After Ft Hood, "Why?" - The character of God

A challenge in my role as a pastor is the daily question from those hurting of 'why?' 'Why did God do this?' 'Why did God do this to me?' Or, after yesterday, 'what have we done that would cause God to allow this to happen to us?'

Of course, the questions themselves reveal how most of us view or think of God. We think of Him as in charge - as Sovereign - and though answers to any questions concerning Him are to be found in His Word, I must admit that, even there, they are not always so easily gleaned. The same Bible which reads, "God makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust" (Matt. 5:45) also reads, "He visits the sins of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation" (Ex. 34:6-7, Deut. 5: 8-10, also Num. 14:18), which begs my title, 'the character of God.' For, by understanding this - God's character, we will journey toward carrying on - even in troubled times.

The whole of scripture teaches us that here are two traits to know of God that can help us cope. The first is God is love and the second, God is just. Today I want to deal with the first - the love of God. In the days ahead we will look at the second - the justice of God. So first... His love.

In his blog of Sept, 1, 2006, Dr. Ben Witherington, professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary writes:

The chaplain ran to help the man lying on the beach of a South Pacific island, who had been hit by a shell. The young man was dying, and as the chaplain administered the morphine to him, the young man looked into the chaplain's eyes and asked "Surely you must know--- what is God like?" The chaplain, my former college Bible Professor, Bernard Boyd said-- "God is suffering love, he is just like the Jesus who died for you. And at this very moment he is with you in this pain for he said-- "inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me." (for more on this see the poem by Geoffrey-Studdert Kennedy "The Sorrow of God").

Jesus once said, 'if you've seen me, you have seen the Father for I and the Father are one" and this statement is one I have hung my life, ministry and thoughts of God upon. The Bible says that "God's way's are past our finding out,' but then Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." If there is a picture of God, then it is Christ. If there is an inkling, this side of Glory, that enables us to know what God is like, then it is in knowing and following His Son, Jesus. So that when we think of the love of God, we think of it's divine/human expression, God the Son, dying on the cross and saying, 'Father forgive them.' So, my friends, God is love.

I may not know, from this or heaven's side of eternity, all there is to know about God, but I can tell you this - God is love. I know so because I know His Son. God is not a God of murder, chaos, violence or revenge. God is a God of love. What happened at Ft Hood was not from God or by His hand. That evil was because of man's sin - expressed, on this day in an individual or ideological soul, be it intentional or from a crazed maniac out of his mind. Likewise, it is not our role, now or ever, to perpetrate similar or same actions upon others under the pretense of acting out 'God's plan' - for this cannot be so - God is love. We must resist reducing God, both in mind and action, to anything like this. Why? Because we have as our highest example our Savior - God Himself - Jesus Christ His Son.

Till next time, then -

Pastor Sam