Philip Yancey writes: "I have noticed a remarkable change since Jesus' time in how people think about calamity.  Nowadays we tend to blame God, both for the cataclysmic (which insurance companies call "acts of God') and for the trivial.  At the 1994 winter Olympics, when speed skater Dan Janssen scraped the ice and lost the 500-meter race once again, his wife Robin, cried out instinctively, "Why God, again, God can't be that cruel!" A few months later a young woman wrote Dr. James Dobson this letter, "Four years ago, I was dating a young man and became pregnant.  I was devastated! I asked God, 'Why have you allowed this to happen to me?" Exactly what role, I cannot help but wonder, did God play in an ice skater losing control on a turn and young couple losing control on a date?" (The Jesus I Never Knew p.169-170)

 

Yancey writes this after he cites the case of the blind man in John chapter 9.  We read. "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?" (John 9:1-2) In Jesus time the notion was that calamities were a punishment for specific sins or a sinful situation.  Recently the tone has shifted. Instead of blaming God people tend to see suffering as a rationalization to deny the existence of God.  The say: "I can't believe in a God who would let innocents be slaughtered." In effect they are saying that God does not care and is not loving.  Therefore, they will not believe in God.

 

Still we like to blame someone or something for calamity.  The current rhetoric on politics and government control are examples of this desire to hold someone accountable and blame someone else.  When Jesus is asked to blame someone in the case of the blind man He replies. "Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him." (John 9:3)

 

I do not know if this is a satisfactory answer.  Still this is the answer Jesus gives. I do know that every good and perfect gift comes from God. I also know that evil came into the world because of man's sin. I also know that we all sin.  And I know that the wages of sin is death both temporal and eternal.  Therefore, evil is in the world because of sin. All calamities are a consequence of sin.

 

Now here is the part that gives us hope Jesus died to destroy the sting of death which is sin. Even in the most horrific situation Christ is with us.  We are more than conquerors because we are loved by God.  We are not immune from calamity, but we have hope that we will be delivered from the calamity. Even death has lost its sting.

 

We should see calamities as opportunities to share the hope we have in Christ.  The Psalmist says more than once that we should call upon God in times of trouble and he will answer us.  We need to recognize our sin and the condition of the fallen world we live in.  Then we remember that we a new in Christ.  We are loved by God and nothing can separate us from his great love for us.  God does not want evil and calamities any more than we do. He made a world that was good.  God hates sin and evil.  Therefore, he sends his Son to suffer and die for our sins.

Instead of blaming and denying God we should worship and praise Him. We should serve and obey Him.  We should rely not on the rhetoric of the world, we should trust in the promises of God.