Pastor J. Pete Hyde

Santa Rosa Beach, Fl Community Church

Job 1:13-21 and read Luke 13 :1-9 later.

Located in Virginia, nestled in the quaint town of Blacksburg, are eight colleges and graduate schools, a program of 60 bachelor’s degrees, 140 masters and doctoral programs, 25,000 fulltime students, 100 buildings on 2600 acres. Virginia Tech. It is ranked 56th in the nation for research. The 2006 freshman class had a high school grade point average of 3.80, and an average cumulative SAT score of 1231. This is a world class college. It is something for Virginians to be proud of. How could you think of a university setting like this as anything else other than a great place for your daughter or son to start their young lives.

Tragically that view was transformed by a misguided twisted mind, and 33 young lives were cut tragically short. These families who thought their children’s futures were all before them must now deal with a truth that no parent ought to face. There will be no future, no summers back home, no tough years making the grade, no graduation, no falling in love, no weddings, no grandchildren. The President of Virginia Tech, Charles Steger, at the memorial service earlier this week, expressed hope that "we will awaken from this horrible nightmare." I hope he’s right.

I was wondering this week as I thought about this tragedy: What has the world been robbed of? These 33 lives, what great people and accomplishments were suddenly erased from the annals of history? Perhaps an agricultural student who would develop some new strand of wheat and potatoes that would yield more production per acre, GONE! 

Perhaps a student who would be the future president of Baghdad University, GONE NOW!

Perhaps a mechanical engineer who would design the first aerial mapping camera to be used in an airplane mapping the service of the  earth, GONE! 

Perhaps one of these would take a sewing needle and adapt it to a two pronged needle so that a small trace of vaccine would be trapped between the two prongs allowing the smallpox vaccine to be easily administered, eradicating the virus from history, GONE!.

You’ve probably guessed by now. These accomplishments have already taken place. But let me emphasize to you that they were achieved by alumni of Virginia Tech: Thomas K. Wolfe (general agriculture ’14; M.S. ’14); Sami Al-Mudhaffar (Ph.D. biochemistry ’67); Edward H. Cahill (engineering mechanics 1909*); Benjamin A. Rubin (M.S. biology ’38).

What about the future; what influences both subtle and great have been erased by this senselessness. We drop our rock in the pond of this world and the ripples move out through history; but these tragedies happen and its like the pebble has been snatched out of the water and the ripples have to retreat back, and the influence is gone.

This says nothing of the personal toll on those who knew these young students. We can talk about their professional lives cut short but you try to calculate the human toll emotionally and spiritually and you cannot. Only God can weigh such matters. But we try in feeble ways to understand. Events like 9/11, Katrina, and now Virginia Tech raise fundamental questions.

Why is there so much evil in the world?

Why do man and nature so overwhelm us and destroy our lives?

Why do innocent people suffer?

The question always gets asked: Where was God?

Where was God on 9/11 when 3000 died because of an evil radical ideology? Where was God when 280,000 perished in the Asian Tsunami? Where was God in the tragedy of the Amish community? Where was God on Monday, 33 young lives gone?

I am struck by how universal these questions are. They are as old as Job and are asked by the wisest people among us. For years mankind has sought the answer to suffering. And we are still searching. So what do we do when men conspire to create monstrous works of evil, and God seems so far from us? Who’s in control here? Man or God?

Let's take a look at Nature, first. It is appropriate to start here because scripture uses Nature to address these universal questions. Are our lives simply subject to the whims of nature or does God somehow use the forces of nature to accomplish his will? Before we answer this question let me draw attention to something we all do as humans. We ask questions.  And questions are so hard to answer in tragic times. But we ask questions anyway. It’s human and the Bible sees it as a human thing to do especially in hard times.

If you were to take a tour of the Bible you would find that one book has a disproportionate number of questions - the book of Job. Job has over 330 questions in its 42 chapters. The first book of the Bible, Genesis, only has 160. Matthew, the first book of the New Testament has around 180. And that's odd because it seems that Jesus was asking questions every time he opened his mouth. Even the book of Psalms with its 150 chapters has only 160.

 So why does the book of Job have so many more questions? Simple. It is because the book of Job deals with a horrible tragedy, and we ALL question tragedy.

You remember. Job is a righteous man. A great man in his own time. Suddenly, without warning, his family and business is wiped out. Two rogue groups from Arabia and Mesopotamia conduct a raid taking away Job's livestock and putting his servants to the sword. Then his family is lost in a freak accident when a mighty wind sweeps in from the desert, striking the four corners of the house, collapsing it and all are lost. It was swift. It was unwarranted. It was unconscionable.

In many ways the events of Virginia Tech seem eerily echoed in the story of Job. Families have had their lives wiped out by a violent wind. They have been hit and hit hard. Now what?

We do what Job did when he learned of his loss. We mourn. He was silent when he received the first two reports that his business and livestock had been wiped out. Those can be replaced. But when he received the news that his children were lost, he got up and tore his robe. Then, he fell on his knees and wept: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will return." Everything that had meaning in his life was gone. As he came into this world so Job felt he was leaving it - naked.

Did God make or allow that mighty wind to blow through Norris Hall?

I tell you, No.

Did God have some purpose in all this? No!

Were the students and faculty any more sinners than we are?

NO! NO! and NO!

I consider myself fortunate, that, in our day, we have come to understand that there are other explanations for why we have natural disasters. Hurricanes arrive, not because God has a habit of punishing evil, but because the prevailing winds, ocean currents and frontal zones combine in ways that make tropical storms more likely at this time of the year. The same is true of earthquakes, tornadoes, or floods. All of these are directed by the forces of nature. This is so in good times and bad and without respect to the moral climate or condition of the people who happen to be living in a region where disaster strikes.

The God we meet in the pages of scripture is not this vicious, violent, judgmental, capricious Force in the world. Instead, we meet a very different God in Scripture. John tells us that God is love and that that perfect love of God casts out all fear.

Let’s now move from the acts of nature to the acts of man. For all that nature has done to wreak havoc upon the earth mankind more so. Luke 13 offers a chilling look at how Jesus might address man’s inhumanity to man. Let’s read it. Read Luke 13:1-9 In this text we have a tragic national event in the life of Israel during Jesus’ time. It is a headline event discussed by everyone within the nation of Israel. There are actually two events. One of the events appears to be an accidental collapse of a structure at a building site that killed 18 people and the other was a military operation against civilians ordered by Pontius Pilate. That event seems to be politically if not religiously motivated.

You are well aware that Israel, during the time of Jesus, had been conquered by Rome. Rome’s presence was a constant reminder that they were a nation under siege. The people learned to live with this but there remained a great tension, a religious underground had actually emerged to fight for freedom. Pilate, Rome’s representative, was despised. And it is apparent from this text that Pilate ruled in a ruthless manner. Some people, who we do not know, come to Jesus to discuss an incident in the Temple. Pilate, angered by something that occurred in Galilee, decided to make an example of a group of Galilean Jews who were visiting the capitol of Jerusalem. He ordered his soldiers to go into the temple in the middle of the day, while there was tens of thousands of people worshipping there, and execute these Galileans. This was done to send the Jews a message: If you do not keep your region under control you will suffer the consequences of Rome’s might. It was a strong reminder of the suffering the Jews endured under Rome.

Pilate sent a political and religious message by slaying a group of men who were more likely than not, innocent. Now the Galilean territory may have done something that set Pilate off but these men quite likely had nothing to do with it. They were - convenient. In the wrong place at the right time. They were going about their day just as they had done every other day.

On Monday a lost young man chose an innocent group of people to target, in order to send a message that only he knows. Try as I may, I have yet to make sense of it. It was needless. It was senseless. It did not accomplish what ever it was he wanted to accomplish.

Let me ask you: Why is a story of a senseless massacre in the Bible? It’s there because the disciples wanted to ask Jesus a very specific question. They wanted to know if these people died because they had sinned. Was this God’s judgment because of their immoral living? Jesus gives a very simple answer: No. He then goes on to say, “You,” he is talking to the disciples, you must repent or you will likewise perish.” In other words, these things happen. Life can be indiscriminate. One day you are here and the next you die in an accident or at the hands of some thug. So, repent.

Now, this tells me something very important. God is not up there pulling all the strings. God does not control the world in this way.

There is chaos.

 There is evil.

There is uncertainty.

It would be dishonest to say that God makes everything all right in this world. The death of 33 innocent souls who were simply going to school tells me how warped and depraved some people can be. The death of over 3000 soldiers in Iraq tells me that peace has an enormous price. The burial of 350 children two years ago in Russia tells me that evil still wins in this world. The death of 3000 on 911 shows how people’s minds can become so manipulated and warped. Don’t get me wrong. I as much as any man have hope in the resurrection. But I simply cannot deny the picture painted by the Psalmist when he asks, “Will the Lord cast off for ever?” And will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone forever? Doth his promise failure forever more? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?"

Sometimes it seems that God has just left the planet and won’t be coming back.

So, there is a final question.

Where then is God?

Where is God when terrible tragedies befall us?

Where was God this week?

Hear me. God was not in the mind of Cho Seung Hui as he walked to school that ill fated day and chose murder to combat his own personal humiliation.  God was not in any way involved when Cho Seung Hui chose to reign for a few ghastly moments in hell, rather than to serve in heaven (1). God did not cause these things to happen.

The Disciples who come to Jesus with these kind of questions have it all wrong. God is not there pulling the strings and making these things happen for “some reason.”

I grow weary of people saying, “Everything happens for a purpose.”

No, everything does not happen for a purpose.  There is chaos unleashed in this world by nature and by man.

So, where was God?

I’ll tell where God was. He was there in the last moments as students called on cell phones to say, “Mom, I’m OK.”  He is there in the paramedic’s hand. He is there behind police badges. He is behind the scalpel and the syringe. He is there in the faculty of the school, Governors, Mayors, nurses, the President. He is near the heart of all who in the face of this tragedy love their neighbor and turn to God in repentance—who, in the violent winds of these last few days, look to him, not for answers, but because in the end tragedies teach us that we are mortal and fully dependent upon Him.

Where is God?

Let me answer that question in Latin: Ut Prosim. It is the motto of Virginia Tech. Ut Prosim:  That I May Serve.

Professor Liviu Librescu, who was a survivor of he Holocaust, is a living example of that motto. His rabbi (Rabbi Edward Gluck of Chesed Shel Emes) described the professor this way: He dedicated his life to Judaism and to saving lives in America. He stood in the doorway and did not let a murderer go in…had his kids jump out the second story window and told them, “just keep on going; I'll hold him back.” He was just standing there and the bullets were going right into him and he still did not let the perpetrator go in.

His students made it out alive. He did not. It is ironic that sixty years later a survivor of the Holocaust died protecting US citizens from the tyranny of a mad man.

That I may serve. Professor Librescu fulfilled his Universities highest goal.

God is found in us when we intentionally serve God and serve our neighbor, especially those who have fallen. We should mourn, yes, but we should also repent, turn to God, and then reach out to one another. We should rebuild our own lives putting God once again at the center.

Jesus was telling his disciples that life is fragile. At any moment walls can collapse upon us, death is standing at the door.

What will you do right now? With this life you have?

Will you turn to God? THAT’s the question Jesus asks of you, right now!

As to the questions: Where was God?

Who is to blame?

Blame it on the rain. Blame it on the wind. Blame it on society. Blame it on evil. Blame it on a sick mind. But don’t….don’t blame it on God.

Where is God? He is here.

Anguish is no stranger to God. Let us never forget that Jesus suffered. He died. But he was raised. Therefore, I have hope even when the waters come up to my neck. I have hope even when I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have hope even when the floodwaters engulf me. I have hope because love is poured out on me by God and by my neighbors. The Song of Solomon Records (8:7), “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.”

If you desire to know more about this Jesus Christ who loves you, and you want to ask Him  into your heart, receiving His Saving Grace please click on this Salvation Prayer