BY JASON SCHIFO
Why do bad things happen?
That is quite a question, isn’t it?
We ask that question because we believe that if we can answer it we will be able to tolerate difficult seasons of life. So we look for explanations and answers for why bad things happen, and this isn’t a new thing. For as long as people have endured tough seasons of life people have been trying to create explanations and find an answer to this question.
An ancient explanation was that God punished the wicked and rewarded the righteous; that when misfortune occurred, you could be sure that it was a result of something someone did wrong. In John 9:1-7 Jesus corrects this view, “As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
Another explanation of why bad things happen is that the suffering of a few can lead to the betterment of the whole. For example, the early Christians were persecuted, but through their faithful witness, others accepted Jesus as the Christ. While this is true it also creates the “martyr syndrome” in which we almost intentionally seek righteousness in suffering.
Another is that when bad things happen, we look for a positive outcome or spin. It is natural to our human nature to put a positive spin on things and to somehow soften suffering.
A funeral director told me years ago when I attended the services for a young child, “You know, God picks the most beautiful flowers for his heavenly bouquet.” If that were true then God doesn’t need bouquets, because He has gardens upon gardens upon gardens of beautiful flowers, wonderfully and beautifully made; His workmanship.
Still another explanation as to why bad things happen is that life is a mystery. Although there are reasons why bad things happen, those reasons are not always known to us.
I have forgotten where, but I read that our view of life is like looking at a tapestry from the backside. Seen from our perspective, life is a jumble of knots and threads and loose ends protruding in every direction. It doesn’t make much sense. If we could only see the tapestry from the other side, from God’s perspective, then we’d see that it has perfect form, symmetry, balance, and color. It would make so much sense.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:12 “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known.”
Every one of these explanations has a bit of truth, we don’t need them to escape suffering, because as crazy as it sounds, it is healthy to embrace difficult seasons. They shape us and make us. But that process, and more importantly why it happens, is unknown to us.
In the end, the issue is not in making sense of everyday life, but how we think about God. As long as we think of God as some sort of celestial CEO sitting high in the heavens parceling out blessings to people here and inflicting punishments to others over there, we’ll always be at a loss to explain why bad things happen.
Isaiah 55:8 “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ says Yahweh.”
In the 38th chapter of The Book of Job God asks Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” And 4 chapters later Job responds with repentance and confession, ”I know that you can do all things…I have uttered that which I did not understand.” (Job 38:4; 42:2-3)
The bottom line is this: When we ask, “why do bad things happen?”, what we are really saying is that we want a god on our terms. In doing so, we don’t come to Him as one who surrenders to His sovereignty. That’s the essence of our sinfulness. We think of God on our terms and then hold God to our expectations.
Another helpful place for me in this discussion has always been 2 Corinthians 4, particularly verse 7, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”
The treasure is the greatness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the glory of God made evident through that gospel. It is the very light of God and the light of the knowledge of the glory of God reflected in the face of Jesus Christ. This is the greatest treasure in all creation!
When Paul says that we are jars of clay he isn’t making a demeaning comment. Instead, he compares the “value” of what we are up and against the “value” of what He chose to put in us, His light and glory. When you compare the two, “the surpassing power” versus “jars of clay” it isn’t hard to be amazed that God has put such a great treasure into a clay pot.
When I think about this, who is worthy to be a “container” for God’s light and glory, the smartest person isn’t smart enough. The purest person isn’t pure enough. The most spiritual person isn’t spiritual enough, and the most talented person isn’t talented enough. We are all jars of clay holding an unspeakably great treasure.
In the time that this passage was written, jars of clay were common in every home, just as we all are common in every home. They were not very durable compared to other materials, and once cracked they were useless if broken. Think about this for a moment: God chose to put His light and glory in the everyday dishes, not in the fine china. The point is that the value is not the vessel but what is put into the vessel.
This flies in the face of a culture so obsessed with packaging because the packaging is what sells a product. But I have found that some of the best gifts are found in the most unlikely of packaging.
This past week our church suffered a devastating loss. After a relatively short battle with a mass in her brain, Jim and Kathy Woods’ 10-year-old granddaughter, Calla Woods, passed away.
Over the last two months, Calla’s story and her faith have been a power on social media. Each update Team Woods posted to those on this journey garnered thousands of responses. Calla’s story and how her family is walking through a very hard season has been having a profound effect on people everywhere.
I know some of you want to say, “see, the suffering of a few can lead to the betterment of the whole.” Please avoid that. The reason that this story is having a profound effect on others is that God wastes nothing, even our suffering.
It was this unlikely packaging, a ten-year-old jar of clay, that has been unknowingly changing lives with her story because as her chips and cracks, her human weakness, has been revealed, so has the glory and power of God.
God did not see a need to package Jesus when He came as a man to this earth. Jesus was not embarrassed to live as a jar of clay, and God is not embarrassed by jars of clay like Calla, her parents, grandparents, extended family, and all of us because he loves us deeply.
On Thursday night when I received the news that Calla had passed, I didn’t feel strong. I felt incredibly fragile and frail and every one of the chips and cracks in my clay exterior was never more evident. When I shared the news with others they, too, felt fragile rather than strong. In difficult seasons the truth is never truer. We are jars of clay, but the story doesn’t stop there, we have a surpassing power in us, seen through our chips and cracks.
So as we have wrestled with this as a church, we haven’t done so by offering explanations or answers, trying to tip the scales of understanding back to us. Instead we have embraced our fragility, every chip and crack, and accepted the fact that the God we seek in this season is the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, who loved us so much that He sent His only son, Jesus Christ, to be wounded for our transgressions and die upon a cross for our sins. Leading to our salvation.
The God who loves us, despite our every chip and crack, knows something we don’t. He wastes nothing, even these seasons of life.
