made the world and then disappeared from it. You could believe that god is mean, which would be a relatively easy answer to this question, although it would raise other questions and problems. But if you believe as we do that there is one God, that this God is all powerful, and that this God is all loving because He loves us more than we can ask for or imagine, if we believe all that then this is a tricky question. How does the one, all-powerful, all-loving God allow bad things to occur?
Theologically, this is the question of theodicy. There have been many countless people who have struggled with this issue. I reckon most Christians have at some point, and a lot of theologians have written deeply on it. I find a lot of that work to be helpful, but still find myself with lingering questions. I think this is one of those things that I will likely struggle with the rest of my life. I take great comfort in St. Paul’s teaching that we see through a glass darkly for the time being. Only in the fullness of time will we fully know. But right now as we journey through this life, it will always remain an open question.
Among those brilliant theologians with their explanations some are helpful to me and some are not. There are multiple good answers, but not every answer is good. Some, in fact, are rather bad. One is the common explanation that the disciples offer us today: Who sinned, this man or this man’s parents? Fortunately, Jesus is with me on this because he did not like their framing either. Instead, in that brilliant Jesus way, he sidesteps their questions, sidesteps their world view and opens us up to a new understanding. Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but rather this is so that God’s work and God’s glory can be revealed.
As we face this crisis, this bad thing that we are going through as a community, as a nation, as a world, I sit with so many questions. One of them is why. But as I hear Jesus speak in the Gospel today I am reminded that why is not the most helpful question. Instead, as I hear this Gospel reading today, I find myself wondering what is being revealed. This pandemic has disrupted our lives in ways that reveal so much about us, collectively and individually. It exposes our fears and our anxieties, but it also exposes our hopes and our longings. It reveals to us what really matters and what is unnecessary. It shows us what patterns and habits have value and which are detrimental.
I certainly find this moment to be a dark time, but it also reminds me, reveals to me the darkness already experienced. Jesus, however, comes into this moment, this dark moment, this bad thing 2000 years ago, and this bad thing right now to shine light. He says in the Gospel reading today that he is the light of the world. He was the light back then, and is still the light as he remains with us today. The more I read John, the more I believe that this is the core of his message. This is, in a sense, his answer to the theodicy question. There is darkness in this world, but asking why doesn’t help very much. Instead, in the midst of this darkness, we are invited to look for the light that God never stops shining. God never stops shining the light.
I am reminded of that creation story when God made light and dark, and in the midst of both the day and the night God made light to shine. God never stops shining the light in the darkness. When we look to John’s Gospel, every sign, every teaching from his incarnation, to his birth, to his death, to his resurrection, every bit of it is about shining light in the midst of the darkness that we encounter in this world and in our lives. Let Christ’s light shine upon you.
AMEN
