Monday Morning Music Ministry

1-28-23

The great comedian Norm Macdonald, who died last year, was a confessing Christian. And his faith grew stronger even as his life-situation grew “worse.” He died of cancer that been diagnosed 10 years earlier and few people knew – he did not share his slow, impending death with even close friends.

Sometimes, occasionally at abrupt moments, he asserted his faith, and even upbraided people who scorned the Gospel. At other times he could be as raunchy as some other comedians (but usually funnier), yet he admitted in serious interviews that he read the Bible and was a believer. There was one thing he wrestled with about a loving God, however. When asked, he would answer simply, “kids with cancer.”

It is the type of question that many well-meaning portions of humanity ask, too. The British writer Christopher Hitchens achieved some of his celebrity by writing a book God Is Not Great. We can note that many skeptics and agnostics like him often criticize the nature of God… but not always God Himself. Hitchens did not write, There Is No God, So It Doesn’t Matter Whether He Is Great Or Not.

Ministers and priests can display a similar ignorance, if not oafishness. Especially in the materialist West, uncountable sermons and books and fund-appeals have centered around the topics “Why do good things happen to bad people?” and “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

At worst, these ministers and priests engage in diversions, because Belief does not depend on your rewards. Believe me, God’s Truth does not depend on your opinion of it.

I believe the major theme of the Bible can be summarized this way: God is not not so much concerned about us scurrying around being “good” or “bad,” but He very much cares that we be obedient. Good and bad – and salvation; eternity with Him – will then fall into place. “Life is real; life is earnest,” the poet Wordsworth said, however, and it is impossible not to be touched and challenged by some things, for instance what troubled Norm Macdonald.

I want to share related thoughts inspired this week by two new friends of mine.

The five-year-old son of one friend’s friend is the cutest little boy you can imagine. Innocent smile, happy surroundings in photos of him, recent photos, as his smile remained, but showing him thinner and thinner, and losing his hair. Then, still smiling, sitting in a bed, totally bald, with the appearance we know in cancer patients.

She learned that the boy and the family has left for St Jude’s, an incredible hospital where, among the research and healings, parents are sometimes told those awful words, “There’s nothing we can do any more,” which these parents were told, now taking their boy on his last trip.

Why? Why? we ask. Life, much less death itself, is not supposed to work that way.

That boy, as he comprehends what’s going on, might ask that himself. Parents, comedians, you, me, all of humankind, cry out – all too often – with this question. When my eldest daughter was young she asked a variation of that old question, “Why are there bad things in God’s world?” A little older and she would have said “evil,” which is the root of bad things.

My answer was and is not cheery, but it is true. There is sin in the world, and sin corrupts and corrodes. We have all sinned – fallen short of the glory of God – and there are consequences. Trees do not sin, neither do oceans; neither, we can feel sure, did that five-year-old cancer victim. God promised to walk with us through the valleys of the shadows of death… not to pluck us out, but to be with us.

My other new friend shares a hundred points of contact, but I learned that in one of her past lives she was an opera singer. Not in the shower, like me, but on stages like La Scala. With Pavarotti, receiving her spray of roses next to him. I have been to the Met (the opera house, not the ballpark) and the Paris Opera, but still dream of sitting in the sixth row at La Scala and just hearing singers.

So, the connection. Talking about great sopranos, and then hearing about this little boy, my attention converged on a favorite soprano, the Bohemian Magdalena Kožená, and a performance of hers from Bach’s St Matthew Passion. In the video below, it is paired with scenes of distress, illustrating the theme in that portion of the presentation of Christ’s suffering.

Have mercy, my God, for the sake of my tears! See, here before you, heart and eyes weep bitterly. Have mercy, my God!

… are the words. It is a proper prayer, not cynical nor rebellious, for in Bach’s personal and creative world, he also knew the “end of the story” – Joy. No matter our sufferings and anguish, no matter our bitterness nor grief, He loves us. It’s the text and subtext and “end of the story” of the entire Bible, too.

A happy ending.

We can know God… but only so much. If we understood all, we would be God. But the important thing, through all the sorrow and mystery, is that He knows us.

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Since preparing this message, we have learned that the little boy has died. We add prayers for “the peace that passeth understanding” promised to those who are in the Lord.

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Click: Erbarme Dich, Mein Gott

12-6-21

How can a loving God permit school shootings? … or genocide? … or painful illnesses? … or abuse, human trafficking, family turmoil, betrayal, cruelty…?

We hear these questions all time. And, perhaps, we often have asked these questions ourselves. We are only human.

“We’re only human” is part of the answer. When we choose to sin, or so often (and euphemistically) make mistakes, we are part of the old, old story of allowing corruption, enabling error, and inviting sin into the world around us.

The comedian Norm MacDonald died recently. He succumbed to cancer after a 10-year battle during which he told nobody about it. His death was a surprise even to his closest friends. He was brilliant, and presented himself as a bundle of contradictions. He pretended to be unlettered, but was an intellectual and well-read. He acted impulsively, but was a student of his craft. And despite occasional coarseness, he was a Christian who frequently professed his faith.

He did say that he struggled with the question of a loving God “permitting” horrors in our lives… this vale (valley) of tears.

Believe me, there are things I do not understand… but I have come to realize that God asks us to obey, not understand. Translation: to have faith. There is sin (brokenness, disease, corruption, heartache, tears) in the world because, well, we sin. If we ask “why?” to some of these dilemmas, maybe we should pray in from of a mirror, and “understand” a better perspective. Because when we pray such prayers at times of disasters, we are – in effect – blaming God.

Time out.

Job, who endured much personally; that is, not as an observer, nevertheless declared “Though he slay me, I will put my trust in Him.” God, after all, is not only God at the end of the storm, but through the storm. Yet, though we walk through the valley (remembering Norm MacDonald’s question) of the shadow of death… God is with us. Can He deliver us… can He plunk us on a mountaintop trail instead?

But His promise to be with us is the best. God not only promises the best for us, He is the best. We must trust in His plan for our lives. The beautiful, talented quadriplegic Joni Eareckson Tada once said to me, “God permits what He hates, to accomplish what He loves.” Her life proved Him; my wife’s ordeal and ministry lived that; by grace, through faith, believers are saved.

Have we answered the question about a loving God and school shootings or genocide? My soul is satisfied, despite many, many things in life I don’t understand. As much as I might regret it, I never will understand.

When we lost our first child near full-term, I didn’t understand it, nor how God “allowed” it. In my stupid rebellion, I did not stop believing in Him, but I remember praying defiantly, “OK, I will obey You, God, from here on; but I cannot love You any more.”

By His mercy, I failed at both promises. The first because I am human, and He granted me free will, mercy, and forgiveness; and the second, because He is that persistent, mysterious, tenacious lover of my soul.

Maybe we instead should ask, How can a righteous God permit flawed sinners like me to gain forgiveness and salvation? Huh?

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Click: How Can I Keep From Singing?