Welcome back to the second week of our Lenten Message Series, “When God Doesn’t Make Sense.” Sometimes things God says or does or doesn’t say or do, don’t make sense. Last week we laid out three general principles to help us understand why God doesn’t always make sense to us.
First, it makes sense that God doesn’t always make sense. Since God is all wise and all knowing and we are limited in our wisdom and knowledge, it makes sense that we don’t always understand God’s ways of doing things. Our perspective and experience is much more narrow than God’s.
Second, there’s a difference between God not making sense, and life not making sense. In the “Our Father” we pray for God’s will to be done because God’s will isn’t always done. This world is not currently as God wants it or wills it: there are forces of evil that oppose God, nature itself has been broken and acts in ways that cause destruction and chaos, and there are people who do bad things. You might think, “But God is all-powerful, He can make everything do His will.” In terms of power, this is true, but we must remember that God is Love. Love cannot be forced; it has to be freely given and freely received. It is because God is Love, and He loves us that He has given us free will. What God wants most is for us to learn to love, and we need free will to learn that lesson.
Third introductory point, no matter how much we study God, we really don’t know much of anything beyond what he himself has told us in Scripture. While we cannot know the mind of God, we can know the heart of God. Through Scripture God reveals his heart, and in prayer, in the Sacraments, in our giving and service, in a loving relationship with the living Lord, we can come to know it more intimately.
Last week we looked at the question of why God says “No” when no doesn’t make sense to us. Basically, it is the first key principle that explains this. Just as most of you, as parents, have had the experience of telling your young children “no” when they ask for things which due to your greater experience you know would be bad for them, so God with His infinite knowledge sometimes tells us “no.” Looking at the account of the Fall in the Garden of Eden in last weekend’s reading, we noted that God did not want us to know evil, that is why He told Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God only wanted them to know good, but through their disobedience “their eyes were open,” and they came to know evil, as well as good.
This week we are looking at why God allows suffering and death. No matter who you are, this topic probably hits you in some personal way. We are going to look at why God allows
suffering and death, and from the outset I don’t want to over promise and under deliver. There is an emotional content to this subject and nothing I can say can change that. Yet, beyond the hurt in our heart, what does our faith say to us about suffering and death that does make sense?
We are looking today at a passage from the Gospel of Matthew. It tells us, “After six days Jesus took Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart” (Matt 17:1). This begs the question, six days after what? Six days prior, Jesus had taken the apostles to a place called Caesarea Philippi and there asked them, “Who do people say that I am?” (Matt 16.15), and St. Peter had replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt 16.16).
After declaring that St. Peter would be the rock on which he would build his Church, Jesus then starts explaining to the Apostles that he would go to Jerusalem, where he would be condemned, crucified, and then on the third day raised from the dead.
So this trip up the mountain happens on the heels of that announcement and brings light to what happens next; “And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light” (Matt 17:2). For just a moment, Jesus’ divinity breaks through his humanity, and he is seen with Moses, who represents the Law, and Elijah, who represents the Prophets.
Peter wants to build tents. The experience was so wonderful, such an incredible high that he wants to prolong it. Which is only natural. But there is also more than that going on. Jesus had just told Peter that he was going to suffer and die. And so Peter is kind of tempting Jesus away from that; “Let’s forget all about the suffering business, which I don’t even understand it anyway, lets stay here instead.”
“He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud over shadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him’” (Matt 17:5). Specifically what “listen to him” means is to listen to him about the suffering and death stuff.
None of this makes any sense to the apostles. The Messiah isn’t supposed to suffer and die. The Messiah as they understood it was suppose to rally the people of Israel, destroy the Roman oppressors, and establish Israel as an independent nation under God’s rule.
“When the disciples heard this they fell on their faces, and were filled with awe. But Jesus came and touched them, saying ‘Rise and have no fear.’ And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only. And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, ‘Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead’” (Matt 17:6-9). Jesus tells the apostles to keep quiet about what they’ve just experienced until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.
The apostles must have thought, “What? What are you talking about? This just gets stranger and stranger.” Which often is the experience of suffering and death.
The Transfiguration, is meant to show us the connection between Christ’s humiliation on the cross and his transformation in the resurrection. It foreshadows both Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
The Transfiguration actually parallels the Passion. In both cases Jesus invites the same three apostles, Peter James and John, to step aside and pray with him. In both cases he climbs a mountain. In both cases he is lifted up between two men.
However, then there are differences. At the Transfiguration he is between two great men, Moses and Elijah, while at his crucifixion, he is between two criminals. The scene of the Transfiguration is radiant with light while at the crucifixion darkness covers the earth. At the Transfiguration Jesus’ clothes are dazzling, on the cross he is stripped naked. The Transfiguration shows Jesus’ hidden glory while at his Passion he is publicly humiliated.
The transformation of Jesus’ human nature cannot happen apart from his Passion.
He is exalted because he is willing to submit to the Father’s will, which includes suffering and death. But on the other side of his suffering and death is life. And what’s true for Jesus is true for us.
There is no explanation for so much suffering and for the deaths of many people we know. But what we do know, what our faith tells us and the cross assures us, is that suffering and death are not the only word, or the last word. Life wins, because of the cross, life wins.
This is a hard lesson to learn, but suffering and death is a part of life, but God wants to use suffering and death for our growth. This week identify an area of your life where you are experiencing suffering, and decide that God might be using it to grow your faith. Instead of praying for the thorn to be removed, pray that God will use it.
And always remember, life wins, because of the cross, life wins.